I’ve got to agree with Matt and HeavyM comments on the other thread about Rudy’s discussion of the actual abortion issue. He needs to avoid the dodges that Democrats use at all costs. Republicans have become so used to Democrats dodging with the whole “I don’t like abortion, but it should be legal,” tripe that it really turns you off to hear a Republican spewing it. His evasion of the question about Roe v. Wade also pretty much confirms that he doesn’t see anything wrong with it. It casts doubt on whether he will take the approach DaveG has advocated. If he really is going to go with a federalist approach to abortion, now was the chance to explain that overturning Roe v. Wade returns the matter to the states where it should belong and doesn’t ban abortion. This was his chance to say, “I’m pro-choice, but I believe in the constitution and this issue belongs at the state level. Roe v. Wade was poorly reasoned.” He also missed the chance to assure pro-lifers that he will not work against their cause. With that said, I was glad to see him come out against PBA and support parental notification. They are such no brainers that if he had balked on them, it would have been bad. He needed to get this out of the way.
He did pretty well on guns and marriage I guess. Immigration sounded just like McCain or Bush…uggh.
With the lead he has right now, his answers may be sufficient to win him the nomination. If he didn’t have star status already, I don’t see how he could make any headway with this approach. He needs to improve.
“AbortionI hate it. As a personal matter it is something I would advise someone against. However, I believe in a woman’s right to choose.”
-Rudy 02/05/07
David, I agree. Rudy really missed the boat big time on this one. How any conservative can be okay with this guy, I will never understand. It’s his star power and his star power only that’s carried him this far and may carry him to the nomination. I hope that is not the case, however.
After seeing it, it’s even worse than DaveG’s analysis. My willingness to vote for Rudy after this interview went from around a 5 out of 10 to a 1 out of 10.
“I cannot tell you how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins. I’m a Catholic. Raised a Catholic… What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn’t share that article of faith. I believe that choice is a woman’s choice.”
In some senses it is worse for me whenever someone says that they think abortion is bad, but want to keep it legal. By admitting that they hate abortion, they are also admitting that they think a fetus is a person. Otherwise they wouldn’t dislike abortion, it’s just removing a blob of tissue. Once you have admitted a fetus is a person, not to protect that person from being murdered is a horrible thing. So while I vehemently disagree with people who say that a fetus is not a person, I can accept that they want abortion to be legal. But, anyone who thinks a fetus is a living person has a moral obligation to protect that person through force of law.
I already knew Rudy was pro-choice, so in many ways this doesn’t change anything. One thing is does do is make Romney and McCain look better. Even if McCain doesn’t put any effort into pro-life causes at least he votes pro-life. And even if Romney did change his position, a simple “I was wrong about abortion. Here is what changed my mind. We have to protect unborn children” statement is so much sweeter to my ears than, “I hate abortion, but I but I want to leave it up to a woman.” And at this point Giuliani has changed on PBA, so he and Romney are even.
In the end, I’m still where I started out. I can’t support Giuliani or McCain in a primary, but I won’t have to hold my nose to vote for them in the general election either.
I have to agree, it is his star power. But that star power is rooted in something real, and that’s proven leadership. His leadership after 911 inspires everyone, and that’s going to be tough to beat.
Think of it, we may be competitive in states like California again. This could really turn things around for the GOP.
While I can’t say I share the dominant sentiments around here regarding the interview, I am a bit surprised by the way pretty much everyone who has commented on it came away with the same visceral reaction.
I’m interested in better understanding just what it was that was such a turn off about this interview.
I mean, as David Ensley said, we all knew Rudy was pro-choice. And even in the fantasy scripts on the abortion subject that Kavon and I were writing for Rudy, they all involved Rudy at some point saying the words “pro” and “choice” consecutively. The uniting factor for Rudy and pro-lifers was always intended to be his prospective judicial appointments. So what was it about Rudy’s language that garnered the negative reaction around here this morning? Was it simply that a pro-choice, pro-conservative judges candidate sounded good in theory, but was less appealing when the position was actually articulated? That is, was it just kinda weird to hear a potential GOP leader say he’s in favor of legal abortion?
I think it’s all about abortion. I can respect that. I am personally pro-life.
