“I really think anyone who believes the GOP can win the White House in 2008 with a nominee...”
Absolutely. No way a GOP candidate can win the General election without Pro-Life or NRA...and that makes sense considering the Planks in the GOP. With the Dems picking up more voters, I’d contend those groups are not just critical but required, for the GOP to have a chance. Why much of the GOP decided to jump on Giuliani’s bandwagon so early in a primary show that the GOP is not under very good leadership.
Your point about the party platform is one I hadn’t thought of before and is a good one. How can the GOP, which has a pro-life, pro-2A platform, nominate a candidate with a proven track record of being an abortion supporter and gun control supporter, even if he talks a good game about it now? That makes no sense.
Look, I’ve been one of those that’s said that I’d vote for Rudy if he ended up being the nominee, just because as bad as he might be, he wouldn’t be nearly as bad as Hillary or Obama. I still think that. (This means that Reagan Man will probably go Pharisee on me and start screaming “unclean! unclean!” any second now.) But now I’m not so sure. I really believe that a Rudy nomination WILL shear the right wing off of the GOP. If you thought people stupidly stayed home to “teach the GOP a lesson” in 2006, just wait if Rudy gets nominated. Even if I do end up voting for him (and that’s not a 100% given right now), I wouldn’t begrudge those people who choose not to.
Giuliani cannot gain enough votes from the squishy center to compensate for the loss of the bedrock right wing of the party. It’s that simple. I don’t see how they expect to out-moderate Hillary when she’s proven that she’s very good at juking toward the center to hide her radical-left views.
The Republican leadership frustrates the hell out of me right now. They have completely forgotten how to win an election. You don’t do it by pretending to be Democrats. You do it by selecting a conservative and then putting your heart and soul behind the candidate to convince the American people that your way is the best one. It’s worked in the past and it will work again.
}:-)4