Monday, October 01, 2007
RUDY GIULIANI
If Rudy Gets The Nomination, 'I Want The Republican Version of Chicago 1968.'
In light of this morning's news that socially and religious conservative group leaders are flirting with the idea of supporting a third-party candidate if Rudy Giuliani is the Republican nominee, I'm looking over my collected notes on how the pro-life grassroots would react that scenario.
The words that jumped out at me? “I can vote for big spenders, but not baby-killers. And if the Republicans are going to push me out of the tent, I’ll do my part to burn it down on the way out.”
That dramatic threat came from Nathaniel Blake, a contributor to the conservative publication Human Events.
I took an informal poll of pro-life readers of National Review Online, and heard from about 150 grassroots who had past experience volunteering for GOP campaigns at the local, state, and presidential level. About 30 percent responded they would not vote for Rudy, would not volunteer to help him, and would probably try to help a pro-life third-party candidate. About 20 percent said they wouldn’t volunteer for Rudy, but they would still work for state and local Republican candidates. About half said they would have no problem working to elect him, citing his pledges to appoint judges in the mold of John Roberts and Samuel Alito and the cold chill that runs down their spine when they hear the words, “President Hillary Clinton.”
While the poll is unscientific, it seems reasonable to surmise that if Rudy wins the GOP nomination, anywhere from a quarter to a half of pro-life activists could be playing a different role than they did in 2000 and 2004. Some might even go as far as Blake, who concluded, “Far better for the GOP to lose in 2008 than for pro-lifers to be marginalized from both parties. If Rudy gets the nomination, I will oppose him vociferously. I would want to see protesters with giant gruesome aborted baby photos crash the convention. I’d want the GOP version of Chicago in 1968.”
Some of this might be a bit of pre-primary electoral saber-rattling, as the GOP nomination could still go to any one of several candidates who won’t arouse pro-lifers’ ire. But many pro-lifers see the issue as a matter of life and death, a part of their faith and values going back to their childhood.
Heather Cromar tells of distributing leaflets opposing funding for abortions with her parents as a child: “I don’t know who was more shocked: the ladies in our neighborhood who were confronted with an eight year old handing out political pamphlets on abortion, or myself, shocked senseless that anyone would kill a baby.”
As Cromar puts it, it’s easier to support a candidate with any pro-life stands — even recent conversion to that view, like Mitt Romney – than a candidate comfortable with socially liberal values.
One pro-life university instructor who asked to not be identified declared, “Once a pro-choice candidate is elected, the pro-choice forces within the Republican party will know that our votes are a given and that means we will have no real influence… The pro-life voters will be to Republicans what black voters have become to Democrats — a reliable constituency that must be humored but never taken seriously because their votes are guaranteed.”
So how many pro-life votes does Giuliani lose? How many pro-choice votes does he pick up? There is a strong argument that Giuliani could scramble the usual red-and-blue-state map; a Survey USA poll from last December, pitting Giuliani against Hillary Clinton on a state-by-state basis, showed Giuliani winning New Jersey and coming close in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York, and while running better than Bush did in 2004 in Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada.
But those contemplating a Rudy nomination must wonder whether those poll results are illusory, because they don’t account for the doors not knocked on, the envelopes not stuffed, the phone banks not worked by pro-lifers in the final days of the 2008 campaign.
“Who could possibly replace social conservatives as the GOP’s grassroots?” asked Dan Sullivan, a northern New Jersey veteran of several campaigns. “Country club Republicans? Those people write checks and spend their free time riding horses. They;re not going to take off work and drive two days to volunteer on a Senate candidate’s race like pro-lifers and homeschoolers did for Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania in 2004.”
If Rudy Giuliani becomes the 44th President, he will, like all of his predecessors, have overcome an impressive array of obstacles along the way. But perhaps nothing will be more surprising than if he demonstrates that a Republican can win without the pro-life grassroots.
10/01 02:04 PM
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