Posted on 04/18/2007 10:04:30 AM PDT by writeblock
There is a political lesson behind today's Supreme Ct decision on partial birth abortion that some of you who now oppose Rudy Giuliani need to think about.
Back in 2004, Pat Toomey challenged Arlen Specter in PA for the nomination to the U.S. Senate. Both Rick Santorum and George Bush backed Santorum. They did so for three reasons. First, they believed Toomey had little chance to win in the general election whereas it was virtually certain Specter would win if nominated. Second, the Senate was too evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans to risk losing even one seat--which would mean losing control of the Supreme Ct. nominating process as well. It was no time for risk-taking by backing a conservative like Toomey who was a long shot to win in a state trending leftward. Third, they made sure Specter would cooperate with the President if he ascended to the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee in the next Congress.
Specter, as expected, won in the general election and the Republicans kept control of the Senate by a narrow margin. Specter kept his word and ushered-through his committee the two Supreme Court nominees, Roberts and Alito. The rest is history.
I mention all this because Santorum--the real unsung hero behind today's Supreme Court decision--paid a heavy price for his backing of Specter--even though he was the main impetus behind the new law banning partial birth abortions. Ungrateful social conservatives, vowing to seek revenge for his failure to back Toomey, took it out on him in 2006 by voting him out of office. Santorum took the hit for taking a course of action that was wise both politically and morally--and far more principled than the peevish social conservatives could appreciate at the time.
A similar situation is going on regarding the candidacy of Rudy Giuliani. Many conservatives understand that we must win back the Congress for us to be successful in achieving our principles in the long run. They appreciate that only Rudy Giuliani promises to win states that are now either trending left or wholly in the Democratic column. And they appreciate that he stands the chance of winning big, thus returning the Congress to the GOP. But as was the case with Santorum, a core of disgruntled social conservatives are out to sabotage Rudy's candidacy at any cost. This is myopic--and not unlike their reading of what Santorum was doing back in 2004 when he supported Specter. They fail to appreciate that the name of the game is to win elections. If we lose them, we lose everything, including any hope at all of furthering our principles in the long run.
Wow! Very well stated!
It is the truth.
Thank you, Jim!
Seriously this post has a major flaw in it when it suggests that Giulliani’s candidacy is on a par with Spector’s. Spector was a sitting senator in a liberal state. It was truly the case that he was the only viable candidate in the race.
Neither of these things is true WRT Giulliani. He is running for an open seat, and he is not the only viable candidate running in the Republican primaries. In fact he isn’t even close to the most winnable.
In fact when compared with McCain, Romney, and Thompson, Giulliani is the most likely to lose against the likes of the three top Dems simply because so many conservatives will stay home on election night, or vote 3rd party. Giulliani IMO will not win a majority of Republican votes in the Primary, and may not be able to win a plurality if two or three conservatives pull out of the race before the primaries.
Trashing social conservatives is bad for your FR posting privileges, apparently.
Say hi to the gang back at Rudy Central. Tell them to send someone less obvious next time. You were about as subtle as a Porta-Potty on a hot summer day.
Darn it. I was arguing with the vanishing trollbot.
Methinks the big guy's patience is wearing thin. :-)
Killed another thread! LOL!
Yes, it was really, really wise for PA to get rid of a conservative like Santorum in order to hang on to our pseudo-Republican RINO Specter. /s
Santorum bent over backwards to get Specter re-elected, because Rick OWED him, not because it was "wise...politcally," at least not wise for Santorum, and it meant diddley squat to the Republicans as they could have lost Specter and still had votes to spare to control the Senate, not to mention being better off without the snake!
Not only did Santorum sacrifice himself, but this might have been the thing that kept Bush from winning PA in the fall. The primary was in May and Bush was riding high, but began to gradually lose support until Nov. when Kerry won the election. Doesn't pay to p.o. your base - at least not if you're a Republican in a blue state.
You got that right! The Dem candidate was so weak, the Democrat party was perfectly willing to sell him out and swing votes to Specter! (Remember the Rendell/Specter election signs that mushroomed all over PA?) They would not have done that had Toomey been the nominee, but Toomey would have had the grassroots of the Republican party behind him.
JulieAnnie would be a disaster for the entire Party.
“Are you aware that the guy who beat Santorum — Casey — ran as a pro-lifer?” Yes, he’s aware. And he thinks that the PA pro-life Italian-American Reagan Democrats who abandoned Santorum for Casey are going to vote for pro-choice Rudy for ethnic reasons. LOL!
Republicans won't win California anyway.
I guess AH--nold has given them a reason to think that they could. Won't happen because Rudy is from New York. The Reason AH--nold is pronounced in that fashion, is because it removes the "R" from his name. California will not vote for a Republican as President these days, for more reasons than abortion.
The Bots just get sillier.
I don't believe that there was anything the conservatives in PA could have done to save him. The country club Republicans never voted for him, the Reagan Democrats who supported him twice defected and "went home," plus he endured the constant daily drumbeat of negative news by the local liberal press for two years longer than Bush did (look what the liberal press has done to Bush's numbers) because he was the # 1 Scalp the Soros bunch set out to bag.
It may or may not be true that Giuliani can pick up enogh blue-state votes to make up for the GOP votes from social and libertarian conservatives that he will lose. I doubt it, but none of us has a crystal ball.
What does not make sense, however, is your contention that a Giuliani win would have GOP congressional coattails. The coattail effect happens when GOP constituents who vote a straight-party ticket are energized and turn out in high numbers. The opposite happens if you're counting on drawing a relatively large percentage of Giuliani's support from blue-staters -- even if they pull the lever for Rudy, they are likely to vote dem in other races. That's why they're blue staters. `
Good point!
Good point!
I live in Pittsburgh, and I don’t think that’s why Santorum lost. He still picked up conservative votes — he lost mostly because Casey gave the pro-life Reagan dems an alternative.
There was also Rick’s absurd contention that he and his large family lived primarily in a tiny two-bedroom house in a modest neighborhood (because Rick long ago criticized congresscritters for moving to DC, and didn’t want to admit that he ended up doing the same thing). On top of that, there was the issue of sending his kids to PA cyber-school even though his main residence is in DC, and charging the taxpayers for that (he ended up refunding the money, as I recall). None of this did Rick any favors.
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