WASHINGTON — Republican presidential candidates are flocking to see Britain’s icon of conservatism, Margaret Thatcher, in the hope that her blessing could help to secure them the presidency.

Rudy Giuliani, the Republican front runner, will become the latest 2008 candidate to kiss the former prime minister’s hand when he travels to London in September to deliver the inaugural Margaret Thatcher memorial lecture to the Atlantic Bridge think tank. He follows in the footsteps of Fred Thompson, poised to announce his presidential run and already running second in the polls, and Mitt Romney, ahead in the crucial early states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Mr. Thompson, a former senator and Hollywood actor, dropped in on her in London last month, saying he wanted “to remind her of America’s affection for her and pay our respects.” Mr. Romney took the opportunity to burnish his conservative credentials with a Lady Thatcher audience last fall. It is Mr. Giuliani, however, who is perhaps best placed to capitalize on nostalgia in America for Lady Thatcher and her close friendship with Ronald Reagan, who is still lauded for winning the Cold War and restoring hope and confidence in the country.

As mayor of New York on September 11, he became a national hero for his leadership in the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombings.

Mr. Giuliani, who leads Mr. Thompson by about eight percentage points in national polls, has long been an admirer of Winston Churchill, the figure from history most often mentioned in the same breath as Lady Thatcher and President Reagan.

Although distrusted by many religious conservatives, Republicans view national security as the number one priority in post-9/11 America — Mr. Giuliani’s strongest suit and the issue with which Lady Thatcher is most associated in the American mind.

“Since the passing of Ronald Reagan, Lady Thatcher is the last remaining great icon of the conservative movement,” the director of the Margaret Thatcher Centre for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, Nile Gardiner, said.

It is no accident, he added, that it was Republican candidates who were turning to Britain rather than their Democratic counterparts. “All of the leading Republican candidates attach huge importance to the Anglo-American special relationship.

“In contrast, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are obsessed with the notion of being popular in continental Europe despite the fact that France and Germany are highly unlikely ever to stand with America in a war.”