Republican '08 options disappoint evangelicals (Land: would vote for Hillary over Rudy)

Washington Times ^ | April 16, 2007 | Ralph Z. Hallow

[Cincinatus' Wife]

***... Mr. Giuliani maintains a big lead over his Republican rivals in the polls yet has all the wrong policy positions on social issues such as abortion and homosexual rights considered key to cultivating Christian conservatives. However, some evangelicals and pro-life Catholics seem willing to overlook his faults -- including his two divorces -- in the belief that he is the only Republican actually running who can defeat the Democratic nominee in 2008.

Still, Mr. Giuliani and conservative Christians "probably have irreconcilable differences on life and family and that kind of thing," said Mr. Falwell, adding, "I couldn't support him for president."

Nor is Mr. Dobson in Mr. Giuliani's cheering section.

"I do not believe that the current excitement over Giuliani will continue," Mr. Dobson told U.S. News & World Report.

Richard Land, president of the Religious and Ethics Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, takes a hard line against virtually all the major Republican candidates. He says he'd vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, over Mr. Giuliani if the 2008 presidential race came down to such a choice. And if Mr. Giuliani wins, "he'll do so without social conservatives," Mr. Land said. .....

[Cincinatus' Wife]

BUT, he’s opened the door to the possibility that he’d take it national if the states didn’t subsudize it like he want’s.

Where?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

How many times do we have to point out that your talking point here is no longer valid? Rudy has said a strict constructionist could uphold Roe. His words, not mine. So you are being dishonest yet again in trying to spin a claim that Rudy's own words have undone.

There you go again. He was pointing out in conversation, that appointing justices (as history has shown) doesn't guarantee an outcome but he'd try.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Remember, Rudy SAYS he is against Gay Marriage. But here, according to CW, is what one of Rudy's best friends, the man Rudy lived with when his wife kicked him out, had to say about Rudy and Gay Marriage:

But if they would pass a law that marriage would become legal between same-sex couples, I would be the first in line. And if Rudy were still mayor, I know he'd perform the civil ceremony for me.

His best friend said that Rudy would perform a same-sex civil marriage for him if they passed a law legalizing gay marriage.

[Wallace T.]

Holding the white Southern evangelical vote that has supported the GOP strongly over the last two decades is Giuliani's main challenge. In the 1920s, the South was as solidly Democrat as it is now largely Republican. Additionally, there were still a few living survivors of the Lost Cause, and most of the political and cultural leaders of the South were the sons or grandsons of former Confederate soldiers. To most white Southerners, the Republican Party was still the party of the hated Reconstruction era and of equal treatment of blacks at a time when the South was still under the grip of Jim Crow.

Nevertheless, when the region's dominant party decided to run Al Smith, a New Yorker of white, Catholic, working class background, who opposed Prohibition, the favored cause of evangelicals in that era, for President in 1928, there was considerable desertion from the Democratic ticket. Keep in mind that, while Smith was a conservative from a fiscal and personal standpoint, and was a man of considerable integrity, many rural Americans, both in the South and elsewhere, saw him as the epitome of the despised urban world of speakeasies, brothels, lewd entertainment, and gangsters, merely on the basis of his New York accent and mannerisms.

The desertion of the Democratic Party on the part of voters in Southern and Border states between the 1924 and 1928 Presidential elections is evident based on the chart below:

State	1924	1928
AR	61	60
KY	50	41
MD	54	42
MO	50	44
NC	58	45
OK	57	35
TN	53	46
TX	74	48
VA	67	46
WV	50	41

There have been considerable sociological changes in the South since the 1920s, including the enfranchisement of blacks, and certain states, especially Maryland and Florida, cannot be considered Border or Southern any more due to influxes of people from north of the Mason. Additionally, GOP margins in Texas and Oklahoma, as well as the Deep South, are wide enough that Giuliani could lose 10-15% of the vote to indifference and third parties yet still win. Additionally, Smith was not able to carry any states in his native Northeast except for Massachusetts. Rural and middle class urban Yankee Protestants, and in Pennsylvania, rural Scotch-Irish evangelicals and German Pietists and Lutherans and urban Episcopalians and Quakers, supported Hoover very strongly. Northeastern demographics have changed, due in part to the early tendency of white Protestants in the region to adopt birth control (white Catholics started limiting their families en masse after the 1960s), and in part to migration of blacks from the South and the Caribbean and Hispanics from Puerto Rico and other Latin American locations. Giuliani puts the entire region into play for the GOP, except, ironically, Massachusetts, the one Northeastern state Smith won in 1928.

The differences between the landscape of the 1920s and that of the 2000s notwithstanding, Giuliani and his supporters must cope with the reality that he will not do as well with white evangelical Southerners as George W. Bush did in 2000 and 2004. He will do well to staunch the losses to receive the vote level Robert Dole received in 1996.

[dirtboy]

He was pointing out in conversation, that appointing justices (as history has shown) doesn't guarantee an outcome but he'd try.

Wrong.

He completely redefined strict constructionism to have no meaning by saying a strict constructionist could uphold Roe because it's precedent. Just about every pundit I've seen who has commented on Rudy's statement agrees with that assessment.

Only those drunk on Roody-Aid fail to see it.

[Doofer]

Rudy has said to critics like you, he hates abortion, would counsel against it and encourage adoption. But then turns around and says the GOP should not make abortion an issue for the 2008 elections.

So much for your efforts to paint him as pro-life. He doesn't even think it should be an issue in the GOP.

[DManA]

You know perfectly well. You’ve been following it.

[Coldwater Creek]

The name is LAND!

[CharlesWayneCT]

I know what I said. IT’s right in my comment, and you have accurately quoted it.

And nothing in what I said suggested that Hillary wasn’t more liberal than Rudy, or that Hillary wasn’t a socialist.

I accurately note that Hillary has more national experience than Rudy, that she has more experience with national issues.

I never said she had the correct POSITIONS based on that experience, in fact she has all the WRONG positions, like supporting abortion rights and wanting to take guns away and being for gay civil unions and for illegal immigrants.

Experience isn’t everything. If it were, Hillary has more of it than Rudy, but experience is useless without wisdom, and someone who supports gun control, abortion, illegal immigrants, and government-encouraged gay unions lacks the wisdom that should come with experience.

I clearly stated that experience isn’t everything, and even in part of my comment you quoted I noted that Land, as a social conservative, shouldn’t support hillary, because the only place where hillary comes out morally ahead of Rudy is that she at least publicly upheld her wedding vows by staying with her husband even though he cheated on her.

So, what is there in the quotes you cited which suggests I don’t know Hillary is a socialist, that I think Hillary is better than Rudy, or that I am ignorant?

What did I say that isn’t absolutely true?

[tumblindice]

“Do you want lies and flip-flops?”

So, I go into a restaurant and they give me a choice between liver & onions, or calf brains in walnut sauce. See, I’m “pro-choice” too. And I don’t want either.
Your guy is coming across as `two-faced’ as John F’n Kerry. If he takes office—God forbid—which Rudy would we get:
the pro-choice one, or the one that hates abortion?
What you tooters can’t seem to understand is that many of us will feel `08 to be dead loss if Rudy wins.
If he wins, he has made it clear what he would do: he would `pitch’ the sanctimonious posturing and go after the 2nd amendment, appoint pro-Roe justices and ignore our southwestern border with Mexico. We don’t want a liberal in the WH.
“Do you want lies and flip-flops?”
Can you handle the truth?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

But if they would pass a law that marriage would become legal between same-sex couples, I would be the first in line. And if Rudy were still mayor, I know he'd perform the civil ceremony for me.

"His best friend said that Rudy would perform a same-sex civil marriage for him if they passed a law legalizing gay marriage."

--------

The only problem with that is Rudy doesn't support gay marriges - civil unions, yes, gay marriage, no.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

.........Can you handle the truth?

You don't want to listen to facts.

[dforest]

I just checked out Land’s site and his feelings about Rudy and the elections.

The part that insinuate he would vote for Hillary was an obvious conclusion made by the author of this article.

Thats most likly why they are not in direct quotes.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

It's that you veered into complimenting Hillary to attack Rudy.

......That gives here a much broader understanding of the concerns of the world than a guy who was nothing more than mayor of a single city.

I'm sorry if it wasn't what you meant to say.

[Charles Martel]

Rudy... has said he'd appoint Justices that could overturn Roe. He has stated he hates abortion, would counsel against it and encourages adoption.

So, was he lying in his previous statements - or is he lying now?

[garv]

Here is a direct quote from Land on what he would do in a Giuliani vs. Clinton matchup.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)—If the choice for president in 2008 is between Rudi Giuliani and Hillary Clinton, Richard Land says he'll skip that portion of the ballot.

The president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission made the comments March 9 during an appearance on the "Albert Mohler Radio Program," in which he and guest host Russell D. Moore discussed the presidential race.

Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, is leading in polls of Republicans nationwide, while Clinton, the Democratic senator from New York, is leading in Democratic polls.

"Some would stay home, and I would counsel them not to do that," Land said of the prospects of a Giuliani-Clinton presidential race. "They need to go and vote. They can always not vote in that race. I would go and vote, and I would vote for congressmen and I would vote for state senator and state representative, I would vote for U.S. senator, I would vote for governor. But I would not vote in the presidential race."

Link

[dirtboy]

It is demonstrably true and historically accurate that YOUR attitude is why the GOP loses elections

Nonsense. The GOP lost in 1992 because Papa Bush veered leftward.

The GOP lost in 2006 because the party abandoned core principles.

Before Reagan, the Rockefeller GOP was a perennial minority party.

You're full of it. As usual.

[tumblindice]

“You don’t want to listen to facts”
Soooo......I’m being unreasonable?
I asked you how you reconcile two categorical statements
about Rudy that directly contradict one another, and I’m . . .

If you don’t have the facts, argue the law.
If you don’t have the law, argue the facts.
If you don’t have the facts or the law, abuse the plaintiff.

Then pour yourself a mai-tai, big-guy, slip into that slinky off-the-shoulder number you got from Fredericks of Hollywood and have yourself a good cry.

[Texas Federalist]

How do you think Bill Clinton won 8 years when he never won 50% of the vote?

I know! Because the Republicans kept nominating candidates who turned off the conservative wing of the party.

[dforest]

Here is a direct quote from Land on what he would do in a Giuliani vs. Clinton matchup.

I saw the same information. This article was meant to be a "hit piece" on social conservatives.

More Republican stealth lies. I am really sick of it and have no use for the character of the people that engage in this rot.