THE GIULIANI TEMPTATION (Reinhard)

The Oregonian ^ | Marc 11, 2007 | David Reinhard

[jazusamo]

Sunday, March 11, 2007

I 'll confess, like many conservatives, I'm charmed by Rudy Giuliani. "America's mayor" is not my kind of Republican presidential candidate. He's pro gay rights and not pro-life; he has an exceedingly messy, and public, private life that poses moral as well as political problems.

But, then again, Americans don't elect presidents on paper. There is the Rudy the U.S. attorney who decimated the Mafia. There is the Rudy who turned New York City around with tax cuts, welfare reform, tough-on-crime action and zero tolerance for politically correct cant. There's Rudy 9/11, the mensch of Manhattan and, in the process, America. And there is Rudy the presidential candidate, stressing common ground with GOP traditionalists -- strict constructionist judges from John Roberts to Antonin Scalia, democratic instead of judicial fixes to controversial issues -- and treating them with a respect they didn't get from past intraparty foes. And putting up big numbers in the polls.

My own openness to Rudy surprises me. Many other social conservatives probably know the feeling.

I suggest we all take a cold shower.

There's a long way to go until the first primary. Today's polls showing Giuliani over John McCain reflect name recognition more than anything else, and Giuliani's name ID is chiefly about 9/11. Between now and the first primary, Rudy 9/10 will get as much attention as Rudy 9/11. For some voters, this will be a reminder. For many more, it will be new information. Not all of it will be pretty.

He will have to answer pointed questions about his new and old positions. He'll have to square past statements with more recent pronouncements. How does his current opposition to activist judges jibe with his past belief that Roe v. Wade is "good constitutional law"? Is his recent embrace of a ban on partial-birth abortion inconsistent with his past opposition? What about his past support for McCain-Feingold's assault on free speech in campaigns?

Giuliani may have answers to all these questions, and many more to come. Terrific. But it's far too early to throw in with Rudy. It's critical to hear from other announced candidates with less name ID (Mitt Romney) or conservatives with equal name ID who may get in (Newt Gingrich, Fred Thompson).

Are social conservatives ready to shortchange stands they've championed for decades because of Giuliani's 9/11 performance or poll numbers? Or a few promising words or winks? What makes social conservative leaders so sure he will live up to his part of any deal after he's won the nomination or White House? Or that the party's pro-life, traditional-values base will stick with an abortion-rights, gay-rights standard bearer? Are post-2006 social conservatives so keen on winning that they'll sign on with a candidate who opposes them on key cultural issues? What would a Giuliani candidacy do the GOP's largely successful "brand"?

These are not loaded questions. They're questions I wrestle with these days. I want a president who is committed to fighting radical Islam and can articulate why we're doing all we can under the Constitution to crush this enemy. Rudy's clearly one among many GOP candidates who fill the bill. But he comes with many unanswered questions.

Answer these questions in Giuliani's favor, and questions about his personal history remain. Yes, it's his private life. But he himself put his private life on gaudy public display as mayor. We'll see reruns of the tawdry soap opera that was the simultaneous end of his marriage to Donna Hanover and his about-town affair with Judith Nathan as surely as we'll see his comforting and inspiring 9/11 footage.

It's odd. Many conservatives who properly dismiss the electric, conservatively correct Gingrich because of his two divorces and "marital issues" are open to a Giuliani equally burdened by libido and ego. Forget the moral questions here. Somehow I doubt Democrats will give Rudy 9/10 a pass on this if the GOP picks him.

Was 9/11 so psychologically searing -- and Rudy's healing role so central -- that some social conservatives are no longer thinking clearly. Or is the trauma of Election Day 2006 to blame? Or today's polls?

How else to explain their premature openness to a GOP presidential candidate whose social liberalism and liberal social life that would have once made such a candidacy unthinkable.

David Reinhard, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8152 or davidreinhard@news.oregonian.com.

[FairOpinion]

This sounds like blackmail.

