Friday, February 09, 2007

Rudy Giuliani's Challenge   [John Podhoretz]

If you haven't read it already, I highly commend to you the NR editorial on Rudy Giuliani's candidacy. This is the most important piece of writing so far on the subject of the 2008 Republican nomination, and not only because it says something nice about me in the opening paragraph. It's important first because it offers a key acknowledgment of the attractions and seriousness of the Giuliani candidacy. The blithe assertion by many on the Right that Giuliani is not a viable candidate in the teeth of all available evidence showing him either to be the frontrunner or a co-frontrunner for the nomination has not been a sign of intellectual or political health.

It is a form of wishful thinking to disregard the genuine excitement and enthusiasm surrounding Giuliani across the country and deep into the Republican party's roots simply because Giuliani's views don't conform with a kind of social-conservative checklist. It's true that you wouldn't expect someone with his views on social issues to be doing so spectacularly well. But he is, and a fact like that has to force serious students of present-day Republican politics to revisit their certitudes.

That is exactly what the NR editorial represents. It says, "Rudy Giuliani must be taken seriously. And so, what now?" It, in essence, asks Giuliani to address the issues raised — from stem-cell research to a clear statement about the jurisprudence behind Roe vs. Wade to gay marriage — in a systematic and coherent manner. And indeed, that is exactly what he should and must and, I imagine, will do.

And some of those more coherent answers will be deeply troubling to social conservatives, I have no doubt. But if Rudy proves willing to grapple with them and to offer a kind of entente of the sort we've been discussing lately — which is to say, he will appoint strict-constructionist judges and staff a federal bureaucracy with people who do not attempt to enshrine liberal social policy — will social conservatives accept the offer of friendship and comradeship from Rudy?

That could mean not their endorsement of him but their willingness to join his general-election effort should he win the nomination. If he were to succeed in winning the nomination, that would mean a couple of things: 1) some people accept the offer of friendship; 2) some people decide they don't care about the social issues that much because we're at war; 3) some people decide they want to do anything to defeat Hillary and Rudy has the best chance of doing so, in part because he might bring a Democratic state or two (New Jersey, Pennsylvania) into play.

So I don't think he can win the nomination without making some peace with social conservatives. The question then is what responsibility social conservatives — or, more precisely, those who lead social-conservative organizations — will do then. Because here is the profound problem facing us in 2008: If social conservatives decide to run a third-party candidate out of disgust with Rudy (or even John McCain, who could cause the same sort of schism on, say, immigration), they will ensure the election of Hillary or Barack or John Edwards.

No one should surrender their deepest beliefs on the altar of political expediency. But American politics is most often a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. That's the real choice social conservatives may have to make in 2008 — between a principled stand that leads to a terrible result or a more pragmatic stand that requires some real bending.

PS: This may be a long post, but at least there's nothing about ethanol in it. 

02/09 03:32 PMShare