The most important ‘traditional value’ in this election is keeping the Clintons out of the White House,” says Greg Alterton, an evangelical Christian who writes for SoConsForRudy.com and counts himself among Rudolph Giuliani’s social-conservative supporters.
People like Alterton are important, if overlooked, in the Republican presidential sweepstakes. Anti-Giuliani Religious Rightists are far more visible. Also conspicuous are pundits whose cartoon version of social conservatism regards abortion and gay rights as “the social issues,” excluding other traditionalist concerns.
New York’s former mayor “has abandoned social conservatism,” commentator Maggie Gallagher complains. He “is anathema to social conservatives,” veteran columnist Robert Novak recently wrote. Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson has said: “I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008.” Dobson and a cadre of Religious Right leaders threaten to deploy a pro-life, third-party candidate should Giuliani be nominated.
This “Rudyphobia” ignores Giuliani’s pro-family/anti-abortion ideas, his socially conservative mayoral record, and his popularity among churchgoing Republicans.
While Giuliani accepts a woman’s right to an abortion, he told Iowa voters in August: “By working together to promote personal responsibility and a culture of life, Americans can limit abortions and increase adoptions.” Among Giuliani’s relevant proposals:
“My administration will streamline the adoption process by removing the heartbreaking bureaucratic delays that burden the current process.” Giuliani notes that sclerotic court schedules, exhausted social workers, and tangled red tape prevent moms and dads from adopting some 115,000 boys and girls in foster care.
Giuliani wants the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to promote organizations that help women choose adoption over abortion.
He would like to make permanent the $10,000 adoption tax credit.
Giuliani also would encourage states and cities to report timely and complete statistics to measure progress in abortion reduction.
This is no sudden conversion on the road to Washington. As mayor, Giuliani did nothing to advance abortion. On his watch, total abortions fell 13 percent across America, but slid 17 percent in New York. Between 1993 and 2001, Gotham’s tax-funded Medicaid abortions plunged 23 percent.
Giuliani’s campaign for personal responsibility created a climate that seemingly discouraged abortion. Moving 58 percent of recipients from welfare to work may have encouraged women and men to avoid unwanted pregnancies. New York’s 57 percent overall-crime reduction and 67 percent homicide drop probably reinforced such self-control.
Compared to the eight Democratic years before he arrived, adoptions under Giuliani soared 133 percent.
Giuliani also proposed eliminating the city’s $2,000 marriage penalty. He chopped it to $400.
Giuliani opposed gay marriage in 1989. “My definition of family is what it is,” Giuliani told Newsday 18 years ago. “It does not include gay marriage as part of that definition.”
He jettisoned New York’s minority and women-owned business set-aside program. Giuliani explained: “The whole idea of quotas to me perpetuates discrimination.”
Giuliani sliced or scrapped 23 taxes totaling $9.8 billion and shrank New York’s tax burden 17 percent. This left parents more money for children’s healthcare, private-school tuition, etc.
Giuliani could have governed comfortably as a pro-abortion, pro-welfare, pro-quota, soft-on-crime, tax-and-spend, liberal Republican. Instead, Giuliani relentlessly pushed Reaganesque socio-economic reforms through a City Council populated by seven Republicans and 44 Democrats.
These accomplishments may explain why he leads his competitors and impresses churchgoers. Among Republicans in an Oct. 3 ABC/Washington Post poll, Giuliani outran former Sen. Fred Thompson, 34 percent to 17, versus Sen. John McCain’s 12 percent, and Mitt Romney’s 11. As “most electable,” Giuliani scored 50 percent, versus McCain’s 15, Thompson’s 13, and Romney’s 6.
An Oct. 3 Gallup survey found Giuliani enjoying a 38 percent net-favorable rating among churchgoing Catholics, compared to McCain’s 29, and Thompson’s 25. Among Protestant churchgoers, Thompson edges Giuliani 26 percent to 23, with McCain at 16, and Romney at 7.
