The Rise of the Metro Republicans How McCain, Romney, and Giuliani may redraw the red-blue map.

The Weekly Standard ^ | February 19, 2007 | Noemie Emery

[Clintonfatigued]

Here are the three leading candidates for president in the Republican party, a party based in the South and in the interior, rural in nature, and backed in large part by social conservatives: the senior senator from Arizona, a congenital maverick with friends in the press and a habit of dissing the base of his party; the former governor of deep-blue Massachusetts, son of a Michigan governor, a Mormon who looks, sounds, and comes across as a city boy; and the former mayor of New York, the Big Apple itself, ethnic and Catholic, pro-choice and pro-gun control, married three times, and a man who--Neil Simon, where are you?--moved in with a gay friend and his partner when he was thrown out of Gracie Mansion by his estranged and enraged second wife.

None hails from the South, none looks or sounds country, none is conspicuous for traditional piety, and none is linked closely to social conservatives. At the same time, none is exactly at odds with social conservatives either. None is a moderate, in the sense of being a centrist on anything or wary of conservatives; rather, each is a strong conservative on many key issues, while having a dissident streak on a few. Each has a way of presenting conservative views that centrists don't find threatening, and projecting fairly traditional values in a language that secular voters don't fear. In a country that has been ferociously split into two near-equal camps of voters for at least the past decade, this is no small accomplishment, as it suggests the potential to cross cultural barriers, and therefore extend one's own reach. If one of these men wins, it may mark a return to broader, national parties. And the iconic map of the recent elections,

[Unmarked Package]

Good summary of why Romney is the conservative choice among the three viable candidates.

Romney....is a fiscal conservative (who refused to raise taxes in the state of Taxachusetts), to the right of McCain and Giuliani on immigration and campaign finance reform, way to the right of Giuliani on most social issues, and on some to the right of McCain. He backs the federal amendment to outlaw gay marriage, and has fought the use of embryos for stem cell research, leading National Review's John J. Miller to observe that he has "done his best to defend the culture of life on . . . the most inhospitable terrain in the country."

_______________________________

A negative for Romney compared to McCain and Giuliani mentioned by the article’s author, Noemie Emery, can be rebutted; namely:

“Romney lacks the war-on-terror credentials of McCain and the mayor…”

Let’s not overlook that Mitt Romney had to manage the first Olympic Games in a post-9/11 world. Complex and costly security arrangements for the huge international event were a major part of the challenge of turning around the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics. That counts for something in real world management experience with the WOT.

In terms of policy statements dealing with radical Islam compared to Rudy and McCain, Romney has made equally hawkish, anti-jihadist statements on many occasions; notably against Iran in his foreign policy speech delivered at the Herzliya, Israel Security Conference (see video excerpts below).

Romney: On Why Wishful Thinking on Iran is Wrong
On Confronting the Iran Threat: A 5-Point Plan
Concluding Remarks on the Iran Threat

Finally, there is a personal example showing how Romney feels about Iran’s leadership. It was Mitt Romney that denied Massachusetts state police protection to Iran’s former President Katami when he visited Boston to speak at Harvard. Romney thought it was a mistake to invite Katami in the first place.

[George W. Bush]

Good summary of why Romney is the conservative choice among the three viable candidates.

I've been charmed by the sincerity of Mitt's groveling recently. He may have some chance after all. Of course, more vehement flipflopping will be required if he's going to cut to the right of the other two. I suspect the southern evangelical vote may have turned liberal on us. The first overt sign was that Rick Warren lovefest for Obama. Not good for us, not good for Mitt.

[TommyDale]

In all fairness, there is a large overlap between Evangelicals and gun owners. But it is a large number, something the liberal wing of the GOP (Ken Mehlman) would like us to forget.

[Ciexyz]

Most intriguing article.

[deport]

Interesting take on what many seemed to deny as plausible..... time will tell whether the red/blue state mix will be altered in this coming election. Form deep within the article.