You are trying to blackmail the Republican party to do what YOU personally want it to do, or else you'll make sure Hillary wins. Some conservative you are!

[El Laton Caliente]

Yep, me personally. And about 60% to 80% of the posters here at FR and about 5 million NRA members and about 5 million more gun owners and about 10 to 20 million that believe life begins at conception and about 50 million plus that don't believe in amnesty for illegals and...

You are projecting... it's not the large Republican base that is moving away from the conservative side, it's the 10% to 20% that are supporting Rudy knowing he is a complete RINO.

[FairOpinion]

People like you are exactly the ones who gave us 8 years of Bill Clinton, also launching Hillary's political career and gave us a Dem Congress in 2006 and now you are proudly trying to give us Fuhrer Hillary, with a Dem Congress and resulting activist judges.

[stockstrader]

Great post. As I just posted on another thread,,

if you want to divide and SPLIT the Republican Party WIDE OPEN...

RUDY IS JUST THE MAN FOR THE JOB!!

[El Laton Caliente]

No GHWB gave us 8 years of Klinton when he went back on "Read My Lips" and signed an executive order banning "non-sporting firearm" from import. He earned a NRA "No Endorsement" and handed Perot 20% of the vote.

You Rudybots are following the same path to destruction...

[CWOJackson]

We're 20 months out and people are this serious already. They're going to wear their fingers to the bone as each new poll comes in.

Post-Traumatic-Guliani Syndrome?

[El Laton Caliente]

Thanks for the atta-boy! Every now and then I need it... somedays I feel like I've signed onto DUng with all the new liberals around here...

[Theteacher77]

He sent mafia guys to jail and supported a policy in which babies were killed (abortion). I do not accept that trade-off

[Theteacher77]

rudy will split the liberal vote, however.

[stockstrader]

Tell me about it!!...LOL

Liberal Republicans like Rudy are more dangerous than liberal democrats,,,,

because liberal Republicans BLUR THE DISTINCTION between liberalism and conservatism,,,,

making LIBERALISM MUCH MORE ACCEPTABLE!!

The JulieAnnie apologists just don't seen to understand that.

[Condor51]

*****This sounds like blackmail.

You are trying to blackmail the Republican party to do what YOU personally want it to do, or else you'll make sure Hillary wins. Some conservative you are!*****

Do you ever read what you write?

Your 'Only Rudy Can Save Us From Hillary' and 'You Better Vote For Rudy or Else' rants are the 'Blackmail'. It's you and your fellow Rudy rooters who are doing the 'blackmailing' with the 'or else' stuff.

Plus your Pro Rudy anti Hillary rants are getting more and more hysterical. Your 'fear' of Hillary is psychotic. Why are you so paranoid? Jeez, take some medicine before you go postal or have a heart attack.

And the 'funny' thing is, that it's Rudy who is the one with the track record of ignoring the Constitution and Federal Law. It's Rudy who has ruled like a fascist over his little kingdom of NYC.

In closing -- Hillary as POTUS would be bad, very bad. But Rudy as POTUS would be worse - we'd be living in a 'safe' Police State (like NYC was/is). And I say no thanks to that. So it's Rudy who must be stopped.

[I'm outta here, NASCAR is on. And please, take that pill.]

[stockstrader]

Not to mention the fact that when it comes to being a 'Clinton-Apologist',,,,Rudy doesn't take a back seat to ANYONE in the Republican Party.

[El Laton Caliente]

I got a laugh out of that, I hope it was intentional... /grinning

I just don't see him pulling many "left-wing hawks" from Hillary. Running Rudy instead of a more conservative candidate might gain a point or two from the dems where he could easily lose 10% of the vote or more out of the Republican base...

[Mojave]

it's not the large Republican base that is moving away from the conservative side, it's the 10% to 20% that are supporting Rudy knowing he is a complete RINO.

Exactly. They want to destroy the party from within.

