Rudy wants to nudge the social conservative issues to the background, not alienate voters and recapture the youth and suburban vote. Watch all of the video above to get his point.

The problem with Rudy when he ran for President was his personal baggage with his marriages and Bernie Kerck.He would have won the GOP nomination against McCain even with HIS far more liberal positions on social issues.

He is talking about returning to a “BIG TENT GOP.”

After all, the GOP has lost all of the Northeast, Far West and now parts of the Midwest in the Electoral College. But, is the GOP willing to deemphasize social issues like abortion, stem cell research and gay marriage – even to win elections?

Only, if the GOP is smart.

A little different approach is found in this interview of Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty is of a different generation than Rudy but is essentailly formulating the same “NEW IDEA” method to win back elections.

Question: Back at the RGA meeting [last fall]], you talked about the party needed to get beyond Ronald Reagan. What do you mean by that? The RNC chairman candidates — all they really talk about is Reagan.

Answer: Well, I think I said in my state of my state, but I can also say it about my own party: we can’t be so in love with the past that we miss the future.  And the world is changing very rapidly, and there’s a lot of technological change, demographic change, cultural change, and it’s all approaching us at a very rapid speed. And I think the Republican Party fondly remembers Ronald Reagan, and we should. He’s going to go down in history as one of the great presidents. Our challenge is to have the solutions of the 1980s not be the solutions that we have in 2008s.  .. A lot has happened since the 1980s. There’s been a lot of change. We can be true to those values and principles, but half of the country doesn’t remember Ronald Reagan very well. If you’re under 40, 35 years old, Ronald Reagan is kind of a foggy notion. All I’m saying is, yes, let’s celebrate that, let’s learn from that, let’s build on it, but let’s talk about new ideas, new leaders, for the future.

The Republican Party is in dismal shape after the two terms of President George W. Bush. The Democrat Party enjoys super majorities in the Congress and now occupy the White House.

Times, demographics and the culture is changing. The GOP can either morph into a competitive, outreaching, ideas driven collection of leaders or slink back into the irrelevancy of a generation of Democrat Party rule.

Technorati Tags: GOP, Rudy Giuliani, Tim Pawlenty