Redstate

As I was told when I asked the question.

I watched a documnetary from Netflix on Rudy last night. It's a liberal hit piece called "Guiliani Time". The conspiracy theory part of me says that Rudy's people put it out, because it made me feel a lot better about his conservative credentials.

Of course, if you're being attacked by Amnesty International, Teachers Unions, and the National Endowment for the Arts, you can't be all bad.

The flick faulted him on being:

Too tough on crime,

For school vouchers, and

Removing funding for a museum that featured a pic of the Virgin Mary in feces ('cause in some cultures, feces is empowering).

I'm still trying to figure out who I'm ultimately going to support. Right now, would still prefer Gingrich, but his baggage makes Rudy look like he's just got carry ons. Rudy is definitely still on my list.

You forgot the NY Times, Al Sharpton and Yasser Arafat. Rudy almost never picked a serious fight with anybody to his right, a few exceptions being backing Cuomo over Pataki in 1994 (not that Pataki is Mr. Conservatism) and his support of the City's bogus lawsuit against the gun manufacturers. The great majority of his nods to the left involved either stray comments or leaving a left-leaning status quo in place (eg, city funding for abortions). But when he geared up for battle it was always against the forces arrayed to his left.

"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill

It's that he just doesn't have a presidential presence. He's not a very likeable guy, either...as much as he tries to be.

And I say that with a tremendous amount of respect and admiration. I think Newt Gingrich has been one of the 3 or 4 most important public people in the conservative movement in the last couple decades. He may even be in the same ballpark as Reagan in terms of importance to the cause -- which is very high praise.

But he isn't Reagan. He doesn't have Reagan's aesthetic and intangible qualities. It's really hard to picture Gingrich leading a nation, or a significant part of the nation choosing him as its leader.

He was perfectly suited to the speakership -- and that's where his baggage cost him.

very unpresdential :-)

I agree to about all of your assessment of Speaker Gingrich. In the wake of the November election massacre, he was articulating our postions better than anyone. (His appearance on Meet the Press with Russert was an instant classic.)

However, his baggage is much more than his personal life. It's all the negatives that were thrown at him when he was Speaker, many of them self induced.

I'm either learning to live with Rudy, or getting comfortable with Romney. I think McCain's shot has passed him by. The others, well, don't think we're going to draft anyone that can raise $100 Million and run a national primary by Feb 5th.

Here's my take:

In an article entitled “Rudy’s Electoral Math,” a blogger for race42008.com made the comment that, “The notion that Rudy Giuliani will…mirror the Democratic nominee on social issues is just not correct…We’re running a candidate who, while personally not conservative on many social issues, will govern as a functional social conservative on most of the big issues cultural conservatives care about.”

On gun regulation, Giuliani has not proposed any new federal controls, and defers to the localities to determine what or whether to regulate firearms. On this, he is a solid proponent of states’ rights. So much for the “gun-grabber” charge.

The same with gay rights. Giuliani is on record saying that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that this distinction is to be respected. When he did not support the defense of marriage constitutional amendment proposal, neither did a number of conservatives who do not believe that the U.S. Constitution should be amended to address this issue. The fact of the matter is that voters in individual states – from Oregon, to California, to Ohio, to Michigan…27 states in all – are stepping up to either affirmatively declare marriage as between a man and a woman, or are specifically banning gay marriage. Giuliani’s stance on states’ rights would oppose federal action to overturn the state-led initiatives on this issue. So much for the “gay-lover” charge.

