Giuliani vs. Social Conservatives

As reader Maclin Horton points out, there are some theocons/social cons who will never, ever accept Rudy Giuliani as the GOP nominee. This from the editorial in the National Catholic Register, which foresees complete disaster for the pro-life movement if Giuliani is the GOP standard-bearer:

A Republican Party led by a pro-abortion politician would become a pro-abortion party. Parents know that, when we make significant exceptions to significant rules, those exceptions themselves become iron-clad rules to our children. It’s the same in a political party. A Republican Party led by Rudy Giuliani would be a party of contempt for the pro-life position, which is to say, contempt for the fundamental right on which all others depend.

Would a pro-abortion president give us a pro-life Supreme Court justice? Maybe he would in his first term. But we’ve seen in the Democratic Party how quickly and completely contempt for the right to life corrupts. Even if a President Giuliani did the right thing for a short time, it’s likely the party that accepted him would do the wrong thing for a long time.

Would his commitment to the war on terror be worth it? The United States has built the first abortion business in Afghanistan ever. And that happened under a pro-life president. What would a pro-abortion president do?

The bottom line: Republicans have made inroads into the Catholic vote for years because of the pro-life issue. If they put a pro-abortion politician up for president, the gains they’ve built for decades will vanish overnight.

My friend John Zmirak makes a similar point more entertainingly here. You should read it if only for the image of the future governor of Louisiana screaming "Arm the unborn!" as he sped down the highway. Priceless!

But look: I really have trouble understanding what it means to be so lock-step sold out to the GOP as a pro-lifer. Do we really think that the Republicans are going to be so much better than the Dems on the life issue? I'm not talking about what they say; I'm talking about what they do. I've always wondered why pro-lifers are so grateful that Republican presidents trouble themselves to speak to the January 22 annual march by remote hook-up, if at all. Understand, people: the Republican presidents are ashamed to be seen with us. If they won't even come speak at the most important annual event on the pro-life calendar, what does that tell you about how dedicated Republicans are to protecting unborn life?

As a general matter, I of course would prefer to vote for a pro-life Republican (or an authentically pro-life Democrat over a pro-choice Republican). But given how uncertain the GOP's devotion to the culture of life is, and given how important issues like basic competence in foreign affairs and national security (including responding to domestic emergencies) are, I am not at all comfortable saying that I wouldn't under any circumstances vote for a pro-choice Republican like Giuliani. I think George Will makes sense:

Giuliani is comprehensively out of step with social conservatives and likely to remain so. He probably assumes two things.

First, that some of the social issues have gone off the boil because argument about them seems sterile: Democrats have scant interest in federal gun control legislation; scientific advances may obviate the need for using embryonic stem cells; cultural changes will do more than any feasible legislation could do to reduce abortion numbers; the way to change abortion law is to change courts by means of judicial nominations of the sort Giuliani promises to make.

Second, that his deviations from the social conservatives' agenda are more than balanced by his record as mayor of New York. That city was liberalism's laboratory as it went from the glittering metropolis celebrated in the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961) to the dystopia of the novel "Bonfire of the Vanities" (1987). Giuliani successfully challenged the culture of complaint that produced the politics of victimhood that resulted in government by grievance groups.

He favors school choice, he opposes bilingual education that confines students to linguistic ghettos and he ended the "open admissions" policy that degraded City University, once an effective instrument of upward mobility. The suggestion that Sept. 11 required city tax increases triggered from Giuliani four adjectives: "dumb, stupid, idiotic and moronic."

Personally, I have real concerns about Giuliani's temperament. And I'm going to be looking very closely at the way all the candidates approach the war. In the Texas GOP primary, I'm more likely to vote for someone else than not. But his stance on abortion will only be part of what helps me make up my mind. And I don't see how it will be the end of the world for pro-lifers if the 2008 nominee is pro-choice. It might even be good, because it will force us to make inroads with the small but increasing number of pro-life Democrats.