Opinion: BREAKING NEWS: Nothing about Britney in here
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As momentous as B.S.’s child custody case is for American history, we’re examining another aspect of family here: the new cracks appearing in the Republican Party’s conservative coalition over the continuing national poll leads of Rudy Giuliani.
Until recently a remarkable thing in the Republican race was the continuing strength, even in conservative areas, of the former mayor with the troubled family life and urban liberal social views. Common wisdom suggested his halo from 9/11 leadership outshined the conservatives’ social doubts and that national security concerns and fear of a homeland terrorism attack, which consistently poll as GOP voters’ top priorities, were buying the tough-talking mayor a pass on older issues like abortion and gay rights.
Forty-three years ago Nelson Rockefeller’s divorce was deemed sufficiently scandalous to deny him any hopes of the Republican nomination. But times change and the soap-opera chapters of the Clinton years and congressional scandals may have lowered the bar on what’s prohibitive politically.
Giuliani’s strength has continued despite attacks from Mitt Romney on, for instance, the sanctuary city issue. The ex-mayor appears to be counting on a good-enough showing in Iowa, where Romney holds a large lead, and a strong showing, maybe even an upset, in New Hampshire to get him to other states where he’d fare better like Florida, where so many New Yorkers go to die.
Additionally, Giuliani has consistently polled as the most electable Republican. Few things unite many Republicans more than the spectre of Bill and Hillary Clinton back in the White House. And those motivations may be sufficient for many conservatives to hold their nose and vote for Rudy.
As The Times’ Michael Finnegan noted in his insightful weekend story, many concerned ...
evangelicals expect to unite later this fall, when the field may narrow some behind one of the other GOP’s less-than-perfect-but-better-than-Rudy candidates. That’s what Romney, Fred Thompson and the under-financed Mike Huckabee are counting on.
But now comes disturbing evidence for the Giuliani camp. The conservative columnist Robert Novak reported over the weekend that Giuliani is the only Republican contender to not yet accept an invitation to a ‘values voters’ conference in Washington in three weeks where some 2,000 conservatives are gathering under the auspices of the Family Research Council.
He still has time to accept, of course; if he can earn a respectable reception from the National Rifle Assn., for pete’s sake, what more is to fear from a family values crowd, even if the thrice-married mayor can’t show off his happy family like, say, the smiling Romney clan? Of course, they will have a straw poll at the conference, and we recall last summer what Giuliani did when it became clear Romney would win Iowa’s Ames straw poll: Giuliani skipped it.
Also this past weekend, word leaked out about a quiet recent gathering in Salt Lake City of a small cadre of social issue purists like James Dobson, who founded Focus on the Family; Tony Perkins, who heads the Family Research Council; former GOP candidate Gary Bauer; and outspoken activist Richard Viguerie, among others. They are so dissatisfied with the Republican field they debated issuing a letter threatening formation of a third-party candidacy should the GOP nominate a pro-abortion candidate.
In pre-9/11 days, that kind of Nader-like candidacy could split the Republican base enough to guarantee a Democratic victory. What’s different this time and will be played out in the next few months is, has the ever-looming spectre of terrorism attacks at home, combined with the powerful Clinton candidacy, now created a more immediate threat in the minds of the Republican right that might this time trump the old moral standby litmus test of abortion?
--Andrew Malcolm