Why not Rudy?

Some people are still having a hard time understanding why I cannot support Rudolph Giuliani. They point out that Reagan was able to attract Democrats to the Republican Party and wonder why that wouldn’t be a good thing today.

The difference between Reagan and Giuliani is that Reagan called conservative Democrats out of the Democrat Party. Reagan himself had been a Democrat who felt that the Party left him behind when it lurched to the hard left. He appealed to Democrats who felt the same way that he did.

Democrats who were anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-tax, pro-military flocked to him. Today most of the "Reagan Democrats" are simply Republicans having switched their registration.

The Democrats that Reagan brought into the Republican Party made the Republican Party better by making it more conservative.

It was those conservative Democrats, mostly Southern, who tilted the balance of power within the Republican Party away from the "blue-blood country club" moderate to liberal Republicans like Eisenhower, Ford and Nixon and put real conservatives like Reagan in control.

The Democrats which Giuliani would appeal to are an entirely different matter. While Reagan Democrats built up the Republican Party Giuliani Democrats would be toxic to it.

Reagan Democrats knew that abortion was murder and were disgusted with the Democrat Party for supporting it. Giuliani Democrats believe that abortion is a woman's constitutional right and don't think that Giuliani will tamper with it.

Reagan Democrats believed that a man or woman has a God-given right to own firearms for self defense and feel that the Democrat Party betrayed them by supporting gun control. Giuliani Democrats hope that Rudy's nomination will mean that the NRA's power within the Republican Party will have finally been broken.

Giuliani was able to get elected mayor of NYC because enough liberals had come to believe that crime was out of control and felt personally threatened by it. They went out and found a law and order liberal who agreed with them on most things but could be counted on to clean up the streets. Republicans supported him because they wanted to win and figured that he was the best they could get.

Giuliani is counting on the same set of factors to put him in the White House. He hopes that there will be enough liberals who feel threatened by terrorism that will see him as someone who agrees with them on most things but can still keep them safe to put him over the top. As for Republicans, he hopes that they will want to win and figure that he is the best they can do this time around.

What Giuliani does not take into account (what he doesn’t care about) is that conservatism as a political movement in New York City has been dead for decades. Yes there are still millions of conservatives living in and around NYC, but their numbers are overwhelmed by so many more millions of moonbat leftists that they are not able to constitute a viable alternative to the City’s governing liberal mindset.

Giuliani was not able to kill conservatism in New York City for the same reason that you cannot kill a cadaver. It is already dead.

However conservatism is not dead in the greater United States. Conservatives are able to offer a viable alternative to the left-liberal vision because the Republican Party serves as a vehicle for putting those ideas into effect. If the Republican Party stops being a vehicle by which conservatives can build a governing majority for the purpose of putting their ideas into effect conservatives will begin to abandon it.

Too many conservatives will not be able to make their political home in a tent so large that it can contain pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-gay marriage Giuliani Democrats.

Try this thought experiment. Pretend that the Republican Party had not made “Dixiecrats” like Strom Thurmond renounce segregation before joining the party. Furthermore pretend that when David Duke ran for governor of Louisiana as a Republican that the state and national Republican Party organizations had gotten behind him (instead of rejecting him, which is what they did)? Suppose that high profile Republican politicians had gone to Louisiana to campaign for Duke and that Rush Limbaugh had urged his listeners to support Duke (instead of begging them to vote for Duke’ Democrat opponent, which is what he did).

Suppose all those things and then ask yourself how many people would be registered Republicans today if the Republican Party was the party of segregation and the Klan.

Now understand this. To social conservatives, whether religious or secular, things like gun control, abortion and gay marriage are just as hateful as segregated schools and burning crosses.

Now that you begin to grasp the idea of why committed social conservatives will feel compelled to abandon the Republican Party ask yourself this. What will the Republican Party do to make up the losses, assuming that it still wants to win elections? When “America’s Mayor” isn’t at the top of the ticket any more what will the Republican Party have to do to appeal to those Giuliani Democrats? Especially if they don’t feel so threatened by terrorism any more (assuming that Giuliani is as tough on terrorism as everyone thinks he will be there may be a lot less of it after his eight years as president)?

Whatever part of conservatism the Republican Party has to give up to retain its appeal to the Giuliani Democrats will cost it more conservative support. That will require more concessions to the left and so on until American elections resemble Italian elections where the people have a choice between the Social Democrats and the Communists.

If you want me to change my mind you are going to have to do more than jump up and down while screaming “Hillary Clinton” at the top of your lungs. If you want me to support Rudy you are going to have to explain to me how taking the Republican Party far to the left (which is what nominating him will do) helps the Party in the long run.