Posted on 11/24/2006 8:29:23 AM PST by Milltownmalbay
Conventional wisdom indicates that if only Rudy Giuliani could clear the insurmountable hurdle of the Republican primaries and convention, he could be a formidable presidential candidate.
Polling data indicates that the opposite is true. Whether Republicans eager for a win after a bruising midterm election will reluctantly nominate Giuliani is one thing. The fact that he cannot win the general election is quite another.
Gallup polling prior to the 2004 presidential election confirms what many previous polls have indicated: a pro-life position helps Republicans. When factored into a close election, that help is the difference between winning and losing.
When asked by Gallup simply whether they regard themselves as pro-life or pro-choice, pro-choice wins by a margin of 52 – 41. When asked whether they would vote for a candidate who was pro-life, only 10% of pro-choicers said no. When asked the same question in reverse, 30% of pro-lifers said no.
In other words, while pro-choicers outnumbers pro-lifers, pro-lifers vote are three times as likely to vote the issue. When Gallup factored those numbers back into presidential categories, they found that 25% of the people who were planning to vote for Bush were self-described single issue pro-life voters. Only 11% of Kerry’s supporters were committed firmly to voting for a pro-choice candidate.
If we factor those numbers into the number of people who actually voted for Bush, it means that about fifteen million (out of sixty million) Republican voters have said that they would not vote for a pro-choice candidate. Admittedly, many when faced with the possibility of Hillary, might feel compelled to vote for Giuliani.
But when the President only won by four million votes, any Giuliani strategist needs to consider that his position on abortion will alienate fifteen million Republican voters. Add to that his positions on guns, gay marriage, and partial birth abortion, and you have a recipe for disaster.
In the 2004, Osama bin Ladin released a threatening video tape aimed at influencing the American elections the weekend before the election and the top concern of voters in election polls was moral issues.
Giuliani Republicans are counting on the fact that pro-lifers will reluctantly support Giuliani rather than allow another Clinton presidency. What they fail to realize is that many pro-lifers may just sit this one out, believing that they have no horse in the race.
Even worse for Giuliani, many pro-lifers may believe that it would be better to lose one presidential election than to end up with both major national parties supporting abortion on demand.
In any case, Giuliani has a problem with fifteen million of the voters he needs to win the in 2008.
"Name which Democrat would beat him in Texas?"
My best guess now is that the RAT that will be running will be Bill Richardson. And yes, he would beat Rudy Julie Annie in Texas and most of the other red states.
It's not the way the war in being fought that is the problem. It is the way it is being sold out in the media. --Not that it couldn't be sold better by the Administration, but there is little that can make it through the leftist media filter.
If an empty suit like Richardson can win red states, then perhaps we don't deserve anything better.
If the Republican Party cannot field a candidate who can defeat her, they will be to blame. No one else.
"The fact that this free country allows for the values of all kinds of people doesn't stop me from practicing my own conservative values."
... and those are?
You have hit the nail on the head. What is the Republican Party? It's hard to understand that Rudy, Michael Savage, Jerry Falwell, John McCain, Mitt Romney can all be of the same party.
I guess that is true... since I don't have any hard data, but I assume you are correct.
So the question is, what do we do now on the right? :)... Can Values-voters (right wingers as call them) can compromise on their values?... I doubt it....Maybe this is the beginning of a tectonic political earthquake for both parties. As I mentioned previously we alredy hear of "Conservative Democrats." So I suspect the Republicans will also begin to get away from the "right" to the middle... Where Gulliani or MacaCain would be "great" choices.
Interesting... I have NO idea what will happen but something is changing. May be the two parties will move so much to the center, the differences will be minimum... Interesting :).. One thing I KNOW, the Internet has changed politics tremendously. Politics will not be the same game it was when we depended on the MSM.
