Word: giulianis
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...Election Day 2006, then we're already halfway to the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, currently scheduled for mid-January 2008. Here's what we've learned so far: In both parties, there's a top two-Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democrats, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain for the Republicans. There's a third-place candidate on the edge of the first tier-John Edwards and Mitt Romney. There's a big jump down to the next tier of declared candidates, none of whom seem to have much of a chance. And there...
...Giuliani's alleged straight talk seems even more dubious than Romney's apparent duplicity. First, Giuliani is not really standing firm. He's adjusting his position as much as he dares, and then he's standing firm. He used to support federal funding for abortion. Now he doesn't. And now, like Romney, he has been personally opposed to abortion all along. In the second Republican debate, he referred glibly to "millions and millions of Americans who are of as good conscience as we are, who make a different choice on abortion." Antiabortion Republicans watching may have thought, Whoa! What...
...Second, Giuliani's story line about standing firm would have been more impressive if it hadn't been accompanied by stories--apparently leaked by his staff--about how they came to settle on this strategy and how clever it is. In the first Republican presidential debate, Giuliani tried to project ambivalence (not a bad place to be on abortion), but it came out as indifference (a bad place to be). He said it was O.K. with him if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and O.K. with him if it didn't. So his campaign decided to go with...
...roots go back to John F. Kennedy's famous speech to the Protestant ministers of Houston, in which Kennedy essentially offered voters a deal: If you won't allow my religion to affect the way you vote, I won't allow my religion to affect the way I govern. Giuliani and Romney both want that deal...
...that deal is no longer available. It is bizarre for a politician to promise not to let his most profound moral beliefs affect the way he governs. By contrast, Giuliani's point that Republicans will lose the election if they don't lighten up on abortion may well be true. Not only that: it may be the only assertion made by Giuliani or Romney on the subject of abortion in this campaign that the speaker really, in his heart, believes...