[mkjessup]

Condor51, you hit the nail on the head. The incessant drumbeat of 'Only RUDY can save us!' and 'We MUST stop HILLARY by voting for RUDY!' is getting quite tiresome.

First of all, every election cycle is crucial and '08 will be no different.

But let's assume the very worst, that the fears of the RINO-RudyBots come true, and January 2009 sees Hillary sworn in as President of the United States (pardon me while I spew).

We need to find the faith within ourselves to believe that the same Constitution that was stronger than Bill Clinton, is going to withstand anything that his wife can throw at it.

Yes, yes, yes, I can hear the fearmongers shrieking already that Hillary will suspend the Constitution, declare martial law, round up all the guns, imprison all conservatives, put an abortion clinic in every neighborhood McDonald's drive-thru and her 'It Takes A Village' will be required reading from Kindergarten through High School.

Ain't gonna happen.

If America has become so weak, so utterly terrified of what the 'Rat Party seeks to do, that the lazy minded path of least resistance (i.e., 'Only RUDY can SAVE us!') is the only way that works now, if we as a Nation are ready to abandon the principles that the United States was founded upon, that life is no longer sacred, that marriage is just a word, that every depraved desire within any given mind is morally equal to anybody else's beliefs, desires or values, if we are ready to become AINOs (AMERICANS In Name Only), then it no longer makes any difference whether we pull the 'R' lever or the 'D' lever, it no longer matters if it's President Hillary or President Rudy, because both of those individuals are going to use the Constitution for toilet paper in order to achieve their own agenda, their own ends, and We The People won't have a thing to say about it.

America is at war. It is all too easy to give in to the instinct that we must have a 'strong leader' to win the war, when it isn't just the brute mental-political strength of a leader to strong arm and force and bully their way that will lead to victory, it is the MORAL strength of that leader, and neither Hillary or Rudy have such moral strength.

The choice is not between Hillary or Rudy, (you might as well select tweedle-dumb and tweedle-dumber) the choice is:

"WHICH candidate will uphold the Constitution of the United States and obey their Oath of Office if elected President?"

Hillary is a closet Marxist, of that there is little doubt.

Rudy is a closet fascist, who would run roughshod over the Laws of our Great Land, in order to "make the trains run on time."

If America selected either of those abysmal candidates to be President, we will deserve the chaos and destruction which will surely follow.

A pox on both of their houses.

Let the flames begin, I'm NOMEX-equipped.

[George W. Bush]

The incessant drumbeat of 'Only RUDY can save us!' and 'We MUST stop HILLARY by voting for RUDY!' is getting quite tiresome.

Actually, now that we've arrived at 'a vote for anyone but Rudy in the primary is the same thing as a vote for Hillary in the general' propaganda, it's not merely tiresome. It's falling-down drunken stupid.

[El Laton Caliente]

NOMEX not needed! I think the "Only Rudy can save us..." line was written by Howard Dean.

Hillary has the money machine, she has the base support, she has the political connections, she has the FBI reports, but damn it, 48% of the people just don't like the BI**H. The ONLY way that woman can win is to divid the Republican vote and Rudy is the man for that job!

[Ultra Sonic 007]

Wait. Hold on.

"Some of the polls in this last week state that as much as 60% plus of the Republican voters do NOT know Rudy's stance on abortion and gun control. You'll lose up to 2/3rds of the right to lifers and gun guys with his history. "

THIS is EXACTLY what the Dems are hoping, otherwise Hillary is toast.

You acknowledge this will happen (and most likely will, if Rudy is the nominee)...and yet:

Bottom line is still Rudy in the primary and general election, all the way, OR HILLARY.

Wow.

FairOpinion, has your fear of Hillary turned into such paranoia that you truly believe only (and ONLY) Rudy Giuliani can defeat her? Explain the logic to me.

[Ultra Sonic 007]

Not likely, considering how much the NYTimes hates Rudy.

[George W. Bush]

I think the "Only Rudy can save us..." line was written by Howard Dean.

Yeah but Howard was driving drunk and smoking crack when he wrote it.