Yes indeed, time will tell. Alito seems like a solid conservative. Roberts remains a question mark. Lets wait 10-15 years and see what happens. Some other recent Presidents had trouble with their picks too. Eisenhower with Earl Warren, Nixon with Warren Burger and Reagan with Sandra Day O'Conner. Reagan's other nominees were very conservative, including Judges Bork and Ginsberg. Scalia and Reinquist weren't liberal and at the time of his appointment, Anthony Kennedy received support from all the major right to life organizations. After several years on the bench, Kennedy turned moderate.
Rudy is a flaming radical liberal on most of the issues that win in the red states. God, Guns, and Gays.
A dead raccoon would beat Rudy on those issues!
So none of the dems(except Edwards cwho comes close to McCain) can touch Rudy or McCain per that site.
It also had FDR trouncing Reagan by winning Tx. Fl. Oh. so I'm not holding my breath.
Yeah...but the problem is, some of us are not that intelligent! :) True, but we still feel the need to participate in the debate. I will settle for not insulting each other in FR. It's not easy cause most of us here are hot and passionate on our beliefs. Don't you agree? :)
Yeah! RUDY! Yeah!
You're not alone.
There are more liberal FReepers posting today for several reasons. As Bush moved the GOP leftward, many FReepers blindly followed as they morphed into hardcore "Bushies". Forsaking conservatism and accepting the WashDC status quo of big government Republicanism. Many oldtime Freepers went to more rightwing venues that allowed them to express their conservative politics. Sadly, FR is not the staunch conservative website it once was. After the election results of November 7th, sticking with a failed policy doesn't bode well for the GOP in 2008.
What exactly does a strongly pro life voter want that can be achieved? The truth is that while I lament it, the pro life cause has been beaten back consistently since 1973. The leadership at the time lost that battle and never regained its balance.
Now the big issues regarding abortion involve the legitimacy of partial birth abortion and parental notification for minors seeking abortions. The question in front of the electorate usually hasn't been 'should abortion be legal,' though voters in conservative SD were asked that question less than a month ago and the answer was a decisive 'yes.'
I am against abortion but I think with over 1/2 the electorate having no problem with first trimester abortion, I don't see any advancement on the issue on the horizon. Frankly, my position is to get the issue out of the courts and let the voters decide, knowing full well that odds are that most abortions would be fine with the voters of the USA.
What do pro lifers do then?
What exactly do pro lifers want in 2007 that is achievable?
I don't see these direct questions addressed much.
What do you mean Bush isn't pro-life? Don't you ever read the newspapers? He signed a bill to stop embryonic stem cell research, the murder of babies ready to be born, and has consistently tried to make this country safe for the unborn. Cheez.
Yes. The question remains: what is the pro life agenda in a country that increasingly has no problem with the most common types of abortion?
Unless pro lifers can win the debate of ideas, any legislative victory on the abortion front simply won't happen. I think that detail escapes the author, and honestly escapes most pro lifers I know.
What specifically are your realistic goals on your number one issue?
Admittedly, many when faced with the possibility of Hillary, might feel compelled to vote for Giuliani.
That's right. Hardly a day goes by when there isn't something negative about the war but NEVER anything positive. It's disgusting. THEY'RE disgusting.
And this is another problem with the pro life mentality. The goal is to overturn the Roe decision, and both pro-life and pro-abortion judges are capable of doing that.
Overturning Roe doesn't make abortion illegal. It's practical result is to leave the decision up to each state to decide abortion policy. I don't think overturning Roe would change the abortion climate nationally at all.
Conservative SD just told 'all or nothing' pro lifers to go to hell - the problem with 'all or nothing' is you usually end up getting 'nothing,' and the pro life leadership (again) is smarting with a loss that they didn't see coming but almost everyone else saw coming a mile away. Horrible.
The major problem with the pro life movement, besides shoddy leadership, is its inability to have a solid grasp of what it wants. Without a realistic goal, you can't tell whether you are moving towards the goal or away from it.
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