By G. Tracy Mehan, III on 5.1.07 @ 12:08AM
That's what a Giuliani candidacy could be to the Reagan Coalition.
Rudy Giuliani could be the death knell of the Reagan Coalition,
that successful alliance of economic, defense, and social
conservatives forged in the 1976 Republican primary.
In his insurgent campaign against President Gerald Ford, Ronald
Reagan built the architecture for a durable political coalition of
supply-siders, budget hawks, Cold Warriors, law-and-order
advocates, welfare reformers, pro-lifers, defenders of the Second
Amendment, and others. He integrated these main elements of the
post-war conservative intellectual
movement into a successful, winning political juggernaut that
was, until recently, the Republican Party.
In recent years the social component of the coalition has been
augmented by pro-family and pro-marriage advocates, opponents of
affirmative action, and the proponents of secure borders and legal
immigration.
Giuliani's radical social positions are an affront to most
elements of this arm of the GOP and the conservative movement.
Some conservatives claim that Giuliani's vague and vaporous
statements on the appointment of conservative judges, and his
barely audible support of the ban on partial birth abortion, offer
evidence of sound instincts sufficient to palliate the concerns of
the traditionalist wing of the party.
On abortion, the integrity of marriage, and the Second
Amendment, Giuliani puts a stick in the eye of social
conservatives. As revealed on YouTube, he is a passionate supporter
of the expenditure of taxpayer dollars to destroy unborn children.
And he deserves very little credit for summoning the energy to
oppose infanticide, which is what the partial birth abortion issue
is really about. Even Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the late Democratic
Senator from New York, maintained that minimalist position with
respect to the right to life.
But consider the damage Giuliani's nomination and election as
president would be to the supporters of marriage, the right to
life, and other issues that represent a clear line of demarcation
between Republicans and Democrats. His ascendancy to the head of
the Republican Party would orphan all these constituencies which
have enabled the GOP to reach beyond corporate board rooms,
chambers of commerce, and think tanks to embrace a more diverse set
of constituencies.
Evangelicals and church-going Catholics have been pummeled by
many pundits on the left and a few fellow-traveling Republicans of
the old WASP elite. But they represent not only the base of the GOP
in the South but an important swing vote in the heartland states in
the Midwest including Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and
Minnesota. All they have to do is stay home, and the Republicans
can bid these key states goodbye.
Even if Giuliani can reconfigure the electoral map by winning
California, Pennsylvania, or New Jersey, that is little comfort to
the social conservatives who have made the Republican Party their
home these past forty years. They will be hopelessly marginalized
from the only political vehicle for the defense of marriage and the
unborn.
To put it another way, some economic and national defense
conservatives may be able to make the calculation that Rudy is
their man and standard-bearer. Indeed, Giuliani has some claim to
their loyalties based on his record.
But this is not an option for social conservatives. It would be
a Faustian bargain without even the assurance of any quid pro quo.
If they are shut out of the GOP, they are finished as a force in
American politics. This is not a parliamentary democracy. No
splinter party or rump organization, centered in traditional
values, will have any influence on the nation's two parties.
Rudy Giuliani's candidacy is not only a knife to the throat of
the Reagan coalition. It is a lethal threat to social conservatism
as a political movement in the United States.
As Sonny said in The Godfather, it may be time for
social conservatives "...to go to the mattresses."
topics:
Abortion, Books, Law, NATO, Conservatism, Immigration, Energy
