Peter Schrag: Will GOP be the Schwarzenegger-Giuliani party?

Sacto Bee ^ | May 23, 2007 | Peter Schrag

[Jim Robinson]

Rudy Giuliani's pirouette around abortion finally landed him on a pro-choice position that no major national Republican candidate has held since 1980. That was when George Bush I, who had backed abortion rights, told Ronald Reagan he could support his party's anti-abortion platform.

For Bush even the vice-presidency was worth a conversion. The conversion, as everybody knows, was tribute to the growing political power of the religious right. Reagan, who had signed the California Therapeutic Abortion Act in 1967, at the time one of the nation's most liberal abortion rights laws, didn't care much one way or another. He later said he'd regretted signing the California law.

Giuliani, who chose to dress necessity in the garb of principle, may have decided that, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, he could ignore the waning Republican orthodoxy on social issues and not be turned to stone. That Giuliani, also like Schwarzenegger, has an ego that eclipses any party platform didn't hurt.

But he may also have sensed that the political clout of the Christian right had passed its high water mark. The death last week of Jerry Falwell, who had done so much to forge that power, was only coincidental but it was symbolic nonetheless.

(If the deceased had been someone like porn publisher Larry Flynt, Falwell, who described the Sept. 11 attacks as God's punishment for America's tolerance of "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians," might have ascribed it to a higher power).

Still, Falwell's passing is likely to be seen as an indicator of change. As is ever the case, the political power of the religious right depended as much on image as on substance: It had power in part because politicians believed it had power. The 2006 elections turned a growing number into un-believers.

[goldstategop]

It helps to remember that California voters in the most Democratic and liberal state in the Union, voted down in a referendum, the illegal drivers license law. They would vote down other goodies for illegals given the chance. People in the biggest Blue State in America don't like the idea of Mexifornia. The elites do.

Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[calcowgirl]

Well you’ll get no disagreement from me, then! No need to duck!

[SierraWasp]

"gangGreen brigade"

Just got back from a trip to the Oregone Ducks (aka green gang) territory from whence I coined that "gangGreen" moniker yer throwin around!!! (grin)