Ever since James Dobson threw down the gauntlet against the Republican
Party nominating a pro-choice presidential candidate, the focus has
been on the intransigence of the religious right. Obdurate
evangelical zealots are said to be tearing down GOP frontrunner
Rudy Giuliani and paving the way for Hillary Clinton’s
presidency.
The real story is how feeble and ineffectual conservative
Christian opposition to Giuliani has actually been. Less than four
years after the phrase “values voter” entered into the political
parlance, the GOP seems poised to nominate a thrice-married,
pro-choice supporter of civil unions. In the not too distant past,
Giuliani favored Roe v. Wade, taxpayer-funded abortion,
and keeping partial-birth abortion legal — all positions to the
left of those taken by such legendary Republicans for choice as
Gerald Ford and Barry Goldwater.
How have the supposedly intolerant paladins of the religious
right reacted to the possibility that Giuliani will be the
Republican standard-bearer in 2008? By saying maybe they’ll
vote for a third party and maybe they
won’t.
Now there’s decisive leadership.
Religious conservatives might have avoided their presidential
dilemma had they not dawdled for almost a year as their bete
noire built up a lead in both the national polls and
delegate-rich primary states. Now just months away from the Iowa
caucuses, they are still dividing their support among four or five
alternative candidates for the Republican nomination.
There are two factors at play here. The first is the
increasingly obvious political ineptitude of many leading social
conservatives. Giuliani’s critics among this group have done very
little to inform Republicans of his more liberal views. A New
York Times/CBS News poll taken last month found that nearly
half of GOP voters don’t know where Giuliani stands on abortion.
Earlier this year, a majority of the former New York mayor’s own
supporters in a Wall Street Journal poll said they would
have reservations about voting for a pro-choice, pro-civil unions
candidate.
The two most prominent religious conservatives in the GOP
presidential race, Sen. Sam Brownback and former Arkansas Gov. Mike
Huckabee, have nevertheless been reluctant to say anything critical
about Giuliani’s record. When Brownback has decided to go on the
offensive on social issues, it has generally been against fellow
pro-life candidates (granted, some of them pro-lifers of recent
vintage).
Likewise, some religious right leaders have been less interested
in opposing Giuliani than in finding reasons
to disqualify potential alternatives.
The second factor is Giuliani himself. He’s simply not your
father’s Rockefeller Republican and cannot be campaigned against as
such. On taxes, spending, and healthcare he is running well to
Huckabee’s right. His record in New York City contains conservative
accomplishment on crime, tax cuts, and welfare that few of his
rivals can match.
Giuliani has cleverly pitched himself as the Republican best
equipped to confront two challenges that concern religious
conservatives: Hillary Clinton at home and radical Islam abroad.
Combined with assurances on judges and exceedingly minor rightward
adjustments on abortion, he hopes to win at least a critical mass
of social conservatives.
So far, these efforts are paying off. According to a Sept. 28
Gallup poll, Giuliani wins plurality support from self-described
conservatives and voters who attend religious services regularly —
even though large majorities of both groups prefer other
candidates.
Where does that leave the religious right? Dobson argues that
their movement will be set back if the GOP nominates a candidate
with Giuliani’s social views. Gary Bauer, by contrast, has said he
cannot imagine “a bigger disaster” than Hillary Clinton in the
White House.
They could both be right. But if social conservatives don’t get
their act together, they will be complicit in their own
marginalization.
