Posted on 02/22/2007 7:15:43 AM PST by PDR
Say you're a top-tier Republican presidential candidate whose name isn't Rudy Giuliani. The polls are looking increasingly grim.
A survey released yesterday has the former New York mayor more than 20 points ahead of his nearest rival. What do you do?
Well, you might try dusting off the abortion issue to persuade a pro-life party to turn against its pro-choice frontrunner. But that seems to be too much for the two leading candidates nipping at Giuliani's heels to manage. Sen. John McCain's pro-life voting record isn't perfect -- he has supported both federally funded fetal tissue research and embryo-destructive experimentation -- but he has been consistent in favoring abortion restrictions since the 1980s. He just hasn't been especially comfortable expressing himself on social issues, and his relations with pro-life leaders were strained by his attacks on the religious right during the 2000 presidential race.
Campaigning in South Carolina last weekend, however, McCain overcame his bashfulness. The senator told a crowd of 800 that he opposed the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. "I do not support Roe v. Wade," McCain said. "It should be overturned." A pretty unequivocal statement from a longtime pro-life senator. But then the marvels of technology caught up with John McCain. The Hotline posted a YouTube video of a 1999 McCain appearance on CNN's Late Edition in which he said it was "obvious" that "if we repeal Roe v. Wade tomorrow, thousands of American young women would be performing dangerous and illegal operations." The footage shows McCain advocating a tolerance clause for pro-choice Republicans in the GOP platform.
[SNIP]
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Another example of how Youtube is shaping the debate in this cycle.
Hey, many Yankees were squishes when it came to slavery until it started expanding. It's not unconceivable, pardon the pun, to think that the same thinking could apply to the life issue. If one opposes human cloning then at some point they have to think the issue back a few steps to Roe.
Who then?
Someone who is pro-life and not pro-gay; someone who is pro-1stAmendment and not anti-2ndAmendment.
Fine. Give me a name that can win a general election against Hitlery in Virginia, Ohio and Missouri.
Remember, Guiliani goes into the primaries with a lock on New York and the whole of the northeast (including my home state of Pennsylvania, where he has a 70 percent approval rating among Republicans), plus California, Oregon, Washington.
Unless the whole of the religious right caolesces behind one person, Rudy cannot be denied. So name the person.
That is a false premise on several levels, primarily because the nomination of Giuliani is a guaranteed general-election loser in any case, and would kill everything that matters within the GOP.
That said, I'd take Hunter, Brownback, or Huckabee over Giuliani, McCain, or Romney.
And Mike Pence over any of the above. And Thune should declare too.
Giuliani would not win Oregon, Washington, California, or New York in a general election, because he is pro-IraqWar. That position alone would guarantee him losing those states. His social liberalism and cross-dressing would lose him The South. He cannot win the Presidency.
You offered, "Memo to the one-issue (ie. abortion, guns, immigration) factions of the Republican Party: Go ahead and stay home on Election Day ..." Divided rule is to be preferred over death cult rule. The specious 'stay at home or vote for Rudy' juvenile crap is getting moldy, dude. It is not to stay at home, merely go and vote the entire ticket except for the presidential spot if the nominee isn't suitable to your standards.
I can accept any of your candidates and will suopport them if nominated. Good luck.
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