Religious Right leaders should study Giuliani’s entire, socially conservative record, not just the “socially liberal” caricature of it that hostile commentators and lazy journalists keep sketching. Social conservatives should not make the perfect enemy of the outstanding. Ultimately, they should recognize that a pro-life, third-party candidate would subtract votes from Giuliani in November 2008.
This would raise the curtain on a 3-D horror movie for social conservatives: “The Clintons Reconquer Washington” — bigger, badder, and more vindictive than ever.
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New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
What happens if Hillary doesn’t win?? Does Greg change his support since it’s no longer about Rudy is the only way to keep Hillary out of the WH?
November 30th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Rudy supported partial birth abortion up until he began his run for the presidency. Partial birth abortion is a procedure that literally rips an fully term baby into pieces. It is something that is purely evil. Even most democrats don’t support it. In the political realm, Rudy’s past support for this is almost unforgivable because it shows such an enormous lack of judgement. I don’t care what else he supposedly did, this alone shows that he is no friend of the pro-life movement.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
deblagent007
If Romney can claim he was “wrong” on abortion and SoCons give him a pass,Rudy should recieve the same pass on his partial birth abortion stand now that he is on the right side of this isssue.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
And yes ,
Most elected Dems, especially in leadership positions,opposed the ban on partial birth abortion and would re-enstate it if they win the Presidency!!
November 30th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Sure the right should support Rudy for having an affair in the Mayor’s quarters and paying for his shacking up with city funds.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
So it really comes down to, do you want another Clinton in office or a Clinton-esque person in office?
November 30th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
TennJoe: If Romney can claim he was “wrong†on abortion and SoCons give him a pass,Rudy should recieve the same pass on his partial birth abortion stand now that he is on the right side of this isssue.
Rudy has not claimed he was wrong. He has lied about his previous opposition to PBA bans! Don’t you see the difference?
November 30th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Why are people continuing to support Rudy??? It makes no sense, there are 5 legitimate and good candidates for the GOP to run against Hillary, all of whom have less baggage. Why are we going to nominate a person who is already embroiled in scandal after scandal? Corruption and scandal haunted the GOP in the last 4 years more than Iraq, yet so many of you are inviting it back into the white house. Rudy is nowhere near the most electable. His character will be assassinated immidiately by the Hillary camp. Not only that, but by nominating Rudy, Hillary becomes the candidate with the moral high-ground. The ground the GOP is supposed to have. Rudy is a complete disaster.
November 30th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
TennJoe, Rudy has not apologize or admit he was mistaken. Sorry, he won’t get a pass until he does.
November 30th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
TennJoe, Rudy lied and said that he opposed earlier bans because they didn’t contain a life of the mother exception. Well, he said that before actually checking the earlier bans because, surprise, they did contain a life of the mother exception. Since he got nailed on that he has gone silent.
I don’t speak for all social conservatives, but to me supporting PBA is unforgiveable for a political candidate (at a personal level I would be happy to see anyone change their mind on this issue, but I would find it extremely difficult to support such a person for a political office). Read the Supreme Court opinions describing those disgusting procedures. It’s as shocking as reading of the autrocities committed during the holocaust. Words don’t exist that are sufficient to capture how evil and vile it is to rip a baby’s arms and legs off, then puncture its skull and suck its brains out.
November 30th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Why should college student support Giuliani? He refuses to make an appearance at the College Convention 2008 in New Hampshire. We realize that he has an extremely busy schedule but you are staying in the same hotel as the convention! How difficult is it to take a trip downstairs to visit with the hundreds of college students that have travelled from all around the country to see him? Almost all of the other presidential candidates have made an effort to be here. They have flown in from all over and he is in the same hotel yet cannot make the effort down to the lobby.
December 3rd, 2007 at 3:02 pm
“What happens if Hillary doesn’t win?? Does Greg change his support since it’s no longer about Rudy is the only way to keep Hillary out of the WH?”
Ray, I stated three reasons, only one of which is Rudy’s electability. The other two — he’s perhaps the only candidate to refocus the nation on what’s needed for the war on terror, and that he’s the most accomplished and successful conservative running, still hold.