Conservatives: Don't Essentialize Yourselves
Rudy Giuliani wins the Spartanburg Co. straw poll in South Carolina -- a surprise.
He might even with this weekend's CPAC straw poll, which, contrary to what we reported yesterday, asks voters for their choice.
Make fun of CPAC all you want: attendees are conservative, and they're politically educated, and they probably know more about Giuliani's cultural politics than most journalists who cover the race.
We're wondering: are conservative elites -- not the CPACers, but the conservative chattering class -- making the same misjudgment, the same generalizations, about Republican base voters that the MSM has been making for years?
Why is it impossible to believe that a plurality of these voters care more about -- prioritize, in fact -- a successful prosecution of the war against terror and effective conservative government -- than they do about making incremental progress against the march of gay rights and abortion rights?
These Republicans might believe that the central moral dilemma of our time is the balance between liberty and security. With reference to George Will's famous dictum that most Americans -- even Republicans -- are operationally liberal, the central failing of the modern Conservative Movement has been its inability -- unwilligness, even -- to adapt to the realities of globalization, wealth inequality, and even cultural dislocation. Call them Ted Olson conservatives. In theory, they might be Mitt Romney conservatives.
They care about social issues; their political identiies derive from and are not nourished by them.
The entire political world is betting on the probability that once conservative voters know about Giuliani's social positions, they'll desert him in favor of someone who is more orthodox. It's an assumption with some grounding in the history of Republican nomination fights.
Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between. Certainly, some conservatives will abandon Rudy once they hear him affirm that he is pro-choice. Some won't, if they're comfortable that Giuliani won't rock the boat on judges and won't, as part of his governing agenda, tinker with the Hyde amendment. (See the YouTube video below if you want a sense of just how difficult it might for Giuliani to finesse these issues.)
In a field crowded with heavyweights, the winner of the Iowa caucus could skate by with less than 40 percent of the vote. And there's no one -- no one -- in politics now who doesn't think that Giuliani wouldn't be competitive in New Jersey or California or Florida -- primaries near enough to Iowa to catch some of its momentum.
The point is: the conventional wisdom about whether Giuliani can win the nomination ought to change. Of course he can.
If Rudy runs againt Hillary in the deep South you could win Al, MS, GA, TN, Ark and La with 10 votes as the social conservative voters here only care about abortion,NRA issues and gay sex.
With respect to the fact that the 2008 is undeniably underway (and has been for some time now), I submit that while its not too early to campaign, its too early to judge whether or not the current crop of candidates will hold up to intense and continual scrutiny.
In addition to the fact that most campaigns are barely weeks out of the gate, the fact of the matter is that so many of these early month movements are highly insignificant in the long run. The stuff that matters begins with the debates, when voters see the candidates on the same stage, side-by-side, talking about the issues of the day. Its hard to get a good comparison by comparing news stories and campaign events.
I'm not counting Rudy in our out. But at least wait until we're a few debates in to determine whether he holds up. Early momentum is good; lasting momentum is a lot tougher to come by.
No props to Duncan?
How can a Robertson-Falwell crew vote for a partial birth abortion, immigration, domestic partnerships, gun-control, "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" loving Guiliani? The right can overlook it only if they had a disagreement with Rudy only on one of these issues but in this case the list is very long.
And even if Rudy gets the nomination there is no way that religious right who only votes based on three G's (gays, god and guns) would come out in very large numbers to vote for Rudy. Rudy looks strong in theory but its a very very long shot for him to win a primary or even a general election.
And remember that the other weaknesses like.. Rudy's first marriage to his second cousin and his second wife learning about the divorce through Rudy's press conference.. have not even come to mainstream discussion. Do you think that the religious right will overlook this aspect? very hard to imagine!
Eventually it would be someone like Newt or Brownback who will take it all.
Say Guliani did win the nomination (which I still say there's no way in hell he will). Unless they want to be exposed for the most blatant hypocrites in U.S. political history, and nothing more than Republican hacks, the social conservatives, inluding the Catholic Bishops who tormented Kerry, would have no choice but to refuse to support Giuliani. And would likely find someone to run on an independent line. Whether the votes Guliani would gain on the other side of the ledger would offset this, is hard to gauge and would depend to a great extent on who is opponent is.
why does R. Giuliani even want to take on this job? he has had a prodigious career which has featured putting a LOT of "bad guys" out of business. now he wants to take on the whole country's riff raff, AND the world terror organizations too? why would this man, this natural leader who's had a fine run already in life, want to take a task like this on now?
what IS he thinking?