Rudy Giuliani has decided to run for the Republican presidential nomination as a pro-choice candidate on the issue of abortion, betting his political ambition on whether other issues like taxes and terrorism will be enough to win him support from sufficient numbers of Republicans to win the nomination.
The London Times says:
The quarter-century hold that “values voters” from the Christian Right have had over the Republican Party is being directly challenged by Rudy Giuliani’s presidential bid. Having spent months failing to appease his antiabortion critics, the former New York Mayor and front-runner for the Republican nomination has decided to adopt a high-risk strategy by tackling them head on.
Yesterday Mr Giuliani underlined his “pro-choice” stance of supporting abortion rights while speaking at Houston Baptist University, while also addressing his key campaign themes of taxes and terrorism. The change of tack became apparent this week in Huntsville, Alabama, where he was questioned over abortion and fresh disclosures about a past donation to the Planned Parenthood organisation.
“Ultimately, there has to be a right to choose,” he said. Asked whether the party’s conservative base would nominate a candidate with such views for president, he replied: “That’s up to Republicans – I guess we are going to find out."
The New York Times cast Giuliani's new no-apologies pro-choice stance as part of a wider attempt by Giuliani related to a variety of social issues in which he is out-of-step with the Republican base.
Rudolph W. Giuliani directly challenged Republican orthodoxy on Friday, asserting that his support for abortion rights, gun control and gay rights should not disqualify him from winning the party’s presidential nomination. He said that Republicans needed to be tolerant of dissenting views on those issues if they wanted to retain the White House.
In a forceful summation of the substantive and political case for his candidacy, delivered to a conservative audience at Houston Baptist College, Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, acknowledged that his views on social issues were out of line with those of many Republican primary voters.
But he argued that there were even greater matters at stake in the election, starting with which party would better protect the nation from terrorism. Mr. Giuliani suggested that his record in New York, which included leading the city after the attacks of Sept. 11 and overseeing a decline in violent crime during his eight years in office, made him the most electable of the Republican candidates, no matter his stand on social issues like abortion.
In my view, Giuliani had no other realistic choice than to embrace his pro-choice record and stop trying to figure out how to be both pro-choice and pro-life at the same time. His attempt to do that was failing, and as he failed to straddle the divide his poll numbers were falling. Why is that? Simple. Giuliani's primary political asset is his image as a strong leader, but on the issue of abortion he was showing weakness.
By embracing his pro-choice views, Giuliani is betting that a largely pro-life Republican electorate will nominate a pro-choice candidate for president because of terrorism and other issues will trump social issues. I'm not sure he's right. But I'm not sure he's wrong, either.
It is a move he had to make, but it is a risky move for certain.
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