The Ground Zero of the Giuliani Campaign

Still another piece on the Guiliani/third party issue, this one from the Dallas Morning News.

Five months ago, Deal Hudson, a leading Catholic conservative, sat in a Washington restaurant and made a prediction.

He said if Rudy Giuliani becomes the Republican nominee for president, there will be a third-party challenge by an anti-abortion candidate.

“Almost a certainty,” he said over lunch at the politically connected Capital Grille. “Which means you’re siphoning off 5 percent, maybe 10 percent, of the vote.”

The result, he predicted darkly, would be the election of President Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Contrary to what some say, Giuliani isn't the only candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton; he's just the only one the "country club Republicans" want to beat Hillary Clinton. Almost any of the Republican candidates could beat Hillary, provided they had the backing of the big-money donors and the establishment.

In fact, it's only when the big money/establishment and the base of the party (values voters) go along divergent paths that Republicans lose. Remember the Bob Dole candidacy in 1996? The power brokers backed someone the base just couldn't get excited about. How do you expect it will be if the brokers back someone that the base not only can't get excited about, but they can't even bring themselves to hold their nose and vote for?

Giuliani's camp is busy trying to reassure values voters that at least he'll appoint constructionist judges to the Supreme Court. While this is good, the voters have been lied to before. What's more, as important as it is to appoint Constitutional judges to the Supreme Court, a presidency is even more important than that.

A president is more than just someone who signs bills and appoints judges. A president sets the tone for the country. A president appoints the department heads that run the federal government and set lower-level policy for how that government is run. A president is a powerful shaper of the kind of legislation that comes out of congress (how else would Ronald Reagan have accomplished the great things he did with a Democrat congress?). A president is an advocate for certain values and a specific philosophy--an advocate with congress, culture and the people.

Values voters aren't comfortable with this tone-setter/appointer/shaper/advocate being someone who thinks it's a matter of choice to kill your unborn child, or that people should be forced to recognize homosexuality as normal, natural and healthy.

Values voters are willing to make some compromises (George Bush and 12 years of a mostly dysfunctional Republican control of Congress prove that). But they won't compromise the most foundational of those issues--especially when it's several of those issues all at once. Giuliani's just not their guy on abortion and homosexuality, and values voters just aren't going to say killing unborn children and sodomizing your neighbor is okay.

Giuliani has good leadership credentials and appears solid on national defense. However, he's not the only candidate with leadership ability or a commitment to keeping America safe and strong.


Giuliani supporter Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) draws the same conclusions most of us do in the event of a third party bid:

The Texas congressman is taking that case to the media, from the Christian Broadcast Network to The New York Times. And in doing so, he has drawn the dire consequences of a third-party revolt.

“We have already seen the answer to this, and that was eight years of Bill Clinton,” he said, citing Ross Perot’s third-party challenge in 1992. “It would mean eight years of Hillary Clinton. That is a vast desert for any conservative.”

Unless a lot of middle-of-the-road voters get tired of the status quo and come over to vote third-party, that's what it'll be.

But Sessions and other establishment Republicans shouldn't be naive about whether values voters will bolt in the event of a Giuliani nomination. Whether they form a third party, or they sign onto some other third party candidate (Constitution, Libertarian, Reform, etc.), or they simply stay home, a lot of values voters will not support Giuliani.

And you'll still have a Democrat in '08. The Republican establishment needs to face up to this reality sooner rather than later, and back a candidate that doesn't alienate the Republican base. Otherwise we'll have a replay of 1996.