Rudy Giuliani’s affirmation of his support for public financing
of abortions was undoubtedly the biggest blunder of his nascent
presidential campaign. Not only have his comments undermined his
efforts to assuage the concerns of social conservatives, they have
reinforced the perception that he’s running an undisciplined
campaign.
By now, most readers are likely familiar with Giuliani’s
comments to CNN reporter Dana Bash. But just to
recap, after Bash played Giuliani a YouTube video from 1989 in which he advocated public financing
of abortion, the following exchange occurred:
BASH: Is that also going to be your position as
president?
GIULIANI: Probably. I mean, I have to re-examine all of those
issues and exactly what was at stake then, and it is a long time
ago. But generally that is my view, abortion is wrong, abortion
shouldn’t happen, personally you should counsel people to that
extent.
When I was mayor, adoptions went up, abortions went down, but
ultimately it is a constitutional right, and therefore if it is a
constitutional right ultimately, even if you do it on a
state-by-state basis, you have to make sure that people are
protected.
BASH: So you support taxpayer money or public funding for
abortions in some cases?
GIULIANI: If it would deprive someone of a constitutional right,
yes, I mean, if that the status of the law, then I would, yes.
His response is problematic on several levels. Politically, it
hurts him not only among social conservatives, but also among
fiscal conservatives who may even be pro-choice but abhor any kind
of government subsidies. While Giuliani has received mostly
friendly treatment on conservative blogs up until now, the response
to his remarks has been overwhelmingly negative,
turning off even those who had
previously been sympathetic to Rudy.
Semantically, it isn’t helpful for him to use the words
“constitutional right” with regard to abortion, even if he meant it
in terms of what the courts currently hold. Legally, the idea that
anything that is a constitutional right should be provided by the
government, is patently absurd. As has been
pointed out,
followed to its logical conclusion, it would mean that the
government would have to provide poor people with access to
firearms. It’s somewhat startling that a lawyer as experienced as
Giuliani would come across as ignorant of constitutional law.
In the wake of the storm that followed, the Giuliani campaign
issued a clarification in which Rudy said, “As I have
indicated before I will not seek to change current law as described
in the Hyde Amendment.” The Hyde Amendment limits federal funding
for abortions to cases of rape, incest, or to protect the life of
the mother. In South Carolina on Thursday, he added that he thought the issue should be left
to individual states, as it is now. Such a response would have been
helpful if it were his initial reaction to Bash’s question, but
releasing the statement after the fact just created more confusion.
It also reveals a deeper problem, that if not remedied, could do
more long-term damage to the Giuliani campaign than the abortion
issue itself.
The CNN interview marked the second time in about a week that
Giuliani’s communications team was forced to put out a fire after
the former mayor gave a prominent television interview. (Last week,
it was the comment to Barbara Walters that he would let his wife
sit in on cabinet meetings.) With this much time before the
primaries, no single gaffe is going to cost Giuliani the election,
but if this develops into a trend, it will doom his candidacy.
AT ROOT IS THE TENDENCY Giuliani has to shoot straight from the
gut, often without much consideration of the ramifications of his
statements. He breaks the mold of the typical, cookie-cutter
politician, which is one of the reasons he is so appealing. This
quality is what made him boot Yasser Arafat from Lincoln Center in
1995, on the heels of Arafat’s Nobel Peace Prize, and refuse to
apologize for the decision in the wake of condemnation from the
media, the Clinton White House, and the State Department. It’s what
enabled him to speak with a blend of toughness, compassion, and
moral clarity in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, when most
of us were at a loss for words. It’s what prompted him to reject the relief check of Saudi Prince Alwaleed
bin Talal after the prince said that U.S. policies in the Middle
East contributed to the attacks.
But this quality of Giuliani’s, which is one of his greatest
strengths, is also one of his biggest political liabilities. When
Bash asked him if he had changed his position on publicly funding
abortion since 1989, while another politician might have fielded
the question differently, Giuliani just couldn’t bring himself to
be seen as pandering, so his instinct was to say that his position
was the same. But then he tried to qualify his statement, so what
he ended up with was a sloppy answer that, in addition to angering
conservatives, created the impression that he’s simply “winging
it.”
There is, however, a fine line between pandering and being
unprepared. Given that Giuliani’s biggest liability going into the
Republican primaries is his stance on abortion, it’s startling that
he would be caught so off guard. By now, he should be ready to
answer any permutation of the abortion question, if not to the
satisfaction of all social conservatives, at least well enough to
convey a command of the subject matter.
One of Giuliani’s leadership principles is “relentless
preparation.” He says: “If you prepare for everything else
relentlessly, you will be able to respond to the unexpected as if
intuitively.” Giuliani would be wise to take his own advice.
