Posted on 10/15/2007 4:29:47 AM PDT by StatenIsland
“The most important ‘traditional value’ in this election is keeping the Clintons out of the White House,” says Greg Alterton, an evangelical Christian who has “spent my entire professional career considering how my faith impacts, or should impact, the arena in which I work” — government and politics. Alterton writes for SoConsForRudy.com and counts himself among Rudolph W. Giuliani’s social-conservative supporters.
People like Alterton are important, if overlooked, in the Republican presidential sweepstakes. Anti-Giuliani Religious Rightists are far more visible. Also conspicuous are pundits whose cartoon version of social conservatism regards abortion and gay rights as “the social issues,” excluding other traditionalist concerns.
New York’s former mayor “has abandoned social conservatism,” commentator Maggie Gallagher complains. He “is anathema to social conservatives,” veteran columnist Robert Novak recently wrote. Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson has said: “I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. It is an irrevocable decision.” Dobson and a cadre of Religious Right leaders threaten to deploy a pro-life, third-party candidate should Giuliani be nominated.
This “Rudyphobia” ignores three key factors: Giuliani’s pro-family/anti-abortion ideas, his socially conservative mayoral record, and his popularity among churchgoing Republicans.
While Giuliani accepts a woman’s right to an abortion, he told Iowa voters on August 7: “By working together to promote personal responsibility and a culture of life, Americans can limit abortions and increase adoptions.” Among Giuliani’s proposals to achieve this end:
“My administration will streamline the adoption process by removing the heartbreaking bureaucratic delays that burden the current process.” Giuliani notes that sclerotic court schedules, exhausted social workers, and tangled red tape trap some 115,000 boys and girls in foster care and prevent moms and dads from adopting them.
Giuliani proposes that the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives promote organizations that help women choose adoption over abortion.
He would make permanent the $10,000 adoption tax credit.
Giuliani also would encourage states and cities to report timely and complete statistics to measure progress in abortion reduction.
This is no sudden conversion on the road to Washington. As mayor, Giuliani did nothing to advance abortion. That helps explains why, on his watch, total abortions fell 13 percent across America, but slid 17 percent in New York. More significant, between 1993 and 2001, Gotham’s tax-funded Medicaid abortions plunged 23 percent.
Medicaid reimbursement figures from the New York State Division of the Budget allow a rough calculation of the Giuliani administration’s expenditures on taxpayer-financed abortions. This estimated funding dropped 22.85 percent, from $1,226,414 in 1993 to $946,175 in 2001. (See more here.)
Giuliani’s campaign for personal responsibility helped create a climate that discouraged abortion. Moving 58 percent of welfare recipients from public assistance to self-reliance, starting before President Clinton signed federal welfare reform, may have encouraged women and men to avoid unwanted pregnancies. New York’s transformation from chaos to order — which helped slash overall crime by 57 percent and homicide by 67 percent — probably reinforced such self-control.
Compared to the eight Democratic years before he arrived, adoptions under Giuliani soared 133 percent. Fiscal years 1987 to 1994 saw 11,287 adoptions; this grew to 27,561 between FY 1995 and FY 2002.
In another pro-family policy, Giuliani divested 78 percent of City Hall’s vast portfolio of confiscated, property-tax-delinquent homes. These were privatized and sold to families and individuals.
Giuliani proposed eliminating the city’s $2,000 marriage penalty. (As individuals, a husband and wife each would enjoy a $7,500 standard deduction, but only write off $13,000 if they jointly filed taxes.) He chopped it to just $400, letting joint-filers share a $14,600 deduction.
Giuliani also opposed gay marriage in 1989, long before it shot onto the radar. “My definition of family is what it is,” Giuliani told Newsday 18 years ago. “It does not include gay marriage as part of that definition.”
On Day 24 of his mayoralty, Giuliani jettisoned New York’s minority and women-owned business set-aside program. He later explained: “The whole idea of quotas to me perpetuates discrimination.” During the 12-year “Republican Revolution,” Congress deserted the fight for colorblindness.
Giuliani sliced or scrapped 23 taxes totaling $9.8 billion and shrank Gotham’s tax burden by 17 percent. This left parents more money for children’s healthcare, private-school tuition, etc.
On education, Giuliani launched a $10 million fund to support 17 new charter schools. Zero existed before he arrived. Giuliani also ended tenure for principals, fought for vouchers, and torpedoed City University’s open admissions and social-promotion policies.
“I took a city that was also known as the pornography capitol of this country,” Giuliani told New Hampshire voters last June. “I got through a ground-breaking re-zoning that was challenged in the courts. We won. And now, if you go to New York City, you don’t have to be bombarded with pornography. And the city has grown dramatically — economically, physically, and spiritually.”
