Just so. I was willing to suspend judgment on Rudy, but his recent series of remarks have virtually ruled out any possibility that he will change his position on these fundamental issues. And his position for many years was that of an extreme abortionist. So extreme that he would not even agree with the very mild pledge offered to him by the NY State Conservative Party for an endorsement in his senate race against hillary. All they asked was that he refrain from saying that he favored partial birth abortion during the campaign. And he refused to do even that.
Even if I were willing to vote for him, which at this point I am not, I am confident that tens of millions of religious voters will not pull the lever for him if he is on the ballot in November.
Not unless he changes, which he has now virtually ruled out. He could have repudiated his earlier positions before these latest remarks, but I don’t see how he possibly can now.
Your only real alternative is placing a de facto vote for hillary clinton, who will, without question, not only appoint pro-abortion judges but will go on a crusade to make abortions, etc. more readily available. I cannot understand how you can rationalize this.
A distinction must be made between Giuliani’s personal views on abortion and the effect of a Giuliani presidency on abortion policy. He will appoint strict constructionists judges. End of story.
Would you rather elect one of the liars whose stated view on abortion changes with his ambitions and venues? Giuliani deserves CREDIT for not compromising his view. Virtually every other politician has flipped on abortion when going from the local to national stage.
If they could so easily flip on this, they should be trusted less on this, not more.
I get the sense that strategically, he has decided that he can’t win social conservatives anyway, so his best bet is to publicly repudiate them in the hopes of picking up independents from the left. I’ve been meaning to go back to that leaked strategy document of his to see if that’s what it recommended — I just haven’t had the chance yet.
I think this strategy is faulty, for two reasons:
1. After being out of power for so long, the donks are likely to be motivated to turn out and vote for the (D) candidate, no matter who it is.
2. By that reasoning, Rudy’s going to have to make up for the social conservative and the libertarian conservative votes he loses mostly out of the pool of independents (who are up to 25% of the electorate). Those of us in the Republican party who are willing to vote third party may by definition BE part of that 25% — and we’re not voting Rudy. So his potential pool gets smaller. I just don’t see how he can win it without two major GOP constituencies.