And the same with abortion. Despite his personal views, Giuliani has pledged to appoint originalists to the federal judiciary. In the 30-plus years since Roe v. Wade, there has been only one major pro-life legislative victory – the passage and signing by President Bush of a ban on partial-birth abortions. One victory in over 30 years – a span of time that saw two strongly pro-life presidents in Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and 12 years of Republican control of Congress. The partial-birth abortion ban has been challenged in the courts, which indicates that it is in the courts that these issues will ultimately be won or lost. Hence, Giuliani’s intention to appoint originalists to the courts should be considered the most important pro-life impact that the next president will have. It may be that his appointments to the Supreme Court will be better, and more conservative, than Reagan’s. Giuliani has said that he will sign a partial-birth abortion ban which includes an exemption for the life of the mother. The pro-abortion Democrats want an exemption for the “health” of the mother. There’s a big difference. “Life” would provide an exemption where the mother’s life is in danger if natural delivery proceeds (and this should be rendered a non-factor because of cesarean delivery in the event of an emergency). An exemption from abortion prohibitions for the “health” of the mother, as favored by the pro-abortion Democrats, has been used as a catch-all exemption as “health” has come to include “mental health,” meaning that if a pregnancy or having a child might create “stress” for the mother, this is enough to fall within the “health” criterion, and would lead to aborting the child. He also supports parental notification before minors can obtain an abortion, which is a long-time goal of pro-life organizations. Giuliani’s position, from appointment of originalists to the courts, to the distinction in his position on partial-birth abortion from that of the pro-abortion left, is reason to calm the fears, and rebut the hysterical charges of rightist extremists, that he’s a “baby-killer.”

Rudy Giuliani’s approach to these socially conservative issues is to de-federalize the issues, take them out of the gridlocked politics of Washington, and allow the states to decide them. Rudy Giuliani is the most pro-states’ rights presidential candidate we’ve seen in decades…maybe ever. What’s not conservative about that?

It should be clear to all that our nation is deeply divided, right down the middle, ideologically. The presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 showed a deep schism among American voters, and that schism is getting harder and deeper. This division has turned American into two warring camps, and has made each election a nail-biter as results of the last two presidential elections could have turned on the shift of only about 1.5% of the vote. This divide has also imposed a rigid gridlock in Washington on the whole list of so-called “socially conservative” issues. There’s no budge on either side, and consequently the chances of enacting any of the social conservative agenda is worse than slim and none.

The only way to break this political and ideological gridlock isn’t to surrender socially conservative principles, but to move these issues through a different approach. It’s been said that “Only Nixon could go to China,” because of his life-long record as an anti-communist. It may well be that only Rudy Giuliani can move this nation away from the opposing political encampments it’s become, and allow the people – not the federal government, not the Congress – to make progress on issues that reflect what is the inherent social conservatism of the American people.

From a Rudy presidency we can almost certainly expect a liberal embryonic stem cell research bill, and we can likely expect some kind of "compromise" attempt at domestic partnerships. Whoever the next president is, he'll have a tough time getting judges through the senate. My guess is Rudy would much rather compromise by getting someone through who is a solid law and order conservative and social moderate.

Rudy opposed the partial birth abortion bill which did have an exemption for the life of the mother a few years ago.

Rudy is not a "pro-states rights candidate." Like Romney who suddenly discovered he's pro-life, Rudy suddenly discovered states' rights when he started thinking about national office. At least if Romney is elected it will be thanks to social conservatives, and therefore he'll be beholden to them. Whereas if Rudy is elected he will have lots of centrist and independent support and will not need to retain the support of social conservatives.

"law and order conservative" justices who were "social moderate" didn't work out so well for Nixon. I doubt it'd work well for us under Giuliani, either.

I still cringe when I hear the clips of Mitt Romney proclaiming that he's more pro gay than Ted Kennedy during his unsuccessful Senate race back in the 1990's when he only lost by 6 points. That speaks volumes that either Romney's a liar on par with the Clintons or that he's a flip flopper like his fellow Bostonian John Kerry. The same one that said he voted against it before he voted for it during the 2004 presidential race. Romney only became anti-gay and anti-abortion after he decided to run for president at6 least with Guiliani you get what you see.

:-)

Those clips are from 1994. I guess nobody changes positon in twelve years. Get real.

Romney is not a gay basher. He formulated his views on gay rights in the seventies and eighties when issues were totally different. It's like calling a somebody who supported civil rights in the sixties a flip flopper because that person opposed forced busing, affirmative action and multicultural education in the seventies. The issues changed.

I cringe because I was pro-choice in 1994 as well. I wonder how many who are pro-life now were pro-choice at one point in their lives. Thats not a flip-flop. Also, Romney lost by 17 points so the facts are clearly not supporting you on this one. Nice try!

Hey you got to admit when you are wrong and I was wrong Ted Kennedy did win by 17 points. I was mistakenly referring to election polls. Believe me I will always double check my comments from now on.