Giuliani accomplished this and plenty more — not in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but in New York City. He could have governed comfortably as a pro-abortion, pro-welfare, pro-quota, soft-on-crime, tax-and-spend, liberal Republican. Instead, Giuliani relentlessly pushed Reaganesque socio-economic reforms through a City Council populated by seven Republicans and 44 Democrats. What’s so liberal about that?
This record, and Giuliani’s headstrong style, may explain why he leads his competitors and impresses churchgoers. An October 3 ABC/Washington Post poll of 398 Republican and GOP-leaning adults found Giuliani outrunning former senator Fred Thompson, 34 percent to 17, versus Senator John McCain’s 12 percent, and Willard Mitt Romney’s 11. (Error margin +/- 5 percent.) As “most electable,” Giuliani took 50 percent, versus McCain’s 15, Thompson’s 13, and Romney’s 6.
An October 3 Gallup survey found Giuliani enjoying a 38 percent net-favorable rating among churchgoing Catholics, compared to McCain’s 29, and Thompson’s 25. Among Protestant churchgoers, Thompson edges Giuliani 26 percent to 23, with McCain at 16, and Romney at 7.
What do Giuliani’s Religious Right detractors really fear he will do about abortion? If he can overcome their suspicions, secure the GOP nomination, and win the White House, do Giuliani’s critics actually believe he would squander that victory and enrage the GOP base by pushing abortion? Do his foes honestly think Giuliani would request federal abortion funding in violation of the Hyde Amendment he says he supports or appoint activist Supreme Court justices, rather than Antonin Scalia- and Clarence Thomas-style constitutionalists, as he says he would?
Having kept or exceeded his mayoral promises on taxes, spending, crime, welfare, and quality of life, why would he break his presidential promises on such a signature GOP issue? What kind of bait and switch do Giuliani’s foes truly worry he will attempt?
The contrast between Giuliani and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, could not be sharper. She would appoint pro-abortion justices and lower-court judges. These jurists also would be softer on crime, racial preferences, unions, and eminent-domain abuse than Giuliani’s would be.
Hillary Clinton also would take President Bush’s embryonic stem-cell program and expand it in every direction. If Giuliani does not padlock it, he at least would be more sympathetic than Clinton to privatizing it. If America must banish embryos to Petri dishes, let Lilly, Merck, and Pfizer do this. It is inconceivable that Hillary Clinton would shift anything from Washington to the private sector, especially America’s “greedy, wicked” pharmaceutical companies.
Religious Right leaders should study Giuliani’s entire socially conservative record, not just the “socially liberal” caricature of it that hostile commentators and lazy journalists keep sketching. Giuliani’s October 20 appearance before the Family Research Council will permit exactly that. Also, while Giuliani may not be their dream contender, social conservatives should not make the perfect the enemy of the outstanding. Ultimately, they should recognize that a pro-life, third-party candidate would subtract votes from Giuliani in November 2008.
That would raise the curtain on a 3-D horror epic for social conservatives: “The Clintons Reconquer Washington” — bigger, badder, and more vindictive than ever.
I’m tired of all these tootyfruityrudy threads.
Jim Robinson purged the most obnoxious of the rudybots from Free Republic for a reason. This reinfestation doesn’t seem to have anything new to commend it. It is the same level of argumentation that we all went through before.
This is a socon forum, not a GOP forum; rootytoot is a solib. End of story.
Will FR embrace socialism to make way for Rudy Giuliani as a Republican presidential candidate?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1821435/posts
vanity | April 21, 2007 | Jim Robinson
Posted on 04/21/2007 6:42:25 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Very well put and I agree.
The problem is the Conservative candidates are poliing at 5%.
It’s time to open up our minds and find the things we do agree with. I think Rudy will be the guy and I will take him any day over Hillary. Don’t hand another win to the democrats.
Not so.
Conservative Thompson is polling much higher than 5%.
Hmmm, since you asked, well - YES - they are. At least in THIS world. No matter how deep one's faith in the world to come, we must take care of the business in this world FIRST.
As was once said:
"Render unto Caeser what is Caeser's, and unto God what is God's."
As long as I have to live in this world (unto death, I presume?), my interests on earth are preserving the country and what it has traditionally stood for.
I intend to support the Republican nominee, be it Rudy, Thompson, or anyone else. The alternative is beyond unacceptable.
- John
No matter how deep one’s faith in the world to come, we must take care of the business in this world FIRST. As was once said: “Render unto Caeser what is Caeser’s, and unto God what is God’s.”
***Actually, you kinda got that backwards. Jesus was saying that his audience needed to render unto God what belonged to Him, as much as the converse — actually MORE than the converse. And, keeping in mind that Jesus Christ was put to death for claiming to be God, you need to render to Him what is His due.
