Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The "Big Tent"   [John Podhoretz]

One of the most consistent talking points on the Right over the past 20 years has been the way anti-abortion views have been systematically purged from the Democratic party — with pro-life politicians like Richard Gephardt (and Al Gore!) having to abandon their original views in order to seek higher office and denying pro-life pols time at national conventions etc. Contrasts have long been drawn between this tendency and the ability of the Republican party to house people of contrasting views in their ranks. That's where the image of the "big tent" comes from.

Yesterday, we kicked up a minor fuss on this site about Rudy Giuliani and his view on abortion based on a sliver of a quotation in which he seemed to say he wanted to "get beyond" pro-life views. The entire sentence he spoke was this: "And then I think our party, our party has to get beyond issues like that where we can have people who are very good people who have different views about this, they can all be Republican because our party is going to grow and we’re going to win in 2008 if we’re a party that is characterized for what we are for and not if we’re a party that’s known for what we are against. …”

This is classic big-tent rhetoric. Rudy is saying, plainly, that the GOP can house people with differing views on abortion so long as everyone respects everyone else. In his case, he is paying respect to pro-lifers by promising to select judges like Alito and Scalia. But it's clear Giuliani is testing the "big tent" aspect of the GOP as never before because he is the most serious candidate for the Republican nomination in 28 years to hold pro-choice views (the previous serious candidate: George Bush Sr., before he changed his mind).

The problem is that for many conservatives and Republicans, the GOP might only be a big tent so long as their opinions remain the tentpoles.

04/17 01:53 PMShare