Campaign for United States Senate, 1994 election
In 1994, Romney won the Massachusetts Republican Party's nomination for U.S. Senate after defeating businessman John Lakian in the primary.[16] Some early polls showed Romney only slightly behind Senator Ted Kennedy. One Boston Herald/WCVB-TV poll taken after the September 20, 1994 primary showed Romney ahead 44 percent to 42 percent, within the poll's sampling margin of error.[17] According to figures in the 1996 Almanac of American Politics, which relies on official campaign finance reports, Romney spent over $7 million, with Kennedy spending over $10 million, mostly in the last weeks of the campaign. (This was the second-most expensive race of the 1994 election cycle, after the Dianne Feinstein vs. Michael Huffington Senate race in California.)[citation needed] Kennedy won the election with 58 percent of the vote to Romney's 41 percent. The 17-percentage point winning margin was the smallest in Kennedy's nine election contests for the Senate through 2006.[18]

My fun here for the day is done.

I think Hank Paulson is great so far. I wish he'd been in there from the very beginning. Honestly, I wish that Dubya had beeen able to twist Phil Gramm's arm into becoming Treasury Secretary in 2000 and he'd stayed on all these years. He would have been really spectacular.

I'd like to see Phil Gramm be Treasury Secretary in the next GOP administration, although hopefully that won't be a McCain Administration.

It's debatable whether he would be effective as a "change agent" Treasury Secretary - given Bush's political situation, Paulson is reduced to defending the status quo. But he's doing a fine job and has oodles of credibility with Wall Street.

"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill

The NYPD did a good job on Kerik's watch, and Kerik handled 9/11 well. On the whole, he was not one of Rudy's better police commissioners. I gather he was never well-regarded by the cops, going back before he was commissioner.

"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill

Howard Safir and Bill Bratton are the guys who deserve most of the credit for the NYPD's renaissance. I think Kerik just inherited a much improved, much more respected, and much happier police force.

That's not to say that Kerik did a bad job. But, from what I understand, it was Bratton who inherited an overwhelmed force, put in CompStat and various critical changes in engagement procedures and reorganized the force.

In fact, Bratton's tenure at NYPD is even featured in HBS case studies on organizational design.

Kerik just happens to be the most well-known of the NYPD Commissioners in Giuliani's government....because of 9/11 and his subsequent nomination for DHS.

He is a strong leader, there's no question. And that's a lot in the presidential sweepstakes. Because a lot of people who run for that office aren't.

But he's also a doer. I think it's worth remembering the cesspool that Giuliani inherited when he took over City Hall from David Dinkins. Even some of Giuliani's critics had no choice but to confess that he made a tremendous positive impact on the city. The best they could do to criticize him was say that he was an autocratic bully who took credit for everything.

As a conservative, I really -- REALLY -- appreciate the fact that he took a sledgehammer to the entrenched (liberal) power structure of the city of New York. And no city in the country, save for maybe Chicago, had a more entrenched power structure.

I seriously doubt that a President Giuliani would act as an agent for advancing legalized abortion or gun control....even if he wouldn't be the stalwart adversary that we conservatives would want in a president.

Really, the bigger issue I worry about with him is immigration -- because I think that's an area where the next president is going to have an enormous impact.

"I seriously doubt that a President Giuliani would act as an agent for advancing legalized abortion or gun control....even if he wouldn't be the stalwart adversary that we conservatives would want in a president."

we doubt he will take away our guns because we want to support a winner. We want him to believe what we believe but he does not. He NEEDS to come out and say it clearly.

People keep saying Rudy is the front runner, but I just do not buy it. See what happens when the NRA takes him on.

Molon Labe!

I think that’s it in a nutshell, for conservatives who support Giuliani, it seems to largely be about wanting Giuliani to be more conservative than he really is. Whereas every word spoken by a candidate (not matter how long ago) gets dissected and used to critique other candidate, Giuliani seems to get a pass from a lot of conservatives for his actual actions and positions taken by supporters who say “don’t worry, he’s really one of us.”

Conservative supporters who are voting for Giuliani on the hopes that he isn’t who he is or he will change, may want to retain a good divorce attorney.

I'm not a South Park Republican, I'm a King of the Hill libertarian.

...from Bush in this regard?

republicans voted for Bush twice!

