We love Arnold
We love Rudy
If he's liberal he's our man
Abortion, Sodomy, Grab those guns!
Surrender, surrender, that's more fun!
We are the RINOs
Go team go!
We are the Fifth Column
Go team go!
Posted on 03/12/2007 10:25:06 PM PDT by FairOpinion
We wise heads in the Washington press corps have pretty much decided that Rudy Giuliani is leading in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination because of ignorance.
Republicans obviously know very little about him. And when they wake up and smell his stands on social issues, he will sink like a rock.
But ... maybe not.
Maybe Republican voters are not so ignorant after all.
Maybe they figure that after losing both houses of Congress in 2006, after Katrina, after Iraq, after the current veterans' care scandal, and taking into account a natural desire for change, the Republican presidential nominee is going to have an uphill fight in 2008.
And maybe some Republicans figure that they are going to need something more than the same old hot buttons they have pushed time and time again.
Maybe they believe that if a Republican is going to win in 2008, the party must do something other than just "grow the Republican base," which has been the mantra for a while now.
Maybe a Republican who can attract some independent, centrist, swing and non-ideological votes, a pro-choice Republican who, because of that, could actually put California in play, would have the best chance of winning against a Democrat.
The wise-head theory has been that Giuliani is one of those candidates who could do well in a general election but could never win his party's nomination.
But what happens if Republicans decide that they want somebody who can win in November, rather than somebody who is more ideologically pure?
On Monday, Giuliani was endorsed by David Vitter, a conservative Republican senator from Louisiana.
When a reporter asked Vitter if Giuliani would be a "tough sell" in Louisiana, Vitter replied: "I don't think he is going to be at all, particularly post-Katrina."
Translation: When the next hurricane hits, people are going to want a president who knows what he is doing rather than a president who believes that abortion is murder.
Some Republicans will not buy this. Perhaps most of them won't. After all, Republican media wizards have sold them on the opposite message for years. They have said that ideology is what really matters in elections, not competence. Ideology, Republicans have been told in election after election, is what gets people to the polls.
Giuliani has a different message: He says he knows how to run things. He says he knows how to get the job done. He says America will be attacked by terrorists in the future and it would be a good idea to have a president who can handle that.
He does not ignore the Republican base. He just asks it to grow up.
This is what Giuliani said at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington: "Ronald Reagan used to say, 'My 80 percent ally is not my 20 percent enemy.' What he meant by that is, we don't all see eye to eye on everything. You and I have a lot of common beliefs that are the same, and we have some that are different. You just described your relationship, I think, with your husband, your wife, your children."
He also said: "The point of a presidential election is to figure out who you believe the most and what you think are the most important things for this country at a particular time."
Conservative columnist George Will, who gave a rousing introduction of Giuliani at the conference, has written that Giuliani is doing well in the polls because Republicans know where he stands, not because they don't.
"This does not mean that the social issues have lost their saliency," Will writes. "People for whom opposition to abortion is very important might, however, think that in wartime it is not supremely important."
And they might also think they would rather win next fall than lose.
The question Giuliani poses to his party is a simple one.
Which would you rather have: purity or the presidency?
An EXCELLENT editorial, worthy of a "Rudy Ping" to the list.
"And they might also think they would rather win next fall than lose.
The question Giuliani poses to his party is a simple one.
Which would you rather have: purity or the presidency?"
How about aRnold as Secretary of State?
We survived Kissinger , right? ;-)
Keep it coming FO, you're into that "Pragmatic View" of things , no matter the cost or who you have to malign.
Don't wear your keyboard out, TWirP.
What is the cost of President Hillary to the country?!
"When a reporter asked Vitter if Giuliani would be a "tough sell" in Louisiana, Vitter replied: "I don't think he is going to be at all, particularly post-Katrina."
Translation: When the next hurricane hits, people are going to want a president who knows what he is doing rather than a president who believes that abortion is murder. "
Vitter should have endorsed the uber-competent Romney then.
... and we have to quit blaming the Bush administration for the failures of the Democrats in Louisiana to manage the catastrophe.
All you deal in is fear.. all bark, no fight..
The cost of Hillary? ... What price is your soul?
http://www.aircongress.com/2007/03/05/a-vote-against-clintons-conversations/
Right...Arnold with a different mask...
Elections are about winning not about tilting at windmills.
Why do the Rudy people keep waving the Hillary sock puppet around? As far as social conservatives go, they are pretty much the same.
If a candidate doesn't represent your interests or those of your country then you haven't won anything. There is no point to winning if we get the presidency in name only.
Hey, George Will stole my tag line... LOL
Amen!
We love Arnold
We love Rudy
If he's liberal he's our man
Abortion, Sodomy, Grab those guns!
Surrender, surrender, that's more fun!
We are the RINOs
Go team go!
We are the Fifth Column
Go team go!
The Marxism of Hillary is being used as the Doomsday worst case scenario. And the obvious way to beat her, some would say, is to submit to Cultural Marxism.
YOU are the fifth column, with your pretense of conservatism doing everything humanly possible to get Democrats elected.
The Maturing of the Right by Cal Thomas
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1799913/posts
That substantial numbers of conservative evangelical voters are even considering these candidates as presidential prospects is a sign of their political maturation and of their more pragmatic view of what can be expected from politics and politicians. It is also evidence that many of them are awakening to at least two other realities — (1) they are not electing a church deacon; and (2) government has limited power to rebuild a crumbling social construct.
The crumbling “traditional” family is the result of many social and cultural factors. The solution, like the fault, lies neither with government, nor with politicians.
False dilemma.
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