Posted on 08/19/2007 9:52:10 AM PDT by wagglebee
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Rudy Giuliani is testing many traditional political rules in his presidential run, perhaps in no way more than in his effort keep his personal faith and family life out of the race.
On the stump in Iowa recently and in New Hampshire last week, the former New York mayor was asked about Catholicism and his frayed relationship with his children. Both times he said, in effect, that he’d keep his private life private.
“I’ll talk about it appropriately and in a way to preserve as much as I can the privacy of my family and my children, which I think any decent person would,” he told reporters at a stop at a diner here on Friday.
Giuliani urged voters “to concentrate on the public things that I’ve accomplished” before turning fire on the media: “See how much do newspapers really have to probe into these things, or how much of it is being done really for reasons that have nothing to do with measuring public performance.”
The GOP front-runner has been the subject of detailed articles examining his wife, Judith, and his difficult relationship with his two college-age children, Andrew and Caroline.
But it’s not just family matters that Giuliani is wary of delving into. Asked about his religion, Giuliani noted that he has discussed it — but then added that “even parts of that are personal.”
His calculus is obvious. He has been married three times and cheated on his second wife. His children have publicly distanced themselves from him. If and when he attends Mass, he can’t take communion because his second marriage was not annulled. And he contradicts church teaching by backing abortion rights.
Naturally he’d rather talk about the taxes he cut as mayor.
But experts say it will be difficult for a candidate, particularly one running in a party whose base is dominated by cultural traditionalists, to ask voters to separate church and family from state. For many if not most conservatives, matters of faith and family are central to a candidate’s character.
“It is untenable,” GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio said of Giuliani’s current posture. “With a third of the party, you can get away with it. The problem is the other two-thirds are the ones that control the nomination.”
“People want to get a sense what’s in that person’s heart,” said Fabrizio, who is uncommitted in the race. “Doing a good job on crime is all well and good, but if [voters] don’t have a sense as to what your moral compass is, that’s a problem.”
Pointing to a survey he recently did that showed two-thirds of Republicans believe religion “essential to living a good and moral life,” Fabrizio said, “It’s very difficult to see how you communicate what your values are without explaining what they’re based upon.”
Part of Giuliani’s problem is the precedent set by the two most recent presidents.
A Southern Baptist who could summon appropriate Scripture for any occasion, Bill Clinton was at ease in the pew or pulpit of any church and during his presidency regularly walked into his own church with Bible in hand. And though he despised having to do it, Clinton also took to national television during his 1992 campaign to admit, with his wife right next to him, that he had “caused pain" in their marriage.
President Bush has been equally open about his Christianity. Asked during the 2000 primary to name his favorite political philosopher, Bush responded without hesitation: “Christ, because he changed my heart.” He also candidly talked about the role of religion in helping him quit drinking — a decision that sustained his marriage.
Though he’s never been much for discussing his Catholicism — he chafed when asked about his Mass-going practices in a 1998 interview before confessing that he attends only “occasionally” — Giuliani hasn’t always been so hesitant about his family.
In his first run for mayor in 1989, his then-wife, Donna Hanover, narrated a syrupy campaign commercial that sought to soften the tough-guy prosecutor by showing him playing ball with his young son and giving a bottle to his newborn daughter. “And Rudy is such a great dad,” Hanover gushed.
Now, though, such matters are off-limits. “I believe that things about my personal life should be discussed personally and privately,” Giuliani told reporters in Iowa.
“Family off limits?” scoffed Scott Huffmon, a political science professor at South Carolina’s Winthrop University. “Wait till his opponents in South Carolina — where the ghost of Lee Atwater hangs over primary politics and people still remember fliers being placed on their windshields about John McCain’s ‘black child’ — start getting serious!”
But Giuliani rivals, too, have reasons to downplay personal matters this campaign cycle.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has proudly displayed his wife and five sons on the trail but has shied away from discussing his Mormonism in detail, concerned about potential backlash from evangelical voters who don’t consider the church legitimate.
Similarly, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and former Sen. Fred Thompson (Tenn.), who has not officially entered the race, have both had previous marriages and neither is outwardly religious.
“Mayor Giuliani is not much different than the other leading Republican contenders in their discussion of their faith,” said Bill Paxon, a former New York congressman who is advising Giuliani’s campaign. “They are all folks who have faith and have individual positions that they subscribe to, but on the other hand they’re not much interested in making that the bedrock of their presidential campaigns.”
