Misaligned Priorities

Tony Blankley, a leading light of the neocon punditocracy, again tries to make the case for social conservatives to support Mayor Giuliani for President:

So in this season of slow-motion GOP suicide, it is only logical that earlier this week, leaders of the party's social-conservative wing declared him not only unacceptable, but so unacceptable that they may run a third-party candidate if he gains the nomination. By doing so, they would assure the election of Hillary, who, notwithstanding anything she might say to get elected, surely will set in motion policies that will kill more unborn humans and advance more biblically prohibited policies than Rudy ever would. Moreover, she would appoint the most liberal judges she can find. Rudy would nominate the most conservative ones. I fail to see the moral high ground to which these divines claim to be climbing.

Well, let me point it out to you, then, Mr. Blankley. First the lie that Giuliani would appoint "conservative" judges to the courts has been long-since debunked. Giuliani has no record of appointing conservatives to the bench; as Mayor of New York, he appointed liberal judges. He hasn't even promised to appoint conservatives. Giuliani has promised to appoint "strict constructionist" judges to the courts, but he himself gave the game away in the first debate when he said that a strict constructionist judge might vote to uphold Roe v. Wade, and that that would be fine with him. Giuliani opposes efforts to defend marriage, and supports embryo-destructive stem cell research.

They also would be walking away from a coalition that, since 1981 (and particularly since 2001), has delivered a higher percentage of their agenda than it has to any other part of the conservative coalition. Fiscal conservatives received tax cuts but not spending cuts. Hawk conservatives received assertive foreign policy but bad management of it and a dangerous running down of the Army. But social conservatives received first-rate Supreme Court justices, a real effort at faith-based initiatives, constant rhetorical support for biblical values, and in fact, they have been denied nothing of consequence that brought them into politics.

Indeed? Abortion is a thing of the past? Congress passed that life amendment we've been asking for? Did the marriage amendment pass when the GOP was still controlling both house of Congress? I failed to notice that -- perhaps because it didn't happen. And those "first rate" Supreme Court justices you mentioned? They won't reverse Kelo for the fiscal conservatives? They won't support the administration's construction of executive power for the hawks? They were just for us social conservatives? Well, they haven't reversed Roe yet, so really we've gotten very little more than just talk.

It would be an act of historic ingratitude to sabotage the GOP candidate at this point. It also would be a short path to undermining everything they have gained in national politics in the past quarter century.

Wrong again. The "historic ingratitude" is being shown to social conservatives, whose candidates can't get party support. Where was the GOP when Lierberman was running for re-election? Supporting Lieberman, not his pro-life Republican opponent. Where is the punditocracy on Huckabee, Brownback, Tancredo, Keyes, and Hunter? You guys crowned three "front-runners" early on, and no one's heard about anyone else since.

Now we're told that we must support Giuliani, a personal contributer to Planned Parenthood, a man who doesn't understand, let alone support family values, a man whose thinking is so foggy (or who believes ours is) as to claim to "personally oppose" abortion but who gives aid, comfort, cover and support to abortion providers both publicly and privately. A man lacking in the dignity and decorum to avoid dressing up in drag in public.

It would also not be, as Blankley claims, an act of "sabotage" for us to withhold our support from Giuliani should he be the nominee. The sabotage would be those who, evidently like Blankley, consider abortion and the life issues to be trivial annoyances, distractions from the real business of government, the interest of only a few, and without real repercussions in the real world. Nominating for president a man who holds the social conservatives in such contempt as to tell us to "get past" our issues would be the real sabotage, considering the support we have historically given the GOP.

Too, at the state level, we've seen what happens when pro-abortion Republicans get into office. Gov. Schwartzenegger led the charge for state funding of embryo-destructive stem cell research in California. My own pro-abortion state rep. supports the same issue in Illinois. The GOP nominee for Illinois governor last year agreed with the Democrat on virtually all our issues. And who is there to oppose them on these questions?

Every faction within the GOP coalition should agree immediately to make no further demands of their party. Just as the liberals did in 1991 and 1992, the conservatives of 2007 and 2008 simply should let their strongest candidate campaign in a way most likely to gain victory. Every conservative principle thereby would be safer than if heavy demands yield a Hillary presidency. Given the grotesque irresponsibility of the national Democrats, keeping them out of the White House should be the first calling of every patriotic conservative.

I have nothing good to say about the Democrats. But at least they have the courtesy to not to treat their own base with contempt. Can the GOP say as much? Mr. Blankley and the neocons need to understand that social conservatives are not just an interest group, like doctors who want tort reform, or investors who want tax cuts. We are right, and they should agree with us, and join us in demanding a candidate who, unlike Giuliani, can appeal to more than just single-issue voters; even if the single issue is national security.

Tony Blankley and his fellow neocons may get their priorities properly aligned and move the life issues higher on their agenda. Or they may think it impertinent and unreasonable that I should make such a suggestion.

But social conservatives will not be reducing the importance our issues have to us. The Republican Party may be more precious than life to Tony Blankley, but our priorities are straight.