“Hillary, on the other, would lead to resurge in conservatism, just as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton did.”
Burning the village in order to save it didn’t work in Vietnam, it won’t work in politics. The country is very different now than it was at the time it elected Reagan and even since 1994 when it but the GOP in charge of Congress. The country has taken a hard left hand turn, driven by this idiotic idea that things are so terrible now, and a huge influx of Hispanic voters. Theoretically conservative backlashes a decade hence are not enough to make palatable what will come of having an extremist Hillary White House and an extremist Pelosi and Reid Congress rubber stamping one another’s far left wing initiatives.
The Dems. will spend the next 8 years implementing socialism and creating middle class depedency on the government just like in Europe and the Dems. will manage as a result to create a semi-permanent majority and White House presence. When the GOP does manage to get back into the White House, perhaps 2 decades from now, just like European conservatives we will be unable to touch anything of the middle class welfare programs the Dems. will have created, as it will become another 3rd rail in American politics. Government run health care and other middle class vote buying schemes the Dems. will have dreamed up will have entrenched themselves permanently into American governance and the psyche of the American voters.
The GOP will be left to acting as nothing more than protectors of the welfare state thus created if they ever want to be in power again, the only difference being they’ll slow the creation of more and more socialism rather than being able to roll it back outright. You only need to look to Europe to see how that happens. That is what will move the GOP to the left, not Rudy’s election. He has never been a proponent of big government programs. That’s Mike Huckabee.
The difference between you and me is that I don’t believe Americans are against government nanny state any longer. I see more and more our spoiled society demanding government create a risk free, adversity free life. And that starts with healthcare. More and more Americans are becoming convinced that government needs to have a bigger hand in health care. And the first thing Dems. will do when they have total control of the federal government is to create government healthcare and then campaign from there to eternity on protecting it and on the fear campaigns of Republicans rolling it back if they get into power.
Sorry, what you propose is far too dangerous at a time like this. In addition to creating a dependency culture, the Democrats will dismantle our homeland security apparatuses, including the Patriot Act and NSA wiretapping and retreat from Iraq which will likely lead to an Al Qaeda and Iranian victory in Iraq, and the loss of the overall war on terror stemming from our capitulation in Iraq. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda and Iran will grow bolder from their victory, sitting atop billions in oil wealth to wreack havoc with in the world while the US retreats within itself to create a European-style dependency culture.
The Democrats just simply do not take national security seriously. To suggest we can afford 4-8 years minimum of them in charge of it while more and more of our enemies are sharpening their knives against us to create some imagined conservative renaissance is folly. Meanwhile, what will have become of our security stance and our position in the world while all this is going on? How many years can our country’s security survive in the face of Democratic neglect? How big of a hit will our economy take while our enemies take over control of the oil resources of the Middle East while Democrats just wave it all off saying oil is just evil anyhow. How many Americans will have to die for this experiment of yours?
In the end, the basis for claiming we’d get 75% of what we don’t want from Giuliani is simply his governing stand on abortion, identical to Thompson’s by the way, which is it should go back to the states to decide which is consistent with an overturn of Roe and his stand on guns (from the 90s) which he’s said there will be no new gun laws on his watch, realizing as the Democrats do that gun control is a political disaster. Otherwise, Rudy is solid on fiscal, tax and security issues, having cut taxes and spending in New York. He’s got conservative Ted Olson advising him on judge appoints and has said he will appoint Scalias to the bench. That being the case, whose judges are you more likely to get an overturn of Roe v. Wade from if that’s your goal, Hillary or Rudy’s?
You compare Rudy to Arnold. The difference is, Arnold is a Republican governing a liberal state one where he unfortunately felt he had to move left in order to keep power. Being a Californian, as pissed as I’ve been at Arnold’s leftward turn in the last 2 years he has stopped some of the worst Democratic excesses here by vetoing tax hikes, bigger spending in some instances, implementing worker’s comp. reform which literally saved this state’s economy, vetoing driver’s licenses for illegals and California’s version of the illegal alien Dream Act and a lot of other unbelievably looney things our Assembly as cooked up that would make your head spin. While Arnold has not been as conservative as I’d like and I’ve actually turned against him for the most part, I have to say we are still better off having had him as governor than a far left wing lunatic like Gray Davis, Cruz Bustamante or Phil Angelides who’d have rubber stamped everything coming out of our far left wing State Assembly. As disappointed as I’ve been since his re-election, I would rather have him as governor as not. I just think he wasted an opportunity in turning to the left on some things when he’s not even up for re-election again.
But back to my point. Rudy as president on the other hand would be governing a more conservative country than is California, even accounting for the leftward drift I see in the nation. Rudy will not have to move left to maintain himself in office like Arnold did. With him as president, socialism can be forestalled. But when Americans get a bigger taste of it under complete Democratic control, they’ll be intoxicated by it just like Europe. You may dispute the idea, but I do see Americans becoming more and more like Europeans as we become more secular, more thin skinned in their ability to deal with adversity and more adverse to self-sufficiency in the face of mounting economic and financial challenges.
Experts are saying the newest generation of Americans entering the workplace may be the first to have a lower standard of living than their parents. That almost guarantees Americans will relish government doing more and more to make up for that. Rudy will slow if not stop that process. Hillary will accelerate it.
So knowing all this, where does this idea come from that Rudy is predominantly liberal? Frankly he has fewer liberal positions than Thompson’s record in the Senate (I can provide a record of this if you don’t believe me) and Huckabees’s as governor. Read Rudy’s REAL conservative record, as opposed to the propagandistic misrepresentation put out by his opponents: http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_1_rudy_giuliani.html
That is utter nonsense. We know what happened when Bill Clinton reached office with a Democratic congress -- the Republicans filibustered Hillary's health care plan and other radical legislation. Such radical socialism resulted in Republicans winning a landslide election in 1994 and retaking Congress. That, in turn lead to welfare reform and balanced budget under Clinton.
It's also absurd hyperbole to assume someone as unpopular as Hillary Clinton could get reelected.
And, where do we get the idea Giuliani is a liberal? FROM HIS RECORD. He was radically pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, pro-gun control, coddled illegals, left New York with the second highest debt in the nation, supported affirmative action, supported McCain-Feingold, opposed school choice and appointed liberal judges by an 8-1 margin. HE'S LIBERAL. DENYING OTHERWISE IS DELUSIONAL.