Founder and contributor to The Minority Report and Senior writer for The Hinzsight Report

Bush campaigned on the drug benefit for Medicare -- which Comptroller David Walker is (rightly) trashing in today's news. He said, in 2000, that he'd sign that bill. And, guess what, he signed it.

But even beyond that, Bush has been a big government Republican. Bruce Bartlett wrote a fantastic book about this which I'd recommend for anybody.

I say that as somebody who voted, reluctantly, for Bush twice.

The lesson here is that it's rare to find perfect candidates. I'm much, much bigger on fiscal conservatism than I am on social issues. And, for somebody like me, GWB has been a mixed bag, at best.

For somebody more inclined to make decisions based on social policy, I can see why Giuliani would be unsettling. And he'll definitely lose votes that Bush had because of it. But he'll also gain some votes.

It's a big count of the beans.

is not a social issue, it is a freedom issue. The real question is what freedoms are we willing to give up because we think some guy is a "winner"?

Molon Labe!

I don't for one minute think that his use of gun control was born out of a belief that we as Americans don't have the right to keep and bare arms.

Founder and contributor to The Minority Report and Senior writer for The Hinzsight Report

Molon Labe!

The lesson here is clear. Fool me one, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Here is Giuliani, even more liberal than Bush. And we have people here supporting this guy out of fear and panic (he's the only one who can stop hillary) or because we are willing to sell our soul on everything else in the hope that Giuliani will be a strong leader in the war on terror.

Man, you lose that last one, you lose everything.

If a democrat wants to vote for a liberal, why wouldn't they vote for Hillary/Obama or whoever their nominee eventually is? If it's our liberal against their liberal, Republicans lose every time.

The panic is in our heads. Assuming their is no amnesty (a path to citizenship for people currently here illegally), we don't have to react out of fear. And we don't have to nominate a liberal far to the left of this party.

I am really glad the primary voting isn't for nearly a year yet. It will give a lot of you who are "panicking" some time to calm down and reassess.

My bet is that not one of the current "big three" will be there at the convention as the nominee. We will just have a lot of fun talking about it all for the next year.

.

You have to live within the realm of reality.

And the reality in 2000 was that either George W. Bush or Al Gore was going to be president. The reality in 2004 was that either Bush or John Kerry would be president.

Given those choices, how did I lose?

If you're asking me whether I'd prefer a better choice, then my answer is an emphatic "Yes!" But what I prefer doesn't matter. What matters is who can win and who can't.

And there was no candidate who could win in 2000 who shared my beliefs better than Bush did. Same with '04.

FTR, I didn't support GWB in the primary in 2000. As I did in 1996, I supported Steve Forbes. And I'm all for supporting the candidate which best fits your ideology in primaries...as well as in the general.

But, particularly in the general, I think it makes a *whole* lot of sense to at least vote for the viable candidate who best represents your beliefs....even if they don't represent them terribly well.

Because the only net result of staying home or voting 3rd party is helping the viable candidate who least represents your beliefs.

A bunch of leftists felt really, really sore after the 2000 election because they thought they'd be better than the sellouts in the Democratic Party and vote for a real "progressive." His name was Ralph Nader. And if Nader had dropped out of the race or enough of his bone-headed supporters had taken my advice, they'd have been able to avoid the Bush presidency....which they've loathed.

We shouldn't follow their lead. They were stupid.

And Rudy's strongest point is he does not change like some others. to me this whole campaign has been pretty funny. We have decided one man is inevitable and "our only chance" ten months before the first primary. Heck, I would pick three Republican Senators' names out of a hat and have a better field.

Molon Labe!

Where does Rudy stand on immigration?

We all know where McCain stands on immigration (with Ted Kennedy). Both Romney and McCain have a huge opening with respect to this issue. I'd like to see both support a border fence, interior enforcement, etc.

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"I think he's been a great leader, but I don't want my daughter near him." - Claire McCaskill on Bill Clinton

its my main beef with him

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

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If opposing immigration is your big issue, it's really Tancredo or possibly Hunter. McCain, Brownback, Romney, and Giuliani are all generally pro-immigrant.

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Social Security Choice - Club For Growth

He gets in the top three for winnability. Then he gets compared to McCain and Romney.

