Pro-choice Giuliani called acceptable (by Boehner, Tancredo, Brownback)

Washington Times ^ | 5/7/07 | Eric Pfeiffer

[NormsRevenge]

Two leading Republican lawmakers said yesterday that former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's pro-choice stance on abortion should not disqualify him from becoming their party's presidential nominee or from receiving the support of conservative voters.

Making the comments were House Majority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, one of Mr. Giuliani's rivals for the nomination. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a social conservative also running for the party's nomination, said during the Republican presidential debate last week that he could accept a candidate with differing views on abortion.

"I think it's an uphill fight on that issue," Mr. Boehner said during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday." "But I think a lot of Republican voters see Rudy Giuliani as competent and able to do the job."

Mr. Boehner has not endorsed the Giuliani campaign. He noted the large delegation of House Republicans who met with former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee two weeks ago and said voters are open to a range of primary candidates.

Mr. Giuliani said during the debate that it would be "OK" if Roe v. Wade were either overturned or upheld, giving no clear approval to reversing the 1973 decision that established abortion as a constitutional right. His nine rivals on the stage strongly approved of overturning Roe.

"It would be OK to repeal it," Mr. Giuliani said. "It would be OK also if a strict constructionist viewed it as precedent."

[Spiff]

Giuliani/Clinton/Dem vs. GOP Platform Comparison
Issue	Giuliani	Clinton	Dem Platform	GOP Platform
Abortion on Demand	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Partial Birth Abortion	Supports Opposed NY ban	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Overturning Roe v. Wade	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes	Supports
Taxpayer Funded Abortions	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Embryonic Stem Cell Research	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Federal Marriage Amendment	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes Defined at state level	Supports
Gay Domestic Partnership/ Civil Unions	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Openly Gay Military	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Defense of Marriage Act	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes	Supports
Amnesty for Illegal Aliens	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Special Path to Citizenship for Illegal Aliens	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Tough Penalties for Employers of Illegal Aliens	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes	Supports
Sanctuary Cities/ Ignoring Immigration Law	Supports	Supports	Supports	Opposes
Protecting 2nd Amendment	Opposes	Opposes	Opposes Supports bans	Supports
Confiscating Guns	Supports Confiscated as mayor. Even bragged.	Supports	Supports Supports bans	Opposes
'Assault' Weapons Ban	Supports	Supports	Supports
Frivolous Lawsuits Against Gun Makers	Supports Filed One Himself	Supports		Opposes
Gun Registration/Licenses	Supports	Supports		Opposes
War in Afghanistan	Supports	Supports Voted for it	Supports	Supports
War in Iraq	Supports	Varies Voted for it	Supports Weak support	Supports
Patriot Act	Supports	Supports Voted for it 2001 & 2006	Opposes	Supports

"Most of Clinton's policies are very similar to most of mine." - Rudy Giuliani

[airborne]

The REAL RINOs (RRs) are the ones threatening to not vote, and driving any out of the republican party who are not perfect purists.

You're entitled to your opinion, no matter how wrong you are.

[NRA2BFree]

Rudy would bring in the independents, the moderates, and the disaffected democrats.

Perhaps he might, but he's going to lose the Christian/moral/right vote, so it won't do him any good to bring those votes into his camp. While he brings one group into his camp, he pushes away an even larger group of voters.

That is the only way the reps are going to win a very tough election in 2008.

No, it's not. IF the GOP actually runs a real conservative, they can win, and that is the ONLY way they can win! Rudy cannot possibly win, because he's a liberal!

[EternalVigilance]

I already knew that Boehner was a boner, and that Brownback had already demonstrated his idiocy on this and several other things, but seeing Tancredo say something this stupid is disappointing.

If Rudy Giuliani is acceptable, the GOP is useless and finished.

[mkjessup]

The REAL RINOs (RRs) are the ones threatening to not vote, and driving any out of the republican party who are not perfect purists.

That has to qualify as the most groundless, puerile and plain absurd post made today on FR.

Get a clue, it's not about 'purists', it is about 'PRINCIPLES', and Rudy Giuliani has NONE.

[mkjessup]

What the RudyTooters fail to comprehend is that their boy is unable to appeal to the broad spectrum because of his extreme LIBERAL views.

On abortion, Rudy Giuliani is a lifelong supporter of the faux 'right' of women to murder their unborn children, he has praised the pro-abortion lobby NARAL, had nothing but kind words for the racist-eugenicist Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood), and believes to this day that federal funds should be made available to any pregnant woman who doesn't have the money in her family budget to murder her unborn baby. That isn't just misguided, that is depraved.

