Bell Curve The Law Talking Guy Raised by Republicans U.S. West
Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Giuliani's Right to Choose

Giuliani has now made it clear that he intends to run as an unambiguously pro-choice candidate. With this stance, can he win the Republican nomination? And if he wins the Republican nomination, will his pro-choice platform attract enough support from independents to outweigh the loss of support from the evangelicals?

Finally, is it healthy thing for the Republican party that a major candidate like Giuliani has asserted his right to choose a different (and more mainstream) position... or will the anger and infighting over abortion do the Republican party more harm than good during this long, long primary season?

6 comments:

The Law Talking Guy said...

The best thing for the Democrats is for the Republicans to tear each other apart over abortion. A majority of Americans are pro-choice. By making it okay for Republicans to question the abortion platform, it will encourage moderates to bolt the party when the inevitable happens: the majority of the religious right

The candidate who emerges is going to be the one who accords with the opinions of the median voter. The median Republican voter is more right wing today, more fundamentalist Christian, than at any time in the past, because there was a falloff in moderates in 2006. Therefore, the chances of a pro-choice candidate emerging are the lowest they have ever been.

Anonymous said...

I agree with LTG. Add to this Giuliani's other personal baggage (affairs, divorces etc) and I think he is only doing well in the polls because either Republicans haven't seen the ads that Brownback, Romney and Huckabee are going to run against him or because the polls are asking too broad a spectrum of voters.

I think the Religious Right has a veto over candidate selection in the GOP. Will it be good for the GOP to have a high profile pro-choice candidate? Perhaps. But it will be bad for the GOP WHEN he gets shredded.

RBR

Alex said...

I totally disagree. Giuliani has a great shot of winning the nomination and also, unfortunately, of winning the presidency. When it comes down to it, I fear a lot of Republican voters will vote "who is the candidate who can best protect us from the scary brown people?" and a lot of them will think it's Giuliani. We'll see. Hope I'm wrong.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. Which part of the GOP will win out: The Theo-fascist wing or the racist wing?

RBR

Dr. Strangelove said...

I am told there is still a fair amount of latent racism against all kinds of brown-skinned people in Texas and the Deep South, including Italians. I have no real evidence of that rumor, but I thought I'd share it anyhow. Because I'm irresponsible like that ;-)

Anonymous said...

When Geraldine Feraro ran as VP, there were lots of rumors that either her family or her husbands had mob ties.

RBR