When compared to McCain, do Conservatives really want a candidate who feels offended when conservatives are in the same room? McCain has condescended to and insulted every member of the conservative coalition. Rudy may disagree with on several items, but he at least respects us as people.

McCain just sees us as a vehicle to glorify McCain. He acts like we should be thanking him for spending time in our party. You couldn't make me vote for McCain in the primary. I'd eat a bug first!

Romney never has the same position in front of two consecutive audiences. He's a pander bear.

Rudy stays Rudy. You either like him, or you don't. Polls and political viscissitudes don't change who he is. You can read his label and know exactly what you are buying. THat can't be said of any other candidate from either party.

Except, maybe for Dennis Kucinich. I've read his label, but don't understand all the baby-talk.

Kyoto Now! (Because only pollution from the US hurts the planet)

McCain has used conservatives has his own whipping post to score cheap points with media elites, "moderates," and Democrats to further furnish his maverick persona. Romeny, who I like, seems too willing to say anything that his crowd wants to hear, is tough to trust.

Rudy is Rudy. But he's never made conservatives feel bad about themselves, and he's never used conservatives as a whipping boy to further his own gains. He's treated conservatives with respect and, unlike McCain, actively communicates with conservatives.

You've mentioned Bill SImon in California and Jim Nussle in Iowa.

Here in Virginia, Guiliani's machine is headed up by ex-AG and '05 Gov candidate Jerry Kilgore, a staunch social conservative. Kilgore is from southwest Virginia, Gate City to be exact. Thats the coal field, Appalachian Virginia. In a glimpse at why conservatives are going to Rudy, I asked Kilgore's twin brother and state delegate, Terry Kilgore, on a live-blog why he and his brother support Rudy when he is seemingly the opposite of where they are from and what they belive in.

His answer?

Leadership

More than anything, conservatives look for strenght. Someone who won't bend like Carter, or equivicate like Clinton. Rudy has that quality.

(P.S. and I like both McCain and Romney. But of the three, there is no question who the best candidate is)

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"As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this."
- George Mason

mason and cnl both sound like liberals -- the argument essentially is entierly based on emotion. Rudy makes me feel safe and shows me some respect so I'll vote for him. Sure McCain has been a maverick, and sometimes insulted conservatives, but if you look at it rationally, as a conservative should, you should realize that he'll govern more conservatively than Rudy.

Rudy is a social liberal who has no foreign policy or military experience who wants to become president in the middle of a war and when it is very likely that the next supreme court opening will determine the fate of Roe vs. Wade. McCain is a war hero with years of foreign policy experience who has been much more right about the Iraq strategy than our current commander in chief and who has a solid pro-life voting record.

That McCain would govern more conservatively (or even consistently) that Rudy. Furthermore, your arguments against Giuliani could have been easily made against Ronald Reagan in the mid 1970's

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

Thankfully Reagan wasn't president until 1980, then. :-)

By making immigration deals with Ted Kennedy I suppose. Sorry, not buying. The problem with McCain is not how conservative he is, but knowing where he will be conservite.

Rudy is not a conservative, but at least he isn't pretending.

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The answers to the first two, I can't disagree with.

I think on #3 that there is room to argue.

He was in charge of organizing what went on in the city. He made decisions on how to get things back up and running.

Compare the NYC recovery to the NO debacle.

If I had to pick one person to charge hell with today, it would be Rudy.

What about Mitt Romney? Isn't he in the same category as well. How do we know that he would appoint conservative judges, when he used to be adamantly pro-choice? It's hard to trust a person who was once pro-choice but miraculously became staunchly pro-life. I'm sure it does happen, but this looks suspicious as a tactic to gain votes;

As Kate O'Bierne at National Review documents, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush all used to be pro-choice. It's possible that Romney could join the long ranks of Republican presidents who used to be pro-choice only to go on to become adamant defenders of life.

We don't "know" if any Republican president would end up nominating conservative judges. I mean, Reagan and Bush I both tried, but they had their failures along with their successes. Dubya is the first to really deliver big time on the judiciary - and even he almost, albeit unintentionally, screwed it up with Miers.