On immigration, Rudy Giuliani's own lax enforcement of the law allowed a number of the actual 9/11 hijackers to live safely and securely in Brooklyn while they prepared to carry out their attacks, and there is simply no way that can be explained away.

On national security, Giuliani talks a good game but his past actions demonstrate a lack of understanding at the best, woeful ignorance at the worst, i.e., after the FIRST WTC bombings in 1993, Giuliani signed off on plans to locate NYC's emergency operations center on the 23rd floor of WTC-7, despite the WTC already being a confirmed terrorist target. He opened that EOC in 1999 despite the warnings from his own Fire Department officials that the placement of a 6000 gallon fuel tank in WTC-7 to power the EOC was a violation of FDNY fire codes and could lead to a disaster. Sure enough, on 9/11, the EOC had to be evacuated, 13 million dollars down the tubes, and by the end of the day, Rudy's command bunker was part of the rubble.

And for the doubters out there, there are two more words that ought to seal the deal on Rudy's LACK of national security expertise:

Bernie Kerik

As for 'preserving, protecting and defending' the Constitution of the United States, Giuliani has already amply demonstrated his contempt for that document with his unconstitutional 'stop and frisk' policies while Mayor, and 3 out of 4 American citizens who were subjected to that policy were found to be absolutely innocent, and the violation of their persons and privacy could not be justified. Giuliani has shown by that approach to law enforcement alone that his mentality is not one of a public servant who would obey the Constitution, but that of a fascist who would play fast and loose with that Constitution, in order to accomplish that which he deems to be necessary and expedient.

That is a dangerous mindset for any candidate who would seek the Presidency.

If Giuliani loves America as much as he claims he does, he would recognize that his candidacy is one of divisiveness, and that his continuation of his campaign will indeed deliver the White House into the hands of the Democrats.

On the other hand, Rudy is on record as saying that Bill Clinton is a 'good and decent man', so maybe his end game IS to see Hillary Clinton elected President.

[Moorings]

Winning just for the sake of winning is not acceptable to a lot of conservatives here. Should we sacrifice ALL our principles for the sake of political expediency? Surely not!! We then lie to ourselves.

A lot of folks on this site are conservatives first and republicans second. Not the other way round.

[tkathy]

Rudy is a moderate on the social issue, and a real fiscal republican. Many many republican voters, myself included, are moderate on the social issue.

I consider myself to be a person of principle, and i am very moderate on the social issue.

[Melas]

I have no interest in “team” politics for the sake of winning a pennant or something. I always hated professional sports for the same reason. Substance is important to me, not appearance.

Then I suggest you (and many others) cease using the term RINO. Call them CINO (conservative in name only) if you must. This is Jim's website, and he can define conservative however he sees fit. Republican however is taken, the RNC gets to define Republicanism, period, end of story.

I've said it many times over the last few weeks, and I'll say it again. I'm a Republican, and I'm going to vote for the Republican nominee. That makes me a broken glass Republican. Those who are only planning to vote Republican if their guy wins the nom are RINO's, they're not really party (read Republican) supporters.

[Melas]

What the RudyTooters fail to comprehend is that their boy is unable to appeal to the broad spectrum because of his extreme LIBERAL views.

If that's true then you have absolutely nothing to worry about. If Rudy is unable to appeal to a broad spectrum of voters (for any reason) then his candidacy is doomed and he has zero chance of coming out of the primaries on top.

And it may well be doomed, and you may well be correct. I don't know. What does strike me out of place is the emphasis on Rudy, rudy, rudy, rudy, all the time rudy by people who supposedly think he doesn't have a chance. I've been married for a long, long time, and trust me, when my wife feels the need to tell me 50 times that something isn't bothering her, it is.

[mkjessup]

Rudy is a moderate on the social issue, and a real fiscal republican. Many many republican voters, myself included, are moderate on the social issue.

Giuliani is a LIBERAL on social issues, and you can put lipstick on that pig, but it's still a pig.

As for being a 'fiscal Republican', Giuliani's record as Mayor of NYC is one of a borrow and spend LIBERAL, i.e., he turned a 3 billion dollar surplus into a 4.5 billion dollar DEFICIT by the time he left office, and it isn't all due to 9/11, because in July 2001, New York State Comptroller H. Carl McCall stated that an opportunity to put NYC on a sound fiscal footing had been 'squandered' by Giuliani. While running for mayor, Giuliani promised to cut the city payroll, in reality he hired an additional 25,000 MORE city workers (mostly patronage payoffs), and when Giuliani turned over the city to Mayor Bloomberg, the number of city employees was the highest in history.