Giuliani is not only pro-choice, but also anti-gun and gay-friendly, an urban cowboy who marches in gay rights parades (just like a Democrat), and appears in drag at a correspondents' assembly, though looking less like the plausible Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie than like Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot. This should count him out in the South, and with social conservatives--but so far, at least, it has not. How come? Because they admire him despite his stance on those litmus-test issues. Indeed, they see him in some key respects as a fellow social conservative who brought law and order to a city in crisis, the head-banging crime fighter who bonded with cops, flushed the porn shops out of Times Square, and protested loudly when a dung-draped Madonna was shown at the expense of the public at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. He has endeared himself to conservatives everywhere by taking on, and often defeating, the New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union. He is the enemy and the antithesis of the therapy culture that is at the core of the modern liberal project, the foe of relativism and friend of retribution and punishment, when it is called for. The word evil doers would not seem strange on his lips.

Giuliani's accomplishment in hosing down a sink of a city that some people think could have passed for Gomorrah has allowed him to bond with the base of his party as no other figure has done. And no one else emerged from the events of September 11 in quite the same way, as both a wartime leader and in some ennobling way as a survivor of the attacks, too. "Giuliani can't do southern preacher," wrote Hanna Rosin, the former religion writer for the Washington Post, "yet there's a current of spirituality running through his speech on the subject of 9/11, and how that day shattered and changed him [as] he stood watching debris fall from the Twin Towers, and realized that it was, in fact, people jumping. He was lost, without a plan. . . . Yet somehow he found sources of inspiration and strength. He remembered what he'd always known: 'the value of teamwork,' the need to 'be there when the going gets tough.' . . . Giuliani does not mention God, except once, in a joke. But his speech is infused with the kind of uplifting message that these days shares boundaries with preaching. 'You've got to care about people. . . . You've got to love them,' he says." What he has done is to give a religious speech that appeals to his base without alarming a larger audience. In the end, few seem to be thinking of guns, or abortion, or gays.

Professional analysts, both liberal and conservative, keep insisting that Giuliani will never survive the Republican primaries. Non-professionals sense something different. In December 2004, blogger Hugh Hewitt, who speaks frequently to groups of conservative activists, began taking informal polls of his audiences, and found Giuliani sweeping three-fourths of the field. At Real Clear Politics, Tom Bevan began polling his readers, with similar results. "I consider myself a 'religious right' person, and am nonetheless enthused about Rudy," read a typical email, and others hit notes that were similar: "I disagree with Giuliani on some issues, but I can live with honest disagreements, having tremendous respect for his character and judgment."

What's causing this temperance on the right-to-life watch? A combination of things. There's the undoubted urgency of the war and peace issue; the fact that a pro-choice Republican elected by the votes of pro-lifers and indebted to them would act differently than a pro-choice Democrat elected with the help of the abortion-rights lobbies; and the understanding that Rudy is in no way personally hostile to social conservatives. As John Podhoretz noted in the New York Post, "past 'liberal' GOP candidates and would-be candidates have sought the nomination by taking strong stands counter to the views of the party's conservative base." Unlike Rudy, "those candidates . . . were engaging in battle against the social conservatives. They were fighting a culture war within the GOP." As a law-and-order conservative, Giuliani would be unlikely to name liberals to the bench, and he has written that Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts are the kind of justices he would appoint to the Supreme Court. Will that be enough to quell the fears of some social conservatives that a Giuliani-led Republican party would be a betrayal of the issues they hold dear?

[George W. Bush]

Being pro abortion and twice divorced does not a Catholic make.

You think that many Catholics will vote against him? I don't. And I think the evangelicals have gone squishy or even liberal on us in '06.

[Democratshavenobrains]

The Dims have learned that if the pretend to be conservative and don't nominate New Englanders, they can get a bare majority of the vote.

[Verginius Rufus]

Abortion was not an issue when Goldwater ran for President. He may have moved left on social issues in his declining years, but people were not factoring those issues into whether to vote for him in 1964.

