Rudy makes his case

From The New York Times:

HOUSTON, May 11 — Rudolph W. Giuliani directly challenged Republican orthodoxy on Friday, asserting that his support for abortion rights, gun control and gay rights should not disqualify him from winning the party’s presidential nomination.


He said that Republicans needed to be tolerant of dissenting views on those issues if they wanted to retain the White House.


In a forceful summation of the substantive and political case for his candidacy, delivered to a conservative audience at Houston Baptist College, Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, acknowledged that his views on social issues were out of line with those of many Republican primary voters.


But he argued that there were even greater matters at stake in the election, starting with which party would better protect the nation from terrorism. Mr. Giuliani suggested that his record in New York, which included leading the city after the attacks of Sept. 11 and overseeing a decline in violent crime during his eight years in office, made him the most electable of the Republican candidates, no matter his stand on social issues like abortion.


Mayor Giuliani did an excellent job of leading New York City in the aftermath of 9/11 but that in no way automatically makes him the best person to lead the nation in the global war against Islamofascism.


Look at it like this. If Ray Nagin had done a masterful job of leading New Orleans through hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, so good that every last person on the surface of the earth looked at his performance and said that no one could have possibly done any better, would that make him the best person to head NOAA's National Weather Service?


If we are going to judge a president's ability to lead the nation in the global war against Islamism based on his past experiences then would not decorated war hero John McCain be the logical choice? Julie Annie isn't a vet, he has never led men in combat. In fact he has probably never held a weapon except when handling an exhibit in a courtroom.


As for his bringing down the crime rate in New York City what did he do other than apply the same kind of attitude toward law enforcement held by nearly every sheriff or chief of police in "red state" America. In other words Julie Annie did nothing more than have the good sense to let his cops be cops rather than social workers, just like any small town Republican mayor does.

You know the old saying about how in the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king? Well in a city where the average politician is as far left as Noam Chomsky the politician who is one millimeter to the right of center will look like Winston Churchill or Ronald Reagan.


As for the abortion question the fact is that the momentum on that issue has been shifting in the pro-life direction for the past 20 years. Outside of deep blue areas like Manhattan and Massachusetts and California (places which will vote Democrat anyway) being pro-life will not damage a candidate nearly as much as being pro-choice will. In other words, outside of certain hard-left enclaves pro-choice voters do not make that their primary litmus test issue while pro-life voters do. This is why Democrats ran a slate of pro-life candidates this past election (men like Heath Schuler here in North Carolina).


It is the same for gun control. Outside of a few of the most left-wing areas of the nation supporters of increased gun control do not make that the one issue which decides who they will support while pro-gun voters do.


On the immigration question Giuliani is badly out of step not just with Republicans but with the entire nation. As I discussed here a recent exhaustive survey demonstrated conclusively that even the majority of Hispanic or Latino citizens support closing the border to illegal immigration and oppose amnesty for those illegals already here. Outside of a handful of activists who will vote Democrat anyway the people who will base their vote on a candidate's immigration position, even crossing party lines to do it, are on the anti-amnesty/guest worker side. Giuliani will do nothing to bring these people out to vote Republican.


In fact if a third party candidate running a campaign based on immigration enters the race (a definite possibility if both major party candidates are open border advocates) Julie Annie's presence on the ballot might drive away enough people who would otherwise vote Republican to throw the election to Hillary.


Finally, the only real advantage Giuliani brings to the table is the perception by many that he is the only person who can beat Hillary. I doubt that strongly and I think that it will become more apparent as time goes by. Around 40% of the nation has already reached a settled conclusion that they will not vote for Hillary under any circumstances. Her recent upsurge in the polls of Democrat primary voters reflect nothing more than the growing realization on the part of Democrats that while Obama speaks well and looks good while he does it that he is essentially hollow. There's no there there; he sounds great, but has nothing to say.


This is the same thing as when Democrats finally awakened to the fact that Dean was a wackjob and could not win the general election. His support went to Kerry and Kerry got the nomination, but he still lost in the general election.


Hillary Clinton is not the immovable object and Rudolph Giuliani is not the irresistible force. In a head to head matchup between them the voters whose passion burns the brightest - the "I'd crawl over broken glass to get to the voting booth" crowd - pro-life, anti-illegal immigration and pro-gun forces will be either voting third party or sleeping late on election day.

In the end Rudy's "vote for me or else" approach falls flat.