Posted on 10/15/2007 4:29:47 AM PDT by StatenIsland
“The most important ‘traditional value’ in this election is keeping the Clintons out of the White House,” says Greg Alterton, an evangelical Christian who has “spent my entire professional career considering how my faith impacts, or should impact, the arena in which I work” — government and politics. Alterton writes for SoConsForRudy.com and counts himself among Rudolph W. Giuliani’s social-conservative supporters.
People like Alterton are important, if overlooked, in the Republican presidential sweepstakes. Anti-Giuliani Religious Rightists are far more visible. Also conspicuous are pundits whose cartoon version of social conservatism regards abortion and gay rights as “the social issues,” excluding other traditionalist concerns.
New York’s former mayor “has abandoned social conservatism,” commentator Maggie Gallagher complains. He “is anathema to social conservatives,” veteran columnist Robert Novak recently wrote. Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson has said: “I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. It is an irrevocable decision.” Dobson and a cadre of Religious Right leaders threaten to deploy a pro-life, third-party candidate should Giuliani be nominated.
This “Rudyphobia” ignores three key factors: Giuliani’s pro-family/anti-abortion ideas, his socially conservative mayoral record, and his popularity among churchgoing Republicans.
While Giuliani accepts a woman’s right to an abortion, he told Iowa voters on August 7: “By working together to promote personal responsibility and a culture of life, Americans can limit abortions and increase adoptions.” Among Giuliani’s proposals to achieve this end:
“My administration will streamline the adoption process by removing the heartbreaking bureaucratic delays that burden the current process.” Giuliani notes that sclerotic court schedules, exhausted social workers, and tangled red tape trap some 115,000 boys and girls in foster care and prevent moms and dads from adopting them.
Giuliani proposes that the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives promote organizations that help women choose adoption over abortion.
He would make permanent the $10,000 adoption tax credit.
Giuliani also would encourage states and cities to report timely and complete statistics to measure progress in abortion reduction.
This is no sudden conversion on the road to Washington. As mayor, Giuliani did nothing to advance abortion. That helps explains why, on his watch, total abortions fell 13 percent across America, but slid 17 percent in New York. More significant, between 1993 and 2001, Gotham’s tax-funded Medicaid abortions plunged 23 percent.
Medicaid reimbursement figures from the New York State Division of the Budget allow a rough calculation of the Giuliani administration’s expenditures on taxpayer-financed abortions. This estimated funding dropped 22.85 percent, from $1,226,414 in 1993 to $946,175 in 2001. (See more here.)
Giuliani’s campaign for personal responsibility helped create a climate that discouraged abortion. Moving 58 percent of welfare recipients from public assistance to self-reliance, starting before President Clinton signed federal welfare reform, may have encouraged women and men to avoid unwanted pregnancies. New York’s transformation from chaos to order — which helped slash overall crime by 57 percent and homicide by 67 percent — probably reinforced such self-control.
Compared to the eight Democratic years before he arrived, adoptions under Giuliani soared 133 percent. Fiscal years 1987 to 1994 saw 11,287 adoptions; this grew to 27,561 between FY 1995 and FY 2002.
In another pro-family policy, Giuliani divested 78 percent of City Hall’s vast portfolio of confiscated, property-tax-delinquent homes. These were privatized and sold to families and individuals.
Giuliani proposed eliminating the city’s $2,000 marriage penalty. (As individuals, a husband and wife each would enjoy a $7,500 standard deduction, but only write off $13,000 if they jointly filed taxes.) He chopped it to just $400, letting joint-filers share a $14,600 deduction.
Giuliani also opposed gay marriage in 1989, long before it shot onto the radar. “My definition of family is what it is,” Giuliani told Newsday 18 years ago. “It does not include gay marriage as part of that definition.”
On Day 24 of his mayoralty, Giuliani jettisoned New York’s minority and women-owned business set-aside program. He later explained: “The whole idea of quotas to me perpetuates discrimination.” During the 12-year “Republican Revolution,” Congress deserted the fight for colorblindness.
Giuliani sliced or scrapped 23 taxes totaling $9.8 billion and shrank Gotham’s tax burden by 17 percent. This left parents more money for children’s healthcare, private-school tuition, etc.
On education, Giuliani launched a $10 million fund to support 17 new charter schools. Zero existed before he arrived. Giuliani also ended tenure for principals, fought for vouchers, and torpedoed City University’s open admissions and social-promotion policies.
“I took a city that was also known as the pornography capitol of this country,” Giuliani told New Hampshire voters last June. “I got through a ground-breaking re-zoning that was challenged in the courts. We won. And now, if you go to New York City, you don’t have to be bombarded with pornography. And the city has grown dramatically — economically, physically, and spiritually.”
