Rudy the Moderate?
There is one unsettling notion about Rudy Giuliani that I've heard from a few people who I think should know better. That is the idea that Giuliani wouldn't be such a bad president, at least in terms of social policy, because he's "liberal" or "moderate" on a number of issues. I've heard it put a few different ways, but that's the gist.Well I aim here to disabuse my friends of this absurd notion. Overlooking the fact that a Giuliani presidency would be disasterous on account of his apocalyptic foreign policy ideas and his fascist domestic tendencies, there is every reason to believe that a Giuliani administration would pander to the religious right every bit as much if not more than Bush.
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The basic logic is this: Giuliani is running for the nomination of the 2007 Republican party, of which a large component is the religious right. He is already being faced with threats of a third party challenger if he wins the nomination, and he's probably going to have to make some big promises to the evangelicals to get their leaders to fall in line. In fact, he already has been making these promises. Every chance he gets, Rudy says he'll nominate "strict constructionists" judges, "in the mold of Scalia and Thomas."
Making promises to the religious right is hardly new territory for Republican presidential candidates, but often they turn out to be more or less empty. Bush has appointed some awful judges, but he has left the religious right unhappy quite a bit. He was able to, however, because the evangelical rank and file really believed he was one of them. Bush didn't really need the leaders of the religious right as much as Giuliani does. The rank and file are deeply skeptical of Rudy, so he need their leaders to get them to fall in line. That takes promises though.
What's more, if Giuliani is elected, he needs to make good on some of those promises if he wants to be reelected. That's why I believe that a Giuliani administration would be horrible for supporters of gay rights, womens rights, and the seperation of church and state. Giuliani isn't really one of them, so he needs to prove to them that he's worth voting for.
As far as I can tell, Giuliani isn't pro-choice or anti-choice, pro-gay or anti-gay. He's just pro-Giuliani. When being pro-choice helped him in NYC, he was all for it. Now, not so much. That's certainly not unique amongst the Republican hopefuls (see: Romney, Mitt), or politicians in general. But juxtapose the videos on youtube with what Rudy says in these Republican debates.
Giuliani is every bit as dangerous to women's rights, gay rights, and American's rights as every other Republican candidate. He's also more or less the frontrunner, and so it's about time liberals and progressives understood where his loyalties lie.
