March 1 (Bloomberg) -- A picture on a classroom door at his West Chester, Pennsylvania, Christian academy may explain why school administrator David Douglass is considering voting for thrice-married, abortion- and gay-rights backer Rudy Giuliani for president.

The picture shows former President Bill Clinton's face superimposed on the body of Senator Hillary Clinton, the front- runner for the 2008 Democratic nomination. ``It just can't get any worse than her,'' said Douglass, who considers the former New York mayor the best bet to block another Clinton presidency. ``There are people who say, `I'd never vote for the lesser of two evils,' but I would.''

The pragmatism of religious conservatives such as Douglass, combined with fundamentalists' inability so far to coalesce around another contender, means Giuliani may draw significant support from voters who typically make conservative positions on social issues a litmus test.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted Feb. 22-25 shows Giuliani leading Arizona Senator John McCain among Republicans by 44 percent to 21 percent, largely on the strength of surging support from white evangelical Protestants. Last month, Giuliani's lead was 34 percent to McCain's 27 percent.

With religious conservatives divided between former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Giuliani only needs a slice of the evangelical vote, analysts say.

`A Different Calculus'

``Rudy Giuliani has a different calculus,'' said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a Washington-based research group. He's trying to appeal to religious Republicans ``just enough to keep that bloc from uniting.''

He's doing that by stressing his reputation for strength, particularly in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, rather than making big changes in his positions. Giuliani is running on ``his leadership and his authenticity,'' said Republican pollster Adam Geller.

``You've got to run based on who you are,'' Giuliani, 62, said on a recent visit to Spartanburg, South Carolina. ``If you do it that way, even people who disagree with you sometimes respect you.''

Divergent Paths

A decade ago, both Romney and Giuliani favored extending legal protection to gays and backed abortion rights. Their paths have diverged since then.

Romney, 59, now opposes abortion and embryonic stem-cell research and supports a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. While he has explained his new positions as the result of study and soul-searching, Kim Lehman, president of the Iowa Right to Life Committee, a Des Moines-based group seeking to ban abortion, is critical. ``There's a trust factor'' that seems to be lacking in his conversion, she said.

Given the criticism Romney has received for flip-flopping, it would be ``a trap'' for Giuliani to radically alter his views, said Geller. Instead, he is trying a more nuanced approach, maintaining his abortion-rights stance while signaling that, as president, he would be sensitive to religious voters' desire to limit abortion.

Giuliani says that while he personally opposes abortion, he doesn't want to lead a fight to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized the procedure.

`A Right to Choose'

``I'd like to see abortion reduced, I'd like to see it ended, but ultimately I believe that a woman has a right to choose,'' Giuliani said last week in Spartanburg.

Recently, he has also said that he'd appoint ``strict constructionist'' judges to the federal bench, along the lines of recent Supreme Court picks John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Abortion foes may interpret this as code for supporting the eventual outlawing of abortion because many such judges don't recognize an inherent right to privacy, which the court used to justify Roe v. Wade.

Giuliani's stance amounts to ``throwing a carrot to the anti- choice community,'' said Erin Libit, spokeswoman for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a New York-based organization that backs abortion rights. ``A lot of these states would place bans on abortion.''

South Carolina, which hosts a primary election Feb. 2, will provide an early test of Giuliani's approach. Barry Wynn, his South Carolina finance chairman, says the New Yorker will fare well with religious voters in his state. ``If your house is on fire, you want a guy with a hose,'' said Wynn. ``You don't care if he's a perfect human being.''

Romney's Obstacles

Much of Giuliani's success may hinge on whether religious voters ultimately gravitate toward Romney. In addition to his shifting positions, Romney faces an obstacle with Protestant evangelicals over his Mormon religion, said Bob Taylor, a dean at Bob Jones University, a Christian college in Greenville. ``Everybody's in the holding pattern,'' said Taylor, who backs Romney. ``When you do that, people start splintering off. That's what's happening.''

Giuliani's attempt to adopt a more calibrated approach to social issues was on display during his trip last week to Spartanburg, where he held a town-hall meeting at a local firehouse. He spoke mainly about Sept. 11 and the likelihood of another strike by al-Qaeda.

While Giuliani's ``position on abortion is slightly different than mine,'' his leadership after Sept. 11 ``overrides the social things that were more important'' in past elections, said John McCarley, 69, a retired engineer from Uniontown. Giuliani ``will be able to run in all 50 states,'' he said.

Backlash

Not everyone agrees that Giuliani's presumed general- election strength is his ace in the hole; the stands that made him a prince of the city in Manhattan may yet spark a backlash.

Voters have only limited knowledge so far of the New Yorker's views; his abortion views will be a ``deal-killer'' with many voters once opponents start to harp on them, said Richard Land, a leader of the 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention, based in Nashville, Tennessee. Some of his early allure for evangelicals may also fade as they learn of his support for support for New York's gay community, and of his sometimes turbulent personal life.

For now, at least, that doesn't much matter to Douglass, the Christian school official, and voters like him; their view of the New Yorker as a strong leader is trumping qualms about his secularism.

After Sept. 11, Giuliani ``did a great job on leading our nation,'' Douglass said. ``We do need to unite behind someone.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Heidi Przybyla in Boston at hprzybyla@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 1, 2007 00:13 EST