The New Republic

No way, no how. That being said, if I'm wrong, and he somehow manages to win the nomination despite this vastly unpopular stance with the Christianist base, thus diminishing their influence within the party, I will be grateful for the small mercy.

- drdannyu

May 10, 2007 at 1:12pm

Bingo. That last paragraph got it exactly right. Well said.

- b.j.miceli

May 10, 2007 at 1:20pm

...the Christian right will have to oppose him with a 3rd party candidacy. If they do not, they have slit their own throat. Losing control over the primary process of the GOP would be the death knell for the Christian right. If Giuliani wins the nomination and they run a 3rd party candidate it will deliver the election to the Democrats and send the GOP scurrying back to the far right begging for forgiveness and promising all will be different next time.

- Fairfax

May 10, 2007 at 1:54pm

At last we Democrats can get in some good schadenfreude with out having to feel guilty about it. Oh how they writhe...

- D.Fell

May 10, 2007 at 2:02pm

Noam - two thoughts: 1) Schwarzenggerism = hope for post-W GOP. Repubs get it. 2) remember your father's (pre-Atwater) GOP? The country-club/suburban GOP of northern and midwestern moderates like John Danforth, Jacob Javits, Ed Brooke, Gov. Bill Milliken in Michigan? Y'all have very short memories. Why should we assume that the south-appeasing, fundie-dominated, rottweiler GOP of the Atwater-Rove era will not revert back to its suburban and business roots? Those who insist the Repubs will not nominate Giuliani are assuming that Republicans cannot read polling data or a map of the US, that they love W and ideological purity more than they love power, are suicidal, in fact. Unbelievably foolish assumptions, all of them. Underestimate Rudy at your peril.

- teplukhin

May 10, 2007 at 2:04pm

"Republicans...love...ideological purity" Tep, the GOP leadership may not, but certain voters do. Giuliani may win the nomination (though I doubt it), but for the church-going base of the party -- the hard-core anti-abortion religious fundamentalists -- his pro-choice stance is a complete non-starter. Many of them are single-issue voters, and the GOP leadership can go hang if they abandon them on that issue. Ever seen "Jesus Camp"? Well, you're looking at my upbringing. I was raised right smack dab in the middle of Ashcroft Country, and you can bet your ass that those people will not now or ever vote for a pro-choice candidate. Ever. I went to a church where the Southern Baptists in town were considered too liberal because they hadn't kicked Mel Carnahan out (he was from my hometown). These are not Machiavellian people, but true believers, and if they support a pro-choice candidate, I will personally send you a dozen roses. Rudy may get the nomination. So help me, he may even win. But the Dobson crowd will not vote for him, and if Karl Rove has had any influence at all, then I seriously doubt that the GOP is going to turn its back on the only people still supporting them. (Who the hell do you think makes up the 30% of America that still supports Bush?)

- drdannyu

May 10, 2007 at 2:31pm

Since this thread is new... A substantial portion of the Republican base believes abortion is not just offensive or a shame, but a Holocaust. These folks will never support Rudy Giuliani. Political parties do not change quickly, and the social conservatives are the dominant faction in today's GOP. The reversion you are discussing is impossible over one cycle if ever. The GOP of 2008, the party of Jacob Javitz!? Give me a break! Did you sleep through the 80's and 90's? Combine that with Giuliani's views on guns and the overall narrative, and it will be exceedingly difficult for Giuliani to get the nomination. I think you may be seeing the Republican Party as you want it to be, rather than the party it is, lead by George W. Bush and heir to the political spirit of Jefferson Davis, not Jacob Javitz.

- armadorsky

May 10, 2007 at 2:49pm

armadorsky - you ahve heard of what Schwarzenegger's done in California, haven't you? He's not a RINO, he's the most successful Republican officeholder in the nation. By a mile. danny - maybe you're right on this. As long as we're swapping anecdotes, I grew up in a solidly pro-GOP suburban, devoutly catholic (post-Vatica II) midwestern family, and this monomania about abortion strikes us as, well, bizarre. Maybe it's just some lingering snobbery + anti-southern or anti-protestant fundie prejudice-- in my father's day, baptists were not the dominant voter group-- but I just can't see today's GOP as lasting much longer in its present fire-breathing form.

- teplukhin

May 10, 2007 at 3:16pm

Dear Mr G found out that he just couldn't pander to the extreme right. He tried, and he just came across as pathetic. To his credit, a lot of his incompetent pandering probably reflected his own honesty...he couldn't with a straight face say what the right wing of the GOP needed to hear. So he said the hell with it...maybe, just maybe, the wingnuts would split the conservatives and a non-wingnut would win. Sure, it's a long shot. But his alternative was lying badly, not convincing anyone, and definitely losing. Cut him some slack.

- AlanK

May 10, 2007 at 3:19pm

In Iowa, NH, or SC, and California has open primaries. Arnold is a sui generis success, not representative of a trend in the party and not repeatable in the context of a Presidential primary, rather than a recall election for governor. The demographics of both parties have changed. This is the first Democratic Congress since the New Deal where Dems have a majority without a majority of the Southern seats. Similarly, the base of the GOP is no longer in wealthy northeastern suburbs or even the rural midwest, but the profoundly conservative white evangelical south where the "values" issues are of paramount importance. Again, look at the GOP as it is, not as you might wish it to be.

- armadorsky

May 10, 2007 at 3:22pm

I should also add that Arnie doesn't even represent a trend within California Republicanism. The GOP has made ZERO gains in the state legislature during Arnie's tenure. Democrats control 6 of 8 statewide offices; the only GOPer to win in 2006 won because he got to run against the pathetic has-been Cruz Bustamante. The CA GOP is still deeply conservative, dominated not by Arnie types but by hard-righties Duncan Hunters and Dana "Dino Flatulence is the cause of global warming" Rohrabacher. You think the GOP is too smart to consign themselves to electoral oblivion, but in California, they have done just that, Tep. Remember, Arnie didn't have to win a primary; he was first among over 100 candidates to replace Gray Davis on the general recall ballot. And Rudy's rivals haven't even begun to stick the wood to him on general faith issues or the gay stuff--perhaps the subject of conservative "monomania" even more than abortion. That is one Hell of a gauntlet to run, my friend...

- armadorsky

May 10, 2007 at 3:35pm

To reiterate my first post, I may be wrong. But if Rudy wins, I firmly believe that he will have done so to the explicit dismay of the Dobson cadre. If their sway within the party is subsequently diminished, I will be moderately comforted, even if whichever Democrat I end up supporting loses.

- drdannyu

May 10, 2007 at 3:42pm

Y'all assume the GOP bigs are suicidal. I find it hard to believe that all their hardnosed moneymen, their toughest operatives, and all their myriad pals in the boardrooms around the nation are going to allow W and the southern fundies to drive the GOP over a cliff. Maybe I'm a cynic, but I believe that powerlust is a far bigger factor in GOP calculations than godlust or righteousness. After teh colossal meltdown of the Bush administration-- good lord, even WF Buckley and Phyllis Schlafly are bitterly attacking W and the war!-- I just don't see a repeat of the cracker-NASCAR strategy. I think you're seriously underestimating OtherSide's ability to learn, adapt, play the game.

- teplukhin

May 10, 2007 at 3:56pm

teplukhin- "two thoughts: 1) Schwarzenggerism = hope for post-W GOP. Repubs get it." Schwarzengger was elected in one of the most liberal states in the union, without being the chosen candidate of the party establishment (if I remember correctely) under very unusual circumstances - a recall election largely driven by his efforts and motivated by dissatisfaction with Grey Davis. Despite being elected as a Republican, he has governed largely through compromise with the Democratically controlled legislature. If Republicans "got it", GWB would be compromising right now with a Democratically controlled Congress (or at least there would be strong voices encouraging to do so). It may happen, but I don't see it right now. If Schwarzengger was not governor right now, I doubt that he would be chosen as the Republican nominee. "2) remember your father's (pre-Atwater) GOP? The country-club/suburban GOP of northern and midwestern moderates like John Danforth, Jacob Javits, Ed Brooke, Gov. Bill Milliken in Michigan?" That GOP is gone. I can say that, having lived in two former strongholds of the old GOP (MI and IN) over the past fifteen years. The GOP has steadily moved to the right, while those who didn't move to the right (like my wife and myself) have left - and aren't coming back - we vote in the Democratic primary now. In this regard, the fate of Mitch Daniels here in IN is also instructive. He was chosen by the Republican party, I believe, largely due to his association with GWB. However, he has governed more as a moderate, and has gotten a lot of grief for it - largely from his own party. While there are a number of other reasons for Mitch's lack of popularity now (see the story in TNR a few months back on how running a state "like a business" is not really what people want), his case still illlustrates how far the IN GOP base is from someone who even approaches the old model.

- ragibbs

May 10, 2007 at 4:03pm

Fair enough, gibbs, but I would not assume that recent trends will be future ones. Expect mroe of this "change" message from Republicans in weeks and months to come: Some Republicans saw the Royal defeat as an unexpected ray of hope after the victory of Nicolas Sarkozy, who ran a Rudolph W. Giuliani-style campaign of zero tolerance for criminal or civil strife.... Tom Ingram, who was an adviser to Fred D. Thompson's 1994 Senate campaign and has talked to him about a potential 2008 presidential run, said that he thought the Royal race might be good for Republicans, but not because of gender or any similarity Royal had to Clinton. "It looked to me like more a change-versus-status-quo campaign, and I think that's interesting, since the change candidate was of the same party as the outgoing president, which is a little odd," Ingram said. "Maybe that's good news for Republicans."

- teplukhin

May 10, 2007 at 4:53pm

Anybody, Democrat or Republican, who tries to make inferences about American Presidential politics based on French Presidential politics is, frankly, an idiot. Two different countries with two dramatically different histories, political cultures, party structures, and issues at stake. The GOP candidates cannot articulate such a "change" message effectively in the primary beacuse the 28% of Americans who still think W. is a reincarnation of Chruchill are those that vote in primaries. Face facts, Teppy, today's GOP ain't a bunch of pro-choice WASPs polishing their 3-woods at the local country club, and the intitutional forces of fundamentalist Christianity and the South that hold sway are dominant. Not only is that GOP long gone, as Gibbs points out, but it ain't coming back in 2008.

- armadorsky

May 10, 2007 at 5:07pm

"The GOP has steadily moved to the right, while those who didn't move to the right (like my wife and myself) have left - and aren't coming back - we vote in the Democratic primary now." Yes, that's my admittedly anecdotal experience as well. My in-laws were once active in the hierarchy of their northeastern home state's Republican party, but disgust with the "wingers" drove them out. In 2004, they had a massive Dean sign in their yard, and in 2006 my father-in-law even ran for a local office as a Democrat. They're not going back.

- frippo

May 10, 2007 at 7:57pm

Beware smugness.

- teplukhin

May 11, 2007 at 1:06am

So now we have moderate REpublicans invited tot eh White House lashing out at Bush, and Bush's people engaged in shouting matches with them. William F Buckley excoriating Bush for the Iraq War. Republican moneymen desperately looking to distance the party from the Bushies and the Christian Right. Obviously, whoever wins the 2008 election, whether that person is a D or an R, will have successfully positioned him or herself as the un-Bush. Which is one of the things that Sarkozy did to such brilliant effect with his relationship with Chirac. The French despise Chirac. Chirac and Sarko despise each other and have made this known publicly on multiple occasions. Anyone who thinks that the next Repub nominee will not sooner or later stage a very decisive break with Bush on at least one major issue-- could be the surge, could be abortion, could be immigration or something else--is being not just smug but fatuous. Arma, try basic logic instead of smug sarcasm next time.

- teplukhin

May 11, 2007 at 12:45pm