Here’s an analogy to work with. Take a small box and fill it with some rocks. Then add some rice, filling it to the top. Now take all the same stuff, but in a different order. Put in the rice first, then add the rocks. What you’ll find is that if you put in the big stuff first, the small stuff will fit around it. But if you put in the small stuff first, the big stuff won’t have room. The republican tent is the box. The Big issues are the socon issues, to be put in first. The little issues are things that can be accommodated around the bigger stuff. A candidate who tries to focus on the smaller issues first and leave out the bigger issues has no way of getting all of us into the tent. He splits the party. The candidate who gets the big stuff right and as much of the little stuff that will fit, he can fit more into the tent. We’re often amazed at how much rice can keep fitting in. Rudy Giuliani flunks some of the big issues, and on some of the little issues it looks to me like anyone else’s rice would do just as well. All that remains for us to agree on is which are the bedrock principles and which are not. Why would there be so much invective aimed at rudy from the right? Because there are some bedrock principles that he is leaving out. Bad move. I see rudybot postings all the time saying that they would vote for Hunter, and I see socon postings that say they would not vote for rudy. That’s a BIG indicator of a few bedrock principles that are being left outside the tent in order to let in some rice.
That same analogy works with God as the rocks in the box, and the rest of our lives & details as the rice. We fit God into our lives, and let the rest fill in where they can fit. THAT is rendering unto God properly and Caesar properly. Doing it in reverse leaves out the most important part.
On social issues, there is no difference between RG and HRC.
Well said. The problem is giving TOO MUCH to Caesar and really not knowing the difference..
I saw Guiliani and his wife on Hannity & Colmes and was very impressed. I’d feel a hell of a lot more comfortable with him in there than with Clinton. There are huge differences between them. To suggest otherwise is sophomoric.
What about Embryonic Stem Cell Research??? The Baby in a Blender blockbuster money maker for Wall Street. It will be one of the biggest corporate welfare gigs ever seen. Where is Rudy on this???
What do you think of President Bush? I'd call him a huge RINO, maybe even an AINO (American in name only) after his repeated attempts to sell the country's sovereignty down the river.
There are huge differences between them. To suggest otherwise is sophomoric.
***I suggest otherwise, so call me a sophomore. I’d rather have an enemy in front of me I can counter than an enemy behind me stabbing me in the back.
I like how Cogamer had to say it, so once again I’m stealing it:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1909436/posts?page=158#152
some people on this board are PUSHING it. They not only expect us to grin and tolerate it, they expect us to help!! They see conservatives being marginalized, and then bash conservatives for not supporting the politicians who are marginalizing them. It’s insane!
Let’s look at this through the prism of other movements: Would pro-choice women vote for a politician who announced he wanted to make abortion illegal? Would black voters ever support a politician who wanted to bring back segregation? Would muslims ever support a candidate who was on the record as saying islam was evil?
Would their friends even TRY to tell them they HAD to vote for these candidates even if they didn’t want to?
No! But conservatives are expected to vote for anyone who has an R after their name, no matter how dangerous to the movement, just to avoid the ire of a bunch of wishy-washy phonies whose only brush with conservatism is the fact that they post to this website.
They need to understand - if they nominate Rudy, THEY are responsible for what follows. THEY know many will refuse to support him. So, turning their flawed logic on its head : If they support Rudy, they must actually want Hillary to win. Indeed - if Hillary changed parties they’d be telling us we had to support HER to stop OBAMA!!!!
152 posted on 10/10/2007 6:28:13 PM PDT by COgamer
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What I find to be odd about this whole conversation is that those who rail against Conservatives here seem to forget that we have no personal control over the Conservative body, and that in fact, no one does.
What will undoubtedly happen is completely automatic, with no input to the masses of the Conservative wing. All that we Conservatives here are doing is delivering a warning message.
What keeps the Conservatives "in the fold" for the Republicans, be it the Constitutional (libertarian) or the Social (Christian) Conservatives, are the principles set out by the party. If the party does not embrace the values of these factions they will vote elsewhere- They always do.
Whether others take heed is the point of decision, as the outcome is inevitable.
Julie is the only one that for sure cannot beat Hitlery.
He would lose 100% of the “NASCAR Dads.”
Rudy is a whore, Fred..........nuff said.
Suppose Fred Thompson gets the nod. Which would be a better use of $1,000: supporting Fred Thompson's campaign or buying a(nother) gun along with some ammo and range time? Which would be a better use of time: supporting Fred Thompson's campaign, or going to the range.
Now suppose Rudy is nominated. Would you answer the questions the same way?
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