Published: October 22, 2007 01:04 pm            

RAASCH: 80-20 equation confronts Republicans

WASHINGTON — If Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican presidential nomination, it would be in some ways as revolutionary as Democrats picking Hillary Clinton as the first female nominee of a major American political party.

By favoring abortion rights, gay rights and gun control, the ex-New York mayor runs against the grain of the toughest-hewn planks in the Republican Party platform. If he were nominated, it would mean a Republican Party that has staked itself as the right-to-life party over the last 30 years had concluded that the threat of terrorism and the fear of another Clinton in the White House were transcendent in 2008.

Giuliani is arguing that he has the best shot at beating Clinton, would appoint “strict constructionist” judges, could run a “coast-to-coast campaign,” and has the best anti-terrorism executive experience in a post 9/11 world.

Can he succeed in redefining GOP values? This is one of the big mysteries of the 2008 campaign. His continued viability is already one of the campaign’s biggest surprises.

Three days before he was supposed to speak to a “values voters” conference, Giuliani was asked what he would say to evangelicals who fundamentally disagreed with him on abortion and gay rights.

“There is enough for us to agree about and enough on what we are facing in terms of the outside world — meaning foreign threats, domestic problems concerning spending and everything else — that it may just be, if they think about it, I am the best candidate,” Giuliani said. He urged doubters to look at the “whole candidate.”

The comments came at a news conference where Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who opposes abortion, endorsed Giuliani. The cowboy-booted governor equated his deliberations with buying a pickup. Even if it has an option he is “not particularly fond of,” Perry said, “I would not discard that pickup truck. I am looking at results, and I think that is what Americans will coalesce to.”

Former Sen. Robert Kasten of Wisconsin, who disagrees with Giuliani on abortion and gun control, also has endorsed him.

“We have a broader tent, a bigger coalition, for Giuliani than is traditional in the Republican Party, and I think that is good,” said Kasten, who helped write the GOP abortion plank in 1988. “I don’t agree with him on guns. ... Nevertheless, what Giuliani is doing is putting together a broader coalition, and I think it is a positive thing.”

Clinton’s pollster Mark Penn said Thursday that he believes one reason Giuliani remains viable is Republican “fissures” are so great that no one candidate has been able to emerge and that Giuliani has sopped up some of John McCain’s support. “I always say there is only so much tough-guy vote in the Republican Party,” said Penn. He said his polling shows that up to a quarter of Republican women might defect to Clinton this year no matter the GOP nominee.

Clinton’s nomination by the Democrats is not a foregone conclusion, but her formidable stature comes from her being one of the two central figures of the Democratic Party for the past 16 years. Except for the “triangulation” strategy when her husband decided to run against his own party to get re-elected in 1996, only Bill Clinton has been more identified with the Democrats since 1992. Sen. Clinton is the establishment Democrat in 2008.

Her nomination would be a gender revolution but not an ideological one.

Giuliani’s would be an ideological revolution. He is more akin to a Republican nominee circa the mid-20th century: a fiscal conservative, strong on national defense, the GOP nominee of before Roe v. Wade, the Moral Majority, Reagan Democrats — before millions of evangelicals and other Christian conservatives came to the table. Giuliani reaches back to Ronald Reagan’s old saw that someone who is with you 80 percent is not your 20 percent enemy.

Giuliani leads in national polls. But where it counts most, the results are less favorable. He has stumbled in Iowa, which will caucus Jan. 3, in part because he has not campaigned much there this fall. Giuliani is in a rumble in New Hampshire and South Carolina with McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson. Don’t count out longer shots like Mike Huckabee, who is attracting some attention in Iowa, or even Ron Paul, whose Internet appeal is worth noting.

Giuliani’s firewall appears to be Florida, which votes Jan. 29, and in a crush of delegate-rich states who vote Feb. 5, including New York, New Jersey, California and Illinois — all states where Giuliani polls strongly.

In the end, the GOP nomination in 2008 could hinge on a fundamental question of whether Republicans can agree to disagree on principles that have defined their party since the Gipper.

Contact GNS Political Writer Chuck Raasch at craasch@gns.gannett.com.

        

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