Pat Robertson on Giuliani Team

With Pat Robertson on board with Rudy Giuliani the rest of the Republican field just now go home. It's over.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 — They could compete for strangest bedfellows of 2008.

Rudolph W. Giuliani is a supporter of gay and abortion rights who is building his Republican primary campaign around his response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Pat Robertson, the Christian conservative broadcaster, once said permissiveness toward homosexuality and abortion led to God’s “lifting his protection” to allow those attacks.

But there they were Wednesday morning, Mr. Robertson endorsing Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, as “an acceptable” Republican “who can win the general election.”

It was the latest manifestation of the deep divide in the Christian conservative movement over how to balance politics and principle in the coming era after President Bush, who once so deftly brought it all together.

Many former Christian conservative allies dismissed the endorsement as an inexplicable stunt. They noted that Mr. Robertson, 77, had lost much of his influence since the heady days of his second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses 20 years ago when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination.