When Giuliani Begs, You Know Something’s Up

The cavalier king of anti-terrorism hadn’t quite worked submission into his repertoire — until now.

“I come to you today as I would if I were your president, with an open mind and an open heart, and all I ask is that you do the same," former Mayor Rudy Giuliani told a Christian evangelist audience on Oct. 20. “Please know this: you have absolutely nothing to fear from me.”

Giuliani’s audience of about 2,500 had come to the weekend-long Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C. to hear each GOP candidate court their interests. The event was hosted by the Family Research Council (FRC), a Christian right lobbying organization founded by James Dobson (of Focus on the Family).

The speakers lay it on thick, because if 2008 is anything like 2004, evangelical voters will form a crucial voting bloc. Former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) said he’d spend his first hour as president in prayer. Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) played the family card. While former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) christened the religious audience his “roots.” Oh, and Giuliani touted his history as a staunch evangelical who is anti-abortion, anti-gay and pro-gun.

Just kidding.

Giuliani, undeniably the least socially conservative GOP candidate must know better at this point than to think he can win overwhelming support from evangelicals. He was the last candidate to RSVP to the conference, and although his campaign declined to comment, it’s safe to guess that that’s no coincidence.

He did what he could to keep votes and possibly win a few more by recalling his parochial education and religious studies, not to mention his work towards cleansing New York City of porn and panhandlers.

He praised “the value of people of faith forming the political debate with their ideas and ideals,” and reiterated his pledge to nominate strict constructionist judges.

While gay marriage was strangely absent from the 40-minute speech, abortion was unavoidable; Giuliani pledged to “decrease as much as we can the number of abortions in America and to increase the number of adoptions.”

He even repented — "I've made mistakes in my life," he said. "I pray for forgiveness. I pray for strength. I pray for guidance. I feel my own faith deeply, although maybe more privately than some."

And for once, Iraq and Sept. 11 were almost an afterthought.

But Giuliani failed to get more than 1.85 percent of votes in the straw poll of both conference attendees and online voters, placing him next to last, followed only by McCain. Romney came in the lead with 27.62 percent, followed closely by Huckabee at 27.1 percent.

Giuliani did win second place in another conference poll: “least acceptable candidate” (Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) took the grand prize).

This doesn’t mean doomsday for Giuliani. Although his ratings have been declining, he’s still ahead in most national polls at about 29 percent at press time.

Clearly, there’s a discrepancy between evangelical and mainstream GOP voters’ approval of Giuliani. What’s not so clear is what this means for the Giuliani campaign, especially if evangelicals follow through on a recent threat to support a third-party candidate if Giuliani wins the Republican nomination.

On Sept. 29, a group of about 50 evangelical leaders met in Salt Lake City to discuss this possibility (the same group re-convened at the Values Voters Summit). Participants included Dobson, FRC president Tony Perkins, former GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer, and conservative activist Richard Viguerie.

Soon afterward, anonymous participants told The New York Times that most had left the meeting in support of this resolution: “If the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate, we will consider running a third-party candidate.”

This was a long time coming. Dobson had already forecast a lack of evangelical support for Romney due to his Mormonism, McCain for his voting record and Thompson for his opposition to a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Huckabee may be the only one left standing to retain evangelical support, but Dobson and his cohorts might be too fed up to count on a dark horse, despite his growing popularity in Iowa.

“You could almost cut the anger and the frustration with a knife in that room, it’s so strong,” Viguerie told the Associated Press. “Conservatives have been treated like a mistress as long as any of us can remember.”

So how probable is a third-party candidate supported by the religious right?

Even some attendees of the September meeting are softening the threat. Perkins recently told CNN that the resolution “was more of a proclamation of principle, rather than a declaration of intent … There are other candidates that are in this race that have pro-life credentials … The point we were saying is, we're not going to go chasing after the party. We will look for other options.”

Perkins and his organization are focusing on rallying religious voters around a GOP candidate other than Giuliani. This is more to ensure effectiveness than to avoid a perceived threat, Connie Mackie, senior vice president of FRC Action, told Scoop08.

“If people who are pro-life decide that they can’t vote for a candidate who represents the opposite side, that’s one thing, but actually mobilizing a third-party candidate is another,” Mackie said. “It won’t get organized — it simply won’t. Secondly, I think it would have the same effect as the stay-at-home vote: it would put the Democratic candidate into victory.”

History supports this notion. Former President Bill Clinton owes Ross Perot a thank you note for playing the spoiler in the 1992 election, and Ralph Nader certainly didn’t help former Vice President Al Gore in 2000. A third-party candidate has never won a U.S. presidential election.

But the GOP may not even face a spoiler in 2008.

“It’s nonsense,” Mike Papantonio, co-host of Air America Radio’s “Ring of Fire” with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., told Scoop08. “It’s the religious right trying to flex because they know they don’t have any political heat anymore. They had Huckabee; they had Sam Brownback. But Brownback had to pull out of the primaries because he didn’t have any money. Who’s this other candidate they’re going to get? It’s ridiculous.”

Indeed, evangelicals haven’t identified their potential third-party candidate. Some suggest Sen. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), whose campaign refutes the possibility, despite his recent announcement that he wouldn’t seek re-election to his Congressional seat.

Ballot access and funding wouldn’t be the only issues for a third-party candidate — evangelicals would have to unify in rallying behind him. But some conservative voters are likely to vote for the GOP candidate to ensure victory over the Democratic nominee. Others will care more about issues like Iraq than they do about abortion.

“What used to be emblematic of what a Republican is — now it’s starting to scare the hell out of Republicans and make them think they need to get away from these dogma freaks,” Papantonio said. “The number-one issue people have their minds on is Iraq, or that they can’t pay their mortgages because the banks are going under, or the almost 48 million people who don’t have health insurance — those are the things most people care about right now.”

He has a point. There’s a generational divide among evangelicals when it comes to which issues matter most.

A September Pew Research Center survey found that for the first time in recent history, white evangelical identification with the Republican Party has fallen to below 50 percent. Most defectors, the survey found, are under 30.

While younger evangelicals may be more passionate about abortion, as the survey suggests, they’ve also expanded their list of issues substantially.

According to an August Pew survey, 72 percent of evangelical voters (all ages) cite the economy and other domestic issues as very important in determining their votes, 62 percent rate the war in Iraq as very important, and only 56 percent rate social issues as very important.

In contrast, a Values Voters Summit survey about key issues didn’t even list Iraq or health care as an option. Presumably, most conference attendees belonged to an older generation, used to debating little more than abortion and gay marriage.

Considering these generational shifts, it’s no surprise that the average evangelical voter isn’t as repelled by Giuliani as is Dobson— an October CBS News poll found that 61 percent of white evangelicals would consider voting for Giuliani if he wins the GOP nomination.

But for argument’s sake, let’s pretend it’s 2008 and evangelicals are united behind a third-party candidate running against Giuliani. How scared should Rudy be? White evangelicals do represent about one-fifth of the electorate, and many attribute Bush’s 2004 re-election to his success in winning the evangelical swing vote.

But the influence of evangelical voters remains debatable, especially in blue states. As long as Giuliani stays his course and evangelical leaders don’t present a viable, unifying third-party candidate, Rudy will most likely retain the votes of most of the religious voters who support him now.

Unless, that is, they cross over to the Democrats, who are suggesting more and more that they’re tight with the big guy in the sky.