Posted on 02/13/2007 12:34:44 PM PST by zarf
Theodore Olson, the stalwart conservative lawyer and former solicitor general for the Bush administration, told the Spectator he will be supporting Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid.
"I admire his character, his capacity for leadership, his instincts, and his principles," Olson said over the phone this afternoon. He said he will help Giuliani raise money as well as offer advice on legal issues and domestic policy matters that involve constitutional questions.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
"Shore" is looking that way. First candidate debate is scheduled for April 4, 2007.
I think the "real conservatives" won't be happy until the Republican Party is a permanent minority that can only win the states with lots of evangelicals (deep south) and maybe a few states in the plains and mountain west.
And then they can complain while a permanent Democrat majority socializes society. Because under that kind of system, Democrats win everywhere else by default (midwest, northeast, west, etc).
A few years before his death in 1998, Goldwater started taking positions different from those of the conservative constituency at large. Conspicuous here was his defense of Supreme Court decisions involving abortion, gay rights, and the separation of church and state. Most followers of the senator were surprised, and abashed, especially at his defense of abortion. What emerged as a question, at the meeting in Phoenix, was whether his abortion position was owing to judicial ultramontanism, or to his general devotion to individual rights. It is not challenged that Goldwater defended abortion as though it were a closed issue, closed in the sense that the Supreme Court had ruled, in Roe v. Wade, that abortion was a constitutional right.
William F. Buckley
National Review Online
What Did Goldwater Mean?
He would have been good on it!
Under the circumstances, I think Ted Olson's endorsement of Rudy is no surprize, and in fact is entirely appropriate.
On the issue of race, Rudy is more conservative than any other Republican since he doesn't kiss Al Sharpton's ass.
Every supporter of Rudy Guiliani now gets trashed right along with him. Amazing.
Killed in just one off-year election too. Evidently it didn't have much real substance. But what surprises me is that so many FReepers are taking such joy in its demise.
You are asking some of these people to read and comprehend? Thanks for the link!
For me abortion and gay rights (among two or three other foundational issues of the day) go to the heart of the moral principles that define our liberty and vouchsafe it for future generations. As such, for me there is no way I could support any candidate, whatever his or her name, and whatever they may otherwise want to paint themselves as, who has those issues wrong from my perspective. And I will lobby and influence to that effect because they are such fundamental and core issues.
On those issues, if the former Mayor's stance is as his quotes from the past indicate (and it will be up to me, by studying those issues and his stance to determine this for myself), under no conditions could I cast a vote for him...or anyone else who has those issues wrong. I have a fundamental responsibility to (at least for me) a higher Judge and board of review in front of Whom I must one day stand and make account of how I used this sacred right and trust we call our liberty. I dare not discharge that trust in any effort in opposition to principles that I consider sacrosanct before my Maker.
But that's just me and my own opinion.
I agree with your rather dour assessment.
And how would you know? She died directly from terrorism and what makes you think that social issues would be important to her after what happened to her. If she were alive she would be siding with her husband after see 9/11 too.
I was at a DoD type seminar today and a former US Navy Captain said that Rudy was the keynote speaker at a C4ISR (intelligence) conference last week in San Diego. He said Rudy's speech was great. Pragmatic, honest, forthcoming, open....and he said that that was why he feared Rudy would never make it. He said that Rudy talked about how there was no plan for a 9/11 disaster, NOBODY had planned for such a thing, much like nobody planned for a Katrina. But that Rudy and his team remembered that there were bits and pieces of various plans they COULD put into place.
It didn't have much substance. It was a product of luck in the 2000 election, and a little 9-11 patriotism that is already gone. The movement was a hiccup. It had its chance and failed. Maybe it could have been great, but too little was done when the planets were in alignment.
This is exactly the same kind of stupid nonsense liberals who support "abortion rights" have been spewing out at pro-lifers for years. Now the FReepers are coming out with it. And you wonder why we say the Giuliani supporters here are loathesome goons? It's not so much that we despise the liberal/libertarian New Yorker; it's that many of us actually believed this was a forum for conservatives. Some of us gave money in that belief. It's very disheartening.
Rudy's views on many, many issues are going to be very compatible with people in the conservative political community and the political legal community. Nobody's going to be able to find a candidate with whom they agree with 100 percent on every issue. Overall, Rudy's strength of character, his capacity for leadership in a time when a strong executive is important, his energy level, his ability to provide the kind of leadership that Ronald Reagan did -- I think that is going to be very persuasive with conservatives.
Via Powerline: http://powerlineblog.com/archives/016772.php
All this Rudy adulation is not merely a rejection of McCain -- it is a longing for leadership on the most important issue of our time: the war on terror and national defense. Rudy's leadership abilities have been proven and demonstrated in NYC: on crime; on shrinking the bureaucracy; on shrinking the welfare rolls; on cutting tax rates and reducing/elminating the massive NYC deficit; on making government more efficient; on going after terrorists (reference the Arafat encounter). Name a better proven leader in the running. You can't.
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