What’s more, Paxon argued, Giuliani’s messy family life and differences with church teachings are nothing that attentive voters don’t already know about.
“None of this is a surprise to most Republican primary voters, and those are the same voters who are consistently rating Rudy Giuliani as the leading Republican contender [in polls]. And he’s getting a lot of that support from many folks who are evangelical Christians.”
But Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a Christian scholar who studies the intersection of religion and public life, said Giuliani would have to address the issue directly, ideally weaving candor and humor.
“He’s got to find a speechwriter that can put together the words and say something like, ‘I’m a Catholic. I’m not a very good one, but I’m trying to be,’” Cromartie said. “I just don’t think he can forever avoid it.”
Family matters are a bit different, Cromartie argued, especially when it comes to children. For all their frankness about themselves, both Clinton and Bush guarded their kids from public attention, he observed, and few GOP voters seemed to care that Vice President Cheney’s daughter was a lesbian —despite the best effort of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) to highlight that fact during a presidential debate in 2004.
Fabrizio thinks that Giuliani’s best bet is to keep doing what he’s doing now — but with a wrinkle.
“He ought to take a lesson out of Clinton playbook in ’96,” offered Fabrizio, who, as pollster for Clinton's opponent, former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), recalls that campaign well. “He needs to find issues that are values-tinted.”
By that, he means topics that will appeal to conservative voters without veering onto subjects that Giuliani is seeking to avoid.
So, for example, whereas Clinton had the v-chip that could block children’s access to some television content, Giuliani could hammer home the need to crack down on cyberporn.
Whatever he does, Giuliani’s untraditional bid has already made the Republican contest unique. As Paxon put it after amiably defending his candidate, “This is going to be an unusual cycle.”
That decision was already made for Wombat.
Conservatism needs no qualifiers. No "neo", no "paleo", no "compassionate".
Conservatism is Conservatism. Any qualifier or modifier deems it counterfeit.
Exactly, whenever someone starts qualifying their conservative beliefs, it means that there is a significant portion of the conservative platform that they disagree with. And since they never seem to be talking about raising taxes, it usually means that they are pro-death and pro-militant homosexualism.
"A political party cannot be all things to all people."
Ronald Reagan said that on March 1, 1975.
?;^T
Seldom have I seen a more deserved lightning bolt.
READ the Constitution for yourself...
Article V
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress;...
Sow. Reap.
Bill Clinton was/is serial adulterer with a power-crazed wife and conservatives consistently stated that character matter when he was running.
The same standards don't apply to RINO Rudy because he is a Republican? Double Standard?
I don’t recall Reagan ever having committed adultery, let alone in office. But, divorce isn’t the reason to oppose Giuliani. The fact that he is liberal that is in favor of using taxpayer dollars to kill unborn children and did nothing but promote the homosexual agenda while mayor of New York are very good reasons to oppose him.
Thompson and even Romney. It's IMPOSSIBLE to win an election without a motivated base. Millions in the base will not vote for Giuliani and many others will not contribute or campaign for him. It's also not possible to win an election by scaring voters into voting against one's opponent.
Giuliani is the LEAST likely candidate running that can defeat Hillary.
Darn that Guliani and his nosy ducks.
It’s a lot like when someone want to identify themselves as a [fill in the blank]-American. Nine times out of ten, they could care less about America and will oppose anyone who doesn’t support [fill in the blank].
That was a hell of a coincidence. That guy had been on Free Republic for about six years. Just at 08/19/2007 2:09:54 PM CDT we smelled ozone. By 2:20:05 PM CDT Wombat101 was zotted, but good.
Don't worry, he'll be back under a different name. But, his irritating style will make him easy to recognize.
I hit the abuse button right after I posted #29.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1883415/posts?page=29#29
Jim recently banned a whole bunch of FRiberals who had been here for a long time. It seems that there were some longtime posters who were Republicans who joined because they hated the Clintons, but they also showed that they didn’t care for conservatives either.
Post #29? No wonder you concluded the bug zapper was on the blink.
Oh well, it was nothing that 300 megavolts from above couldn't handle.
I think after the April thread that Jim had to go get a commercial, nuclear-powered bugzapper. They take a while to fire up!
“The GOP front-runner...”
As reported by the Liberal MSM.. come on we all know better than that.
W
“I’ve worked with a lot of wise-quackers, but you are despicable.”
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