"Mr. Giuliani’s campaign went to some lengths to present his speech as historic..."

I didn't get it yesterday, and after reading this longer article, by Marc Santora and Adam Nagourney, I still don't get it. I'm not hearing Giuliani saying anything he hasn't said before.

Mr. Giuliani’s campaign went to some lengths to present his speech as historic in that it echoed a speech given in the same city in 1960 that proved to be a milestone in American political history: At that time, John F. Kennedy appeared before an audience of Baptists to address concerns about electing a Roman Catholic president.

Yeah, of course, everyone always loves to stir up Kennedy memories, but Giuliani's problem isn't that people worry he's going to impose Catholic values, it's that he's pro-choice and isn't going to satisfy the pro-life voters.

“If we don’t find a way of uniting around broad principles that will appeal to a large segment of this country, if we can’t figure that out, we are going to lose this election,” he said.

The speech by Mr. Giuliani reflected a decision — other campaigns suggested “gamble” might be a better word — to address head-on a fundamental obstacle to his winning the nomination: his long history as a moderate Northeast Republican in a party increasingly dominated by Southern and Midwestern conservatives. As such, it loomed as a potentially important moment in the party’s efforts to decide how to compete against the Democrats in 2008 and what it should stand for in a post-Bush era.

Again, I'm not buying that this is a "moment." The campaign announces it's being historic and momentous. That doesn't make it so. Nevertheless, quite apart from what happened in that particular speech, what Giuliani is doing overall is momentous and historic.