Late last week, reports circulated that religious conservatives met in secret to discuss the possibility of running a third-party candidate if the Republican Party selected a pro-choice nominee. (This singles out former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.)
In the New York Times on Thursday, Dr. James Dobson, leader of Focus on the Family, penned an op-ed to offer “several brief clarifications abouts its outcome and implications.”
After two hours of deliberation, we voted on a resolution that can be summarized as follows: If neither of the two major political parties nominates an individual who pledges himself or herself to the sanctity of human life, we will join others in voting for a minor-party candidate. Those agreeing with the proposition were invited to stand. The result was almost unanimous. [emphasis added]
Dobson explicitly laid out two different means of accessing qualifications, by his standards, for an acceptable candidate, which includes a pro-life stance. Dobson responded to the second, which addresses the issue of electability.
The other approach, which I find problematic, is to choose a candidate according to the likelihood of electoral success or failure. Polls don’t measure right and wrong; voting according to the possibility of winning or losing can lead directly to the compromise of one’s principles. In the present political climate, it could result in the abandonment of cherished beliefs that conservative Christians have promoted and defended for decades. Winning the presidential election is vitally important, but not at the expense of what we hold most dear. [emphasis added]
When not relying on pure fear-mongering and demagoguery, the Giuliani campaign stresses electability. (This includes releasing ridiculous projected maps with 210 electoral college votes out the gate to Clinton’s minuscule eighteen with California and New York listed as swing states.)
However, in one fell swoop, Dobson just obliterated Giuliani’s electability argument. Without religious conservative support, how in the world does Giuliani expect to have the entire Midwest and Bible Belt (sans Louisiana and Missouri) locked in?
Rudy is pulling an end run around the leaders themselves and directly lobbying the grassroots. I don’t know how well that strategy will work. Religious leaders themselves are vocally voicing their opposition to Giuliani and finishing it with an emphatic “Giuliani can’t win.”
Giuliani has been trending downward for several weeks now. Could this push Rudy out of front runner indefinitely?
3 Responses to “Rudy Giuliani’s Electability Problem”
New Rasmussen poll shows a hypothetical pro-life third-party candidate pulling 14% of the vote to Rudy’s 30 and Hillary’s 46. About what you’d expect I’d say. I thik Dobson would do it because (a) he like most people probably believes the Republicans are toast in 2008 anyway (b) by being able to claim he’s the reason they lost, he can insist he never be ignored again and (c) if he supports a pro-choice Republican who loses, it’s devastating because he has compromised his principles and ended up with nothing. I really believe this might happen. If they thought Rudy might win, they might just quietly fall into line, expressing some principled objections but mostly just staying out of it and quietly telling supporters to support the cadidate, but every poll that shows Rudy (or Romney) trailing Hillary makes this third-party run more likely. And of course you’ll start hearing the old Nader argument, that by bringing conservatives to the polls it will help Republicans down-ballot. And who knows, maybe it would.
I’m just wondering who that 3rd party candidate possibly could be? Anyone wanna guess? Santorum?
Something to say?
I certainly hope not. Not only would this massively improve our chances in the general, but it would be a way of proving, based on the numbers of votes delivered for this hypothetical third party candidate, just how large (or more accurately, small) the core of right wing nut jobs really is, hopefully reducing their influence everywhere.
For a long time, I’d thought Rudy was our biggest risk. If this break holds, he might end up being our biggest opportunity.
Left by Joe Helfrich
October 4, 2007 at 11:19am