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.”
Just checking.
The exact opposite of today's "liberalism."
Not all Christians view divorce as a sin.
Also, someone please tell me who has a better shot of beating Hillary than Giuliani? She has to be beaten, even if it is by someone like Giuliani, who comes off as liberal on several key issues, but more conservative on the most important, imo. Who else could reasonably beat Hillary?
Rooty has LESS of a chance of beating Hillary than anyone.
Because Reagan wanted to make the marriage work but in the end agreed that it would be best to go their separate ways. You can't force anyone to be with you if they don't want to.
Usually the person initiating the divorce is not the person that screwed up.
Well, that's true, but in Reagan's case it wasn't any external factors that caused the divorce other than the fact that Wyman disagreed with Reagan's politics.
What is Rudy “conservative” on?
You have any hard evidence to back up this OPINION? Seriously, who?
Sheesh! I’ve tangled with you before on these Giuliani threads, narses. Go back and read.
For the edification of those who might not know:
I was baptized and raised a Catholic. Since the Catholic church is a business, and not a religion, and full of s*it to boot, I guess I am a ‘lapsed’ Catholic. However, the Christian philosophy is all well and fine, I just hate it when those who claim they live by it never seem to remeber “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”, and then try to explain that way with gibberish about ‘repentance’.
I don’t think Christ was saying anything about repentence, he was talking about being a hypocrite, in this regard.
As for guns, I live in NYC (born and raised), own four guns (including long arms) and Rudy and his Gestapo never came to my front door seeking to take them from me. What happened in this city was that the requirements for renewing applications was changed (by the City Council and State Legislature, you know, the elected bodies that make the laws? The Mayor of NYC doesn’t make the law, he’s an administrator charged with enforcing it), and continue to change, and many folks failed to keep up with the new regulations. Therefore, their gun permits were revoked and their weapoons classed “illegal”. If I recally, narses, you once cited the story of “Pharmboy” as an example of Rudy’s “gun grabbing” and it turned out that teh reason he lost his permit was because he failed to learn that the city wa sno longer accepting mail-in applications.
People who are too lazy to leanrn the law, and too lazy to do what is necessary to comply with it, don’t deserve guns, and are probably being kept alive by mechanical means.
Abortion; why it is still necessary, int he 21st century, to have make arguments AGAINST infanticide, is beyond me. However, the issue is not one of morality for many people, but rather convenience and avoidance of responsibility. People who think this way are by definition, incapable of being moral. However, the solution to this problem is not a constitutional manuever or the writing of draconian laws; it is a cultural effort aimed at instilling a sense of respnisbility in people. This is where the various churches are most effective, not in the legislative process. We have a separation of church and state in this country for a reason: so that membership in a specific faith or congregation is not one (or perhaps the sole) qualification for public office.
Republican government only has the ability to affect people’s lives at the margins. Cultural institutions have a much greater effect, when they are focused on doing what they do best -— which is winning hearts and minds one at atime -— rather than artificially skewing the electoral process.
Gay rights: I don;t care if anyone is gay. I don’t care to know about it, either, and I certainly don’t want anyone discriminated against because of it. The arguments surrounding gay marriage have all been covered by existing law and cultural norms; if you wish to live together, go ahead. If you want your lover to inherit your property, write a will. If you wish to leave instructions for who is allowed to see you in a hospital or make medical decisions on your behalf, write a living will. The motiviations behind the push for Gay Marriage have nohing to do with good government or the betterment of society; they are matters of emotional degree, and simple economics.
Having said that, the answer is “no”, only because 10,000 years of human experience says so.
I don’t disagree with most of the “social conservative” agenda, narses, I only disagree with your heavy-handed and hypocritical activities on it’s behalf.
If Rooty Toot really thought he could beat Hillary, then why was he afraid to run against her in 2000 and again in 2006?
This election might hinge on crossover voters, why would liberals abandon the ‘Rats to vote for a liberal Republican? Moreover, there is a huge contingent of conservatives who WILL NOT vote for a liberal regardless of party affiliation. Catholics make up a huge voting block and were responsible for our victories in 2000 and 2004, yet many Catholics ONLY vote for the GOP because of social issues, a pro-abortion and pro-homosexual candidate will end this.
... I only disagree with your heavy-handed and hypocritical activities on it’s behalf.Good, then my efforts are working.
“The sin the Church helped your mother avoid was adultery.”
HOW DARE YOU?
You know nothing about my mother and what sort of person she is, so do yourself a favor and don’t make comments like this about her. It’s one thing if we disagree about politics and political theory, but I haven’t disparaged your mother. Don’t try doing it to mine.
And I don’t give a rat’s behind what the Catholic Church thinks.
“Good, then my efforts are working. “
Your efforts are wasted, because I was taught to think. Not repost other-people’s words.
narses, after the mother comment, I think I will ignore you. You obviously don’t have anything intelligent to say.
Too bad. You brought your mother into this and misstated the reason the Church refuses some divorced people remarriage. If a divorced person’s ex-spouse dies, they can remarry - ditto if they can show canonically how the prior marriage was a nullity. Otherwise, in the eyes of the Church, they are STILL MARRIED. A subsequent marriage would be bigamous and adulterous.
BTW, your gratuitous insults to my Catholic faith are real and ugly. I made no such insult to your mother. You took the facts as insults. That is a modern liberal response, like much of your odd screeds.
Is it your habit to dismiss anyone who disagrees with you as "unintelligent"?
Bingo!
No, it is my habit to dismiss unintelligent people as being unintelligent.
Sad but true. And even more sad is you still can’t give me a name.
And we have a Rooty Rooter who somehow flew around the bugzapper in our midst.
You want names of who could beat Hillary?:
Hunter, Huckabee, Thompson, Romney and probably even Paul.
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