Guiliani: The Other Democrat in 2008

This deserves its own column, but I need to get to bed pretty soon, so I'll just let Benjamin Shapiro fire his pitiful salvos and then defeat them with my not so tremendous wit.

Republicans in 2007 may not remember 1964, but they remember their congressional losses in 2006. And they do not like losing. Which is why none of the solidly conservative candidates seems to be gaining any traction in the long run-up to the primaries. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., are all solid conservatives, yet none of them shows up in Republican opinion polls...

They don't show up because they don't have the name recognition it takes to win a general election.

H. L. Mencken defines a platitude as "an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true." Outside most circles, no one knew who Obama was six years ago; now, by some accounts, he's the front runner for the Democratic nomination. It's absolutely ridiculous to pretend that name recognition is crucial at this stage of the game. We have a year and a half until the dang election for goodness sake! If the conservative commentariat would find their collective spine and get behind one of the no-name genuine conservatives, the people would soon follow. It's idiotic to pretend that in an age of the Internet and 24 cable "news" shows, people are having a hard time being recognized. But no, the only candidates who might do some good for the conservative cause are insufficiently recognizable. Maligning the only people who might actually enact a portion of one's agenda is a brilliant strategy.

My nomination for the unofficial Republican slogan for 2008: "Vote for the lesser evil. It worked in 2000." It lacks spunk, but I think it's a solid prototype. I look forward to the GOP minions contacting me. Maybe they'll even give me a column deal. I bet I can do as well as Shapiro.

The only social conservative in the field with significant national name recognition is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., who has not declared his intent to run.

Let's pretend, for the sake of the argument, that Newt is a legitimate social conservative. Continuing...

Gingrich is reprising the Richard Nixon 1968 nomination strategy – wait it out, let the conservative base rally around you, secure the nomination by acclaim.

There is only one problem for Gingrich: This is not 1968. It is 1952. This time around, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani plays the role of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Now I like Ike, for the most part, but he did nominate Earl Warren to the Supreme Court. Ike called this the "biggest damnfool mistake" he ever made, so I'll give the man a bit of respect for calling a spade a spade, but the Warren court gave social liberals their biggest victories: birth control and abortion could no longer be restricted by states after the honorable court handled Griswold v. Connecticut, Roe v. Wade, and the lesser known, Doe v. Bolton, and Ike bears some responsibility for that. After Warren, the intentions of the founders have seldom factored into court decisions, and liberals have been able to force their will on the people, as the judiciary continues to pass laws the legislature would never dare to.

[T]his is no normal time, and Giuliani is no Rockefeller. Yes, he's socially liberal. Yes, he's anti-gun. But...

Who cares about the but? Why should we support a man whose positions are antithetical to our own?

Republicans may be idealistic, but they are not fools. When it comes to the 2008 election, national security is the big issue – and national security is Giuliani's issue. For Republicans, it is more important that a Democrat stay out of the White House than that a Ronald Reagan conservative occupy it.

At last, the ubiquitous canard. The Republicans will keep us safe from the terrorists. Un-bloody-likely. Being a conservative used to mean you didn't trust the government to do anything proficiently. Your average bureaucrat is someone who needs help picking his nose and wiping his rear. As V observed, "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." Conservatives once knew this. No longer.

In twenty years, Shapiro, if he's still around, will be urging conservatives to vote for the Republican candidate who, unlike the Democrat, is opposed to ritual cannibalism. The Republicans will always be a shade less evil than their liberal brethren. That's a given. But a lesser evil is still evil, and it is especially pernicious to suggest that the lesser evil is actually good. I believe we used to call that lying, another thing conservatives used to oppose. Sometimes a body feels quite alone.