All I want to know is that he's going to try and do his level best. I think Romney tried to get the most qualified and conservative people he could get through his Governor's Council (controlled by Democrats 8-1.) What bothers me most about The Politico article on Giuliani is that this didn't seem to even be a concern of his. These might have been very, very low level courts, and so it might not have mattered much. But that said, I think that one of Dubya's most brilliant moves was to make all of the appellate courts into a SCOTUS farm team. Neither Romney nor Giuliani were particularly successful in doing the same in their positions, but I think that Romney at least tried as hard as he could, given what he was working with.

Plus, Romney was genuinely troubled by the liberal activism he witnessed as Governor. He battled Margaret Marshall and the SJC tooth and nail over gay marriage. That is why he supports a federal marriage amendment, while Rudy doen't. I am confident he views liberal judges with disdain and views judicial activism as a grave threat.

Well...I actually don't support a Federal Marriage Amendment that prohibits same sex unions in all states because of my federalist/libertarian streak.

What I do support, however, is a Defense of Marraige Amendment that specifically suspends the full faith and credit clause of the constitution with regard to same-sex unions. Right now, the only thing keeping Massachusetts same sex marriages from being recognized in Texas is the "Public Policy exception" to the Full Faith & Credit Clause. It basically states that one state doesn't have to accept the public acts of another state if it is against that state's own public policy.

Personally, I think that this exception stands on very weak ground, statutorily. Part of the reason is that I don't believe that the framers ever conceived of same-sex marriage, so I seriously doubt that they would have framed the Full Faith and Credit Clause in such a way as to protect other states from one state's same sex marriage law.

And, given how the liberal wing of the court takes such great liberties with words ACTUALLY IN THE CONSTITUTION, I doubt that they'd see the public policy exception as much more than a speedbump on their way to instituting nationwide same sex marriages.

FMA never has a chance at becoming law. But the Defense of Marriage Act made it through easily and won Clinton's signature. So, I think that a constitutional amendment that did the same thing (and I think it needs to be an amendment) would also sail through the congress and be easily ratified by the respective states.

That way Texas is protected from San Fancisco values, and San Francisco is protected from Texas values. The poor people in Fresno, however...they may have to learn to live with San Francisco values. LOL

Since I believe a Sup Court imposition of gay marriage/civil unions is almost inevitable, I think we will see if you are right in that an Defense of Marriage Amendment would pass. I know some believe that in the face of such an outrageous Sup Court decision, the outrage would be great enough to ensure passage of the FMA, but I don't believe that. I think there are enough secure Democrats in Congress to block it, and if I'm right, then proponents of the FMA will then move to consider alternatives. Simply ignoring the Sup Court decision would be great, but that's not going to happen, so it will be a choice of alternative Amendments. Orrin Hatch proposed an alternative that stopped short of defining marriage, and instead explicity empowered the states to handle the matter. I think something like that or the DOMA would have a better chance of passing, because it would call out all of those Democrats and Republicans who claim to oppose gay marriage and/or support states rights.

Nobody knows the havoc liberal activist judges cause more than Romney. Thats why he had to come off his 2002 moratorium promise and take a more public stand for social conservatism instead of just trying to be a businessman rescueing a state from a fiscal crisis. The whole flip-flop thing is getting overplayed. He was always a SocCon at heart but was elected Governor based on his fiscal expertise. People will see what a genuine conservative he really is as he tours the nation and gets to know him.

I'm not sure I've ever seen any convincing evidence that either Reagan or G.H.W. Bush ever really converted to a pro-life view, as opposed to paying lip-service to it for political convenience.

O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter are strong points in favor of what you say.

If they had taken a little more care in those cases, then we'd be talking about maintaining a conservative, pro-Constitution Sup Court instead of hoping that we will finally get one someday. Culture War issues would have been returned to the states where they belong, and the nation would be better off for it.

unlike Guiliani.

That gives him the lead on Gulianni in my book on that issue.

Romney only lies to the people of Massachusetts, and won't lie to conservatives?

yes, yes, yes...but in defense of Reagan, he did at least try to give us Bork and David Ginsberg (who would have been the best, I believe) before having to settle for Kennedy. And O'Connor was quite conservative until her later years.

Souter was just a result of HW not being careful enough. He was down to Souter and Edith Jones and the New Hampshire guys HW surrounded himself with just really wanted a New Hampshire justice for some weird reason. HW would have been better served to go with the gal from his state, Edith Jones.