Giuliani accomplished this and plenty more — not in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but in New York City. He could have governed comfortably as a pro-abortion, pro-welfare, pro-quota, soft-on-crime, tax-and-spend, liberal Republican. Instead, Giuliani relentlessly pushed Reaganesque socio-economic reforms through a City Council populated by seven Republicans and 44 Democrats. What’s so liberal about that?
This record, and Giuliani’s headstrong style, may explain why he leads his competitors and impresses churchgoers. An October 3 ABC/Washington Post poll of 398 Republican and GOP-leaning adults found Giuliani outrunning former senator Fred Thompson, 34 percent to 17, versus Senator John McCain’s 12 percent, and Willard Mitt Romney’s 11. (Error margin +/- 5 percent.) As “most electable,” Giuliani took 50 percent, versus McCain’s 15, Thompson’s 13, and Romney’s 6.
An October 3 Gallup survey found Giuliani enjoying a 38 percent net-favorable rating among churchgoing Catholics, compared to McCain’s 29, and Thompson’s 25. Among Protestant churchgoers, Thompson edges Giuliani 26 percent to 23, with McCain at 16, and Romney at 7.
What do Giuliani’s Religious Right detractors really fear he will do about abortion? If he can overcome their suspicions, secure the GOP nomination, and win the White House, do Giuliani’s critics actually believe he would squander that victory and enrage the GOP base by pushing abortion? Do his foes honestly think Giuliani would request federal abortion funding in violation of the Hyde Amendment he says he supports or appoint activist Supreme Court justices, rather than Antonin Scalia- and Clarence Thomas-style constitutionalists, as he says he would?
Having kept or exceeded his mayoral promises on taxes, spending, crime, welfare, and quality of life, why would he break his presidential promises on such a signature GOP issue? What kind of bait and switch do Giuliani’s foes truly worry he will attempt?
The contrast between Giuliani and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, could not be sharper. She would appoint pro-abortion justices and lower-court judges. These jurists also would be softer on crime, racial preferences, unions, and eminent-domain abuse than Giuliani’s would be.
Hillary Clinton also would take President Bush’s embryonic stem-cell program and expand it in every direction. If Giuliani does not padlock it, he at least would be more sympathetic than Clinton to privatizing it. If America must banish embryos to Petri dishes, let Lilly, Merck, and Pfizer do this. It is inconceivable that Hillary Clinton would shift anything from Washington to the private sector, especially America’s “greedy, wicked” pharmaceutical companies.
Religious Right leaders should study Giuliani’s entire socially conservative record, not just the “socially liberal” caricature of it that hostile commentators and lazy journalists keep sketching. Giuliani’s October 20 appearance before the Family Research Council will permit exactly that. Also, while Giuliani may not be their dream contender, social conservatives should not make the perfect the enemy of the outstanding. Ultimately, they should recognize that a pro-life, third-party candidate would subtract votes from Giuliani in November 2008.
That would raise the curtain on a 3-D horror epic for social conservatives: “The Clintons Reconquer Washington” — bigger, badder, and more vindictive than ever.
The nation survived eight years of the Klintoons and we did it because Republicans in Congress resisted the 'Rats' agenda.
However, with Rooty Toot we would get the EXACT SAME AGENDA that we would get with Hitlery. And what would happen? Republicans in Congress would not be able to resist the agenda.
Rooty would be far worse for this country than Hitlery would.
Hitlery's supporters say the same thing about her.
The ONLY differences between Rooty Toot and Hitlery is that he has an "R" after his name is willing to put on a dress.
We went over this before MONTHS ago, but I'll repeat it for clarity:
The primaries are still MONTHS AWAY! Someone tell me why we have to SETTLE for Rudy, NOW?!?
Really!? Those are the ONLY difference, huh?
So, your point is that the Republican Party has no principles???
Maybe conservatives do.
Can you name any others?
I can’t vote for Guiliani, and it has nothing to do with abortion.
If the GOP is dumb enough to nominate him, they deserver Hillary Clinton as President.
I survived eight years of the Impeached One, I’ll survive this if it comes down to it.
HA!!!!
...*if*.
Good point.
Excellent comments.
America cannot be trusted to the Democrat whoremongers of hate and radicalism.
I also do not trust Democrat politicians to uphold the constitution as to them it is a living document set on a base of sand.
We need only look at the impending demise of old world Europe caused by Hillary like policies of feel good any thing goes thinking, lets all just take another hit on the bong and get along.
European countries with out of control immigration policies of bringing in extremist Moslems to clean their brothels and cook their meals to see where we are headed if we do not block Hillary’s election.
Making these kinds of disastrous mistakes will eventually lead to a USA to weak to insure our security.
The Russians, Chinese and Moslem countries are preparing for war as quickly as possible.
Not one European country at this time could repel an invasion from the above-mentioned countries.
There is a lot at stake in the coming election and I for one will not hide my vote behind an inflexibility that may eventually lead to Americas imploding suicide.
One in which the Social Conservative thinker will have no place.
Just the lowly opinion of a red state wannabe.
Look, I can understand difference of opinion but an outright and blatant williness to leave the blinders on just because of a narrow focus on a few critical issues is not something to lose credibility over -- what you wrote earlier about the "R" being the ONLY difference was not very intelligent and just managed to showcase your hyperbole.
Courtesy Comment:
You might survive but will my children and grandchildren?
Lets hope that it never comes to an America where we have to survive left wing oppression day to day.
Hell, Hitlery believes in federalism and free trade. I have yet to see any pledge by Rooty Toot to lower taxes. His grasp of the Middle East is deficient to the point that he has zero interest in securing our borders. And he will jump on the healthcare bandwagon the same way that GWB did.
‘You might survive but will my children and grandchildren?’
Yes, they will.
That isn’t what I meant. My point was that in choosing not to vote (or to vote third party), IOW “voting our principles” because the Republican candidate isn’t up to our exacting standards, we effectively vote for the other party’s candidate, causes great detriment to the country as a whole, in multitudinous ways.
You really believe what you just wrote, don’t you? This wasn’t some ploy just to ‘hang in there’ just so that you wouldn’t have to backtrack in a discussion, admiting you went overboard?
Those who insist on Rudy are throwing the race to Hillary.
Conservatives should agree on a conservative candidate.
Rudy is no conservative.
As far as I can see, Rudy Giuliani is not a socialist while Hillary Clinton stands well to the left of her husband and therefore does qualify as a socialist. If there’s an issue in which Clinton is better than Giuliani on, it’s news to me.
Is there any reason to think Hillary Clinton would not be at least a Carter-level disaster as president? Meanwhile, Giuliani already has experience as one America’s greatest mayors ever, changing New York from “the ungovernable city” to the powerhouse it should be-— one might even call him the Joe Torre of mayors. According to Burke, order is the first need of society; that is what Giuliani provided New York in his battle against street crime and the mob.
Unfortunately, Giuliani has shown throughout his career that he sees the law as clay to be molded for whatever he thinks the moment requires. His defenses of his stances on illegal immigration, gun control, campaign finance reform all reflect the creative use he made of the of the law as a (very effective) U.S. Attorney. The dangers of the pragmatic view approach are only magnified when the person holding it also holds the presidency.
Yes, Giuliani says he wants justices like Scalia and Thomas on the Supreme Court. But does he even understand what that means? After all, many left wing legal experts admit that Roe was wrongly decided, yet Giuliani has stated that a “strict constructionist” could reasonably uphold it:
They can look at it and say, it has been the law for this period of time, therefore we are going to respect the precedent. Conservatives can come to that conclusion as well. I would leave it up to them. I would not have a litmus test on that. My overall view would be judges who are going to struggle with the meaning of the Constitution, and that applies to criminal justice issues, it applies to terrorism issues, it applies to a whole host of issues, to the Second Amendment and the individual right to bear arms, there is a whole group of issues.
So while Giuliani may honestly believe he will appoint justices like Thomas and Scalia, I don’t believe he comprehends what kinds of justices either of those men are.
In any event, the question is not, is “Giuliani better than Hillary?” but, is Giuliani better than Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney?
But here’s a question for you anyway. Should conservatives have voted for Gerald Ford after he won the nomination against Ronald Reagan, or sat out the election/made a protest vote? One might argue that because Ronald Reagan did so much good for America and Jimmy Carter’s unbridled leftism did so much good for Reagan’s election, it was just as well that Ford lost to Carter... But there was no guarantee at the time of Carter’s inauguration that he would be defeated, much less by Ronald Reagan. My opinion is that it’s always best to vote for the most conservative, most capable candidate who has a reasonable shot at winning, whether in the primaries or the general election, and that therefore voting for Ford in the general election would have been the right thing to do, just voting for Giuliani in the general election, if he wins it, would be the right thing to do in the future.
That would be a nightmare.
Not the right reason to select a candidate in the primaries. And I disagree with your basic premise. Hillary has negatives approaching 50%. Any Rep candidate will give her a battle and it will be close regardless of whomever the Reps select. The Reps need a candidate who will energize the base and represent the views of the majority of the party.
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