Uh uh, there is no WAY that Giuliani is a 'fiscal Republican', and any person praising Margaret Sanger is NO 'moderate'. Giuliani remains the sole Republican recipient of political contributions from NARAL, and he himself contributed to Planned Parenthood numerous times, and if you want to talk about 'principles', explain what kind of principles are demonstrated when Giuliani, after decades of supporting the 'right' of women to murder their unborn children, promoting the idea of federal funding for the purpose if necessary, suddenly does an about face and says that he 'agrees' with the Supreme Court ruling banning partial birth abortion, followed up by saying it would be 'OK' if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade?

Oh sure, that demonstrates a 'principle':

The 'principle' of saying whatever is politically expedient to try and save himself and his rapidly derailing campaign.

I believe that if you'll stop drinking that purple RudyAid from the big vat for just a few moments to think about the obvious contradictions that Giuliani represents, that you might just see the light.

[mkjessup]

I've said it many times over the last few weeks, and I'll say it again. I'm a Republican, and I'm going to vote for the Republican nominee. That makes me a broken glass Republican.

No, that makes you a brainwashed ignoramus, the same kind of ignoramus that supported Mussolini because he promised to make the trains run on time.

It is exactly that blind sort of loyalty that has helped to empower fascists throughout history.

[Melas]

No, that makes you a brainwashed ignoramus

In your world I'm sure it does. I'm just going to consider the source, laugh, and move on. Think what you will.

[mkjessup]

Your ignorance is truly astounding. You fail to learn from the lessons of history. The easily duped are always eager to see the sterling qualities in the self appointed strong men who would deliver them from their enemies and their fears, while failing to see the moral vacuum in their would-be deliverer, which always leads to tragedy and disaster.

"I'm just going to consider the source, laugh and move on."

MoveOn.Org applauds you.

[little jeremiah]

I’ve voted straight Republican (except for one protest vote against Gordon Smith since I knew he’d win anyway), once I was grown up enough to know right from wrong.

I’d probably vote for (gag) McCain if he got nominated (which I shudder to consider). But I refuse to vote for a liberal who is pro-gun control, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual agenda, and pro-open borders/illegal “sanctuary”.

The Republican platform is basically a conservative platform. If someone (like Giuliani) is a Republican in name but disavows the party platform, he is a RINO.

[little jeremiah]

I consider myself to be a person of principle, and i am very "moderate" [aka known as "liberal"] on the social issue.

There. Fixed it. Funny thing, social liberalism/fiscal conservatism always morphs into fiscal liberalism too, since all those social problems demand money after a while. Stuff like methadone clinics, more cops due to feral humans, more welfare for unwed mothers, more tax money to take care of illegals' kids, medical bills, accidents with no car insurance, etcetcetc.

[arnoldpalmerfan]

What presidential candidate are you supporting?

[arnoldpalmerfan]

Exactly.

The question asked of Rep. Tancredo by George Stephanopoulous was the following: “Can a pro-choice candidate like Mayor Guiliani win the Republican nomination?”.

Rep. Tancredo never said Mayor Guiliani was acceptable to him personally. He also never said he would support Mayor Guiliani. He simply gave his opinion as to whether Mayor Guiliani can win the nomination.

[arnoldpalmerfan]

The question asked of Rep. Tancredo by George Stephanopoulous was the following: “Can a pro-choice candidate like Mayor Guiliani win the Republican nomination?”. Rep. Tancredo simply gave his opinion as to whether May Guiliani could win the nomination.

Rep. Tancredo never said Mayor Guiliani was acceptable to him personally. He also never said he would support Mayor Guiliani. He simply gave his opinion as to whether Mayor Guiliani can win the nomination.

Rep. Tancredo is not running for VP.

What presidential candidate are you supporting?

[Valin]

“Rep. Tancredo is not running for VP.”

Then what is he running for? Because if it’s for President all I can tell him is don’t give up you day job.

“What presidential candidate are you supporting?”

None...yet. I just want the strongest candidate to get the nomination, and if that’s Giuliani...so be it, I’ll support him. I just want to win, because the thought of any of the democrat candidates sitting in the oval office fill me with dread.