[RepublicanPOTUSin08]

And I think the evangelicals have gone squishy or even liberal on us... You're right. I watch the polls pretty closely, and I've seen a couple where evangelicals are now pretty evenly divided between GOP and Dem. What's worse, most evangelicals are now against an aggressive GWOT in these polls (against the surge, etc). So it's not so simple as, "Oh, we just talk gay marriage and we'll win Ohio!" Because the evangelicals have bolted for other reasons. The Rick Warren/Obama connection is a perfect example. Many evangelicals were never conservatives to begin with, except on a few social issues. We can't go all anti-war to get them back. This is the central issue of our time here. We have to unite the folks who are pro-war behind the GOP. And many of those folks are probably South Park types: leave me to my online gambling and my gun and my bedroom, but if any country in the Middle East threatens us, two words should apply: Parking. Lot.

[Beagle8U]

Yes, there is overlap an not all even vote or are of voting age. But it is a very big block of voters that are serious about the issues.

It is impossible for a Republican to win without them.

[McGavin999]

Goldwater was always more of an Arizona libertarian. He was very typical of the people who were born and raised here. It was mostly "go away and leave me alone" and "America should be strong so it WILL be left alone" His stance on abortion was because of those libertarian leanings. He might not have approved of it, but figured it was none of his business and for sure wasn't the government's business.

[Bittersweetmd]

70 million Evangelicals is the last count I saw and most vote Republican
In my thoughtful opinion most VOTED Republican. Have you heard of Pastor Gregory Boyd? Or how about Pastor Rick Warren going to Syria, North Korea, and kissing Senator Barack Obama from his church pulpit during a large conference there. This is turning into a much larger movement than most know. Sorry for saying so but let the ignorant be ignorant. Not meaning you of course.

[Prost1]

Many claim to be a Reagan conservative. To me, Goldwater defined conservatism. And, Reagan gave the knockout speech in support of Goldwater. I heard it and remember it.

[Burma Jones]

As a Southerner, I can understand the political benefit to the Republican Party in not always having a Southern face. However, as a conservative, I sincerely fear that Giuliani and McCain, and possibly Romney, will suppress the conservative base dramatically. Rudy might be able to get 48% of the vote in NY, McCain may be able to do the same in California, and perhaps even Romney can do the same in Mass. Not much consolation if the nationwide result is an Electoral College thumping.

[Beagle8U]

Don't forget the 45million gun owners. there is more than one single issue to contend with.

[McGavin999]

He was a fine man and there was a lot to admire about him.

[Democratshavenobrains]

If Giuliani wins, the Italian vote would make him very competitive in New York and Jersey. Make the Dims spend money there for a change.

[Beagle8U]

"Have you heard of Pastor Gregory Boyd? Or how about Pastor Rick Warren going to Syria, North Korea, and kissing Senator Barack Obama from his church pulpit during a large conference there."

I hadn't heard much about Boyd or Warren. I'm not too worried that the RATS will make big gains in the religious voters with their oddball groups that they have embraced in the past 25 years.

[MassachusettsGOP]

Wow, that was a great article. I think I might even subscribe to the Weekly Standard.

I think with McCain, Giuliani, Romney, as this article states, states like NJ, PA, ME, NH, CT, MI, WI, MN, OR, WA, and maybe even California are back in play. Not only would this be good in winning the Presidency, but coattails could give us the Congress we so badly want back. I think thats a proposition worth sacrificing a few policy points with our Republican nominee for.

[Plutarch]

Rudy might be able to get 48% of the vote in NY, McCain may be able to do the same in California, and perhaps even Romney can do the same in Mass. Not much consolation if the nationwide result is an Electoral College thumping.

Well, here is the map from 2004. Note the competitive states in the North, and the mostly deep red States in the South and Mountain West. You can hardly disagree that Romney and Guiliani would do better in those competitive northern states (and NH) than would a conventional Bush-redux southern/western Republican. Please name the red states that you say we would lose by offering a candidate such as Romney or Guiliani? I don't see any.

Sure, it would be great to have 100% conservative President. However, such a candidate would not get us past 50% unless he had magnificent political talent and appeal. We don't have any such candidate, if we did he would come immediately to mind. Instead we have to go looking for a conservative savior, and project our hopes on candidates we had never heard of three months ago. Unearthing 100% conservatives of middling talent and appeal will not get us past 50% and we will LOSE.

I support Romney, because he is the most conservative of the three viable candiates, has a record as being as conservative as feasible in MA, is working hard to please conservatives now, and has plenty of political talent and potential appeal to a wider electorate.