And lets not forget, they also gave us Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist as the Chief Justice!

...if you take your time and do a relentlessly thorough job of vetting, you can really come up with some outstanding nominees. I think that conservative Republican presidents have learned the lessons of O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter. But first you have to have them dedicated to nominating great conservative justices.

I have no confidence that McCain would do so, and I'm skeptical of Rudy simply because the policy positions he advocates have only been advanced with activist liberal jurisprudence handed down by the Supreme Court. So...

was Bush's SECOND choice. It was only when we raised the roof that Bush moved away from an extremely bad choice.

get off his duff and fight for his circuit and appellate nominees. He let Specter allow nominees to languish in committee, even AFTER he went out of his way to campaign for him against Toomey in the Senate primary. He let McCain and the egomaniacs get away with G14 and at least seven highly qualified nominees got tossed under the bus.

Bush did good on Roberts and finally on Alito. Other than that I think his performance on judges is sadly lacking.
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Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged. — J. Michael Waller

I'm not so much it's social conservatism that's the issue so much as his authoritarian streak. As mayor of New York, he didn't exactly show himself to be a stalwart defender of individual liberty, when its exercise might cause results that he disagreed with.

I agree. Rudy troubles me as a conservative - not as a social conservative. It's one thing to be tough on crime. It's another to advocate police-state positions. There is nothing conservative about advocating a police-state. I fear all his tough on crime rhetoric is nanny-state big government in disguise. He goes over the top. The same is true with his use of government power to consistently harass and sue private enterprise. It's more than the SoCon issues. I don't consider myself a libertarian, but he just worries me as a plain old conservative.

Therefore, they are more important. If the GOP starts treating Social Conservatives like Democrats treat the blacks - taken for granted - social conservatives are not going to come out and vote for Republicans the way blacks come out and continue to vote for Democrats.

Luckily, social conservative planks are not at all exclusive to libertarianism, they just need to be couched in different terms that reveal to libertarians how unlibertarian many of their positions are such as their support for legalized drugs and their pro-choice position.

Drugs oppress people because people quickly become so addicted that they can't get off of them and they subsequently destroy their lives. In other words, illegal narcotics are probably a greater threat to individual liberty than communist or fascist governments. Likewise, libertarians completely ignore the liberty interests of fetal homo sapiens who have attained all of the same biometric standards assigned to every other human being on earth by the United States government - the right to not be killed within our borders.

ignorant than you can imagine.
And you know what , social conservatives, do not count more than libertarians to me.

We had three social conservative candidates in a row, Bush-Dole-Bush, none of them remotely fiscally conservative, and all three more than happy to expand the powers of government over the individual. Where the hell exactly has that gotten us?

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

Thats more than a stretch. That one is off the charts.

By my count, we've nominated conservatives seven times out of twenty-five chances in the last century:

Reagan - Won
Reagan - Won
Goldwater - Lost
Coolidge - Won
Harding - Won
Taft - Lost
Taft - Won

Note that they have a pretty good record, too.

Run like Reagan!

Leave it to wacked out libertarians withhold votes for the most limited govenment major party candidate in a presidential election because he - like all the other candidates except possibly the Libertarian candidate who will not win - is not pushing a "legalize prostitution, child pornography, and heroin" platform.

The very idea that Giulini is going to become "too socially conservative" is, sadly, absolutely laughable.

Leave it to wacked out libertarians withhold votes for the most limited govenment major party candidate in a presidential election

When it gets to November 2008 most voters know that one or the other of two people is going to be Commander in Chief for the next four years, and take their country seriously enough to choose whichever of those is better for their country to have as President, more than voting for some 3rd party asterisk bozo to feel good about themselves and make a "statement".

Yeah I believe there will be a few whacked out libertarians, and also a few whacked out socons, who think throwing their snit is more important than which of the two candidates gets elected President. Fortunately there aren't enough of them to elect a dog catcher. So let's all have a good laugh when they make their impassioned threats to throw a tantrum and go crying home to mommy if they don't get their way.

Conservatism is not a set of policy positions. It is a way of thinking about the world.

There are plenty of non-conservatives who do all of the above.

Run like Reagan!