Social conservative leaders take stock of GOP field

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0412/p02s02-usmb.html

Social conservative leaders take stock of GOP field
Tony Perkins, Mark Earley, and Gary Bauer gave their take on Giuliani's lead, the prospect of a Fred Thompson candidacy, and McCain's struggles.
By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

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WASHINGTON - As poll after poll shows former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani continuing to lead among Republicans running for their party's 2008 presidential nomination, the obvious question for social conservatives is this: Why?

Mr. Giuliani, after all, takes liberal positions on abortion, gun control, and gay rights. At a Monitor breakfast on Wednesday, reporters posed this question to three presidents of top social conservative groups: Gary Bauer of American Values, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and Mark Earley of the Prison Fellowship.

Answer No. 1: It's still early in the process, and most of the voting public (as opposed to journalists and political professionals) still has not tuned into the presidential campaign in a serious way.

Answer No. 2: Many conservatives are not single-issue voters and, in the post-9/11 world, are factoring in a greater complex of issues than just the social issues.

"There's a strong percentage of self-identified conservative Republican voters who do look at all the issues through a sort of a moral prism, and certainly the life issue is an issue that matters to them, but saving and defending Western civilization is seen as a moral issue, too," says Mr. Bauer.

"So a candidate like a Giuliani, who is perceived as being very strong in that area, is someone who is going to get a closer and a harder look and the possibility of support until people go through the whole balancing act of looking at all these things and deciding what at this particular time matters the most to them," Bauer adds.

Mr. Perkins agreed with that assessment but then fired a warning shot on the possibility of a Giuliani nomination. "I don't think the party can successfully nominate a pro-abortion candidate and win the White House," he said. "I think it's a ticket for Hillary Clinton to win the White House."

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to say, but he's right that Senator Clinton would smash Rudy Giuliani in a head-to-head contest for president.

I like it that the GOP base is befuddled and contradictory about which candidate to support. Nice to see them stumbling around in the dark, bumping into things, accumulating bruises and cuts.

us Dems aren't in agreement either. But there's a big field of Democratic candidates out there I'd easily vote for and with versus what the GOP has offered up. I'd say it sucks to be them at the moment. :evilgrin:

Go, blue team!

I think the opposite, Rudy would destroy HRC. The GOP base would be mobilized like never before (anti-Hillary), and Rudy would peel off more than enough of the "Independent" vote in addition to a sliver of moderate-conservative Democrats. If the GOP wants to win the whitehouse, they'll elect Rudy. If they want to lose, they should nominate one of Tony Perkins idealogues.

if only because we are more politically aware and know his flaws more than the general public. He is still the front-runner, but we seem to have lost our focus on him. Maybe we're just bored. or hoping that his weaknesses will become apparent when the time is right, but that never happened with Chimpy, unfortunately. Romney seems like a joke, but he's the only young/healthy GOPer that looks presidential, he's ambitious and chameleon-like, and is raising buttloads of money. I can't get complacent.

people on this forum know that Rudy is a big league sketch ball. But to most of "the folks" he is America's Mayor, the man who saved the day on 9/11. Furthermore, there's no doubt in my mind that the media will accentuate some of the myths around Rudy that give him his shine. I'm hoping beyond hope that Rudy loses in the primaries, because I think he's going to be near impossible to beat in the general.

but if Rudy somehow survives to win the GOP nom, I think we beat thea crap out of him.

I don't see him as their nominee, though, so it's hard to get that far down the road.

The Iraq disaster weighs against Rudy also, not just McCain and Romney.

Hagel might launch an indy bid if a pro-Iraq, pro-surge is nominated, and the indy votes would largely be his and not Rudy's or Mitt's, etc.

And a far-right nutbag party could easily form with a far-right nutbag like Brownback at the helm. That would split the GOP vote considerably.

as McCain and Chimpy--I have seen newspaper comments and LTTE that seem to suggest that people think he will protect us from terror, but is not "tied to the war". So we gotta TIE him to the war ourselves, if the media won't do it. I read in Salon that Hagel is introducing a global-warming bill with Dick Durbin, believe it or not--hmmm, what's he up to? The writer seemed to think it might be candidacy-related. Could be an Indy scenario coming up, or with Fred Thompson having cancer, Hagel might decide there's room for him in the GOP, especially since the surge seems to be tanking. I'll bet any money that the media would love to pit someone like McCain against an actual anti-war GOPer, just for the fireworks, and Ron Paul isn't going to cut it.

objective about Rudy Giuliani.

I'm completely opposed to his candidacy and would prefer that the oxygen wasted on keeping him alive be made available to others.

I really don't care for his attitude and think he's unqualified for public service.

I don't like Romney and McCain either.

!

Three guys that really have no business running for prez, but are in it totally for their own self-glory and egos. I am, as you say, completely opposed to their candidacies. I just feel that McCain, who as a vet certainly still loves his country, and wants to serve as prez for at least SOME of the right reasons, is a slow-motion trainwreck. The sad thing is, if he were his old rational self (from 2000), he'd be pretty well set to take both the nom and the general. Strange how things are turning out for him, although I don't quite count him out yet. The rest of the lineup needs to get some traction soon, if they hope to have a prayer.

especially on McCain.

That McCain 2000 seems to be long gone, or mostly gone anyway, and the replacement McCain for 08 just isn't cutting it.

Staff cuts, tepid fundraising, odd public appearances, and jumbled soundbites.

Just not the same guy at all.

that none of them hate enough to be supported by "christians." It has been suggested by "social conservative leaders" that if one of the gop candidates led an assault on a gay bar resulting in massive destruction and collateral death they would separate themselves from the field. Killing a doctor at a woman's clinic would also result in that candidate being held in high esteem by "conservatives."

Many of my relatives are conservative but not very politically aware. They often ask me what I think of the prospects in both parties because they know I follow politics more closely than them. When I point out the Giuliani is socially liberal (quote past policies and personal peccadilloes) but is also a strong neocon, they are immediately turned off. Most true conservatives are appalled by the neocons. They only defend * out of a knee jerk reaction to defend the Repug party. A socially liberal neocon is their worst nightmare and might get them to vote for a Democrat.

There's also answer #3. Most who claim to be socially conservative really don't care about those issues but use them to pander to a shrinking but active base that actually are social conservatives.

claim to be socially conservative but really aren't--I'll bet a lot of them probably damn don't care that much about gays or abortion, they just always have this vague feeling that the country is going to hell in a handbasket and thus they align themselves with conservatives so as not to be associated with the loony left. My mom was a Republican all her life until GWB in 2000. Her big reason for being a GOPer was abortion. As she got older, she realized that Roe V Wade didn't bring about the downfall of society after all, and that abortion would probably always remain legal--so the issue lost its political grip on her (she is still pro-life). That's probably half of the GOP electorate, I'll bet. That's why I'll be interested to see if Giuliani wins the nom--the realistic everyday GOPers vs. the True Hardcore Believers.