Posted on 08/21/2006 6:16:02 AM PDT by areafiftyone
The S.C. Republican Party’s sponsorship of “An Evening Honoring Rudy Giuliani” last week spoke volumes.
It reflected what some said is a shift in attitude toward GOP candidates with more liberal views on social issues.
There’s a greater degree of tolerance and acceptance, party officials said.
Giuliani, who rose to national prominence for his take-charge performance after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, supports gay rights, gun control and legalized abortion, which puts him at odds with most Republicans.
Nevertheless, he has traveled the country extensively on behalf of GOP candidates this year while acknowledging his own interest in a possible 2008 presidential bid.
Although his liberal stance on social issues is likely to disqualify him with religious conservatives, the former New York City mayor remains in great demand as a speaker before Republican groups.
In this visit — his first major political trip to South Carolina — Giuliani attended a fundraiser for conservative GOP congressional candidate Ralph Norman, the one-term state representative who is challenging Democratic U.S. Rep. John Spratt, a 24-year House veteran in a hotly contested race in the 5th District.
Giuliani ended the day in Charleston at a star-studded $2,500-a-couple fundraiser for the state Republican Party.
He packed the place.
“Rudy is a very popular figure,” GOP chairman Katon Dawson said. “We didn’t have any problem with him coming.”
Giuliani, affectionately known as “America’s mayor,” is seen as middle-of-the-road by most voters nationally, according to Rasmussen Reports, an electronic survey company.
It found 36 percent of Americans see him as a political moderate, 29 percent said conservative, and 15 percent said liberal. Twenty percent are not sure.
Former state GOP chairman Barry Wynn said the party needs to take a fresh look at the way it regards new voters, especially those new residents who’ve settled along the coast and are starting to have an impact on state party politics.
Those voters tend to be more progressive in outlook and are more inclined to support someone like Giuliani.
“I think Rudy could be more popular in South Carolina than most people would think,” Wynn said.
The debate in 2008 isn’t going to be about tax cuts, abortion or Social Security reform — Republican favorites.
“The overarching issues this time will be national security and leadership,” Wynn said. “Everything else will fit under that.”
Such a scenario favors Giuliani, Greenville consultant Chip Felkel said.
Francis Marion University political scientist Neal Thigpen, a GOP activist, said Giuliani is in a “special category.”
He’s a “glittering personality” with star quality who can get away with supporting legalized abortion and gay rights.
His position on those social issues “would not hurt him as bad over the long haul as one may think. If John McCain had the same position, it would hurt him a lot worse.”
Needless to say, the hard-core religious right won’t surrender territory on social issues. They’d rather go down in flames than win.
But unless terrorists no longer are a threat to the United States, national security and leadership will be at the top of the issues heap in 2008.
Voters won’t be concerned about gay rights or abortion. What matters most will be their own security in a volatile world.
And the candidate who stands to benefit is Giuliani.
“If your house is on fire,” Wynn said, “you want a guy with the hose.”
Of course there was no anti-war movement in 2001. There was NO WAR to oppose.
Your silly attempt to concoct one is only that.
No he would NOT be as bad. That is absurd but I don't expect any better given your audience.
We are not discussing socialist movements although you are bound and determined to drag them in even when irrelevant.
I like this one:
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. —
Thomas Jefferson
It's a little early yet. Don't think something like this won't be tried, though.
Some of those "hard core Pro life" here were slamming the President for not being sufficiently pro-life for them. Those are about the only ones who will not vote for ANY Republican if the opponent is Hillary.
The FR poll is a joke. Who in their right mind does not know that FReepers are the extreme right in NO way representative of the rest of the GOP or electorate. Most FReepers did not even vote.
Tancredo would not get a double digit percentage in any real contest.
Think of all the Imaginary People who haven't been born. That could be in the 100s of millions.
Anti-abortion is not the prime issue and never will be. Even Hitler was anti-abortion would the social conservatives vote for him rather than Guiliani.
It was Clinton's lies in court which raised the outrage not the acts themselves.
That is not the point and you know it.
Dear qlangley,
There is also history.
Over the last few decades, the social conservative movement has been a critical part of the Republican coalition that has permitted the Republican Party to win seven of the last ten presidential elections.
I might note, as well, that the three times that the Democrats won, they won with candidates who at least initially presented themselves as social issue moderates.
In looking at who comprises this Republican majority, where the actual votes come from, social conservatives have been necessary to elect Republican presidential candidates.
Nominating a Republican candidate who is diametrically opposed to the entire social conservative agenda doesn't appear to be a historically reliable way to win the presidency.
sitetest
>>>>Of course there was no anti-war movement in 2001. There was NO WAR to oppose.
STONEWALL Veterans' Association is made up of the same group that created and supported the Vietnam Veteran's Against the War Movement. This is an SDS/Weatherman's group.
See David Mixner of the Vietname War Moratorium and Clinton who worked with him.
http://whois.domaintools.com/vvaw.org
vvaw.org went ACTIVE again on June 2001.
Copy:
Domain ID:D72557046-LROR
Domain Name:VVAW.ORG
Created On:12-Jun-2001 20:53:08 UTC
Last Updated On:23-Oct-2004 09:37:28 UTC
Expiration Date:12-Jun-2011 20:53:07 UTC
They then spun off the Americans agains the Iraq War movement.
>>>>We are not discussing socialist movements although you are bound and determined to drag them in even when irrelevant.
We sure are.
Maybe not in your world, but in my world we were all disgusted and outraged that a President did the immoral and adulterous acts of which he is accused. It's wasn't just the lie, it was the acts.
Just to the social conservatives understand where I'm coming from, I am a church-going woman who votes for Conservative and Right to Life candidates whenever possible.
But Giuliani was special. We were told for 20 years that New York is ungovernable, but he managed to govern it. He cleaned up the streets and brought tourism and business back to the city. He doesn't take crap from anyone, Republican or Democrat. I admire him greatly.
He is, in fact, so liberal that Democrats called him a fascist.
I don't think Rudy will really play in the deep south.
You already tried that silly line of reasoning. It is invalid. There was no war to oppose in 2001. Leftist groups morphing into an anti-war group do not change that FACT.
Concocting an anti-war group when there was no war to oppose shows the desperation of the Rudiphobes.
Clinton would not have been impeached without the lies in Court. Most of us here were already disgusted and outraged with Slimy long before Monica surfaced.
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