“Rudy has stated in crystal clear terms his commitment to nominating judicial conservatives in the mold of Scalia, Roberts, and Alito”
This will satisfy the majority of social conservatives on this issue, but not everyone.
I do believe that security trumps everything. Iran is building a nuclear weapon, the Democrats are trying to turn Iraq into a Vietnam, and the MSM is blaming Republicans for everything.
As a 911 hero, Rudy could really turn things around.
For me, I was really curious as to how he would handle the whole abortion thing – how he could finesse the issue and make himself palatable to conservatives.
The shock for me was his sudden and disruptive 180 degree turn on PBA with no explanation whatsoever, along with a sudden support for parental notification laws with no explanation. Couple that with the “I’m personally pro-life but believe a woman should have the right to choose” and you’ve got yourself a bona fide John Kerry in sheep’s clothing trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
Nobody can really be personally pro-life but politically pro-choice. I said that in 2004 when Kerry was running, I said it about the early Mitt Romney (which is why I trust his conversion story, by the way – the cognitive dissonance of such a position is too great to overcome over time), and I’ll say it about Rudy! as well. I don’t believe him, I don’t trust him, and seeing him in the video made that even worse than reading it on the screen.
He sounded like he was going down a mental check list of ways he had to placate conservatives. Hannity asks a question about an issue, and Rudy repeats the issue, thinks, then answers. “What’s your stance on abortion?” “Abortion? …. I hate it.”
It just did not come across well for me at all. Rudy seemed shifty, crafty, and too much like a panderer completely overturning past positions with no explanation at all.
I may have overemphasized the extent to which it “turned me off.” Parts of the interview were good and Rudy did not make any horrifying mistakes. So don’t get me wrong. If you are trying to understand where he went wrong, I think it was going into too much detail about why he is pro-choice. All the arguments have been heard a hundred times. In the future, after talking about judges and federalism, I think he should just acknowledge that he is pro-choice and leave it at that.
Really though, looking at it from any angle, Rudy is in a tough position. We all know that. He has advocated positions in the past that Republicans disagree with him strongly on. He isn’t just going to be able to wave a magic wand of rhetoric and make that all go away. He doesn’t want to just change his position and he can’t go around playing up his pro-choice stance. So, just take it as a compliment, Dave. You do such a good job of talking up Rudy that when we hear the real thing we are disappointed
GOP Activist, I may be a lot worse then many people when choosing someone to vote for for President, but my general top three issues are: abortion, smaller government (including spending, taxes, and reform), and the war on terror. Not necessarily in that order.
When I select a candidate to vote for, my ideal is someone who is strong on all three points. Rudy is strong on only one, and even that is based off of a star power image he built after 9/11. Nobody really knows how he will prosecute the war on terror.
In the absence of someone who is strong in all three areas, I could vote for someone who is strong in two out of three. Or, in a worst case scenario, I could vote for someone who is strong in one out of three. But luckily, in this race, there is a front runner who I feel confident in, in all three of those: Mitt Romney.
If, for some reason, Mitt is not running by the time May rolls around and it’s time to go to the useless Wyoming caucus, I will now have a very hard time selecting between Rudy and McCain. I used to say Rudy over McCain in a heartbeat, but after seeing how Rudy is planning on running, it’s a tossup between the two. I might vote for whoever else is left out of protest.
Security trumps everything, without security we have nothing.
This may be tough pill to swallow for some conservatives.
But the polls indicate that the majority of conservatives are comfortable with Rudy and it now appears that he stands a very good chance of winning the nomination.
I was only talking about why some conservatives are going to be uncomfortable whenever Rudy has to talk about social issues. I know that lots of conservatives are making tough choices about which issues are most important to them.
My reaction was probably closer to David Hensley’s then Heavy M’s, in the sense that my primary difficulty with the interview was his insistence on framing the abortion debate in precisely the same manner the average pro-choicer does. I can accept him being pro-choice, but I cannot accept him attempting to justify that position from the bully pulpit, as it were, of the Republican nomination. I think another difficulty he has with going into a semi-detailed explanation of his pro-choice stance (i.e., I hate it but I won’t throw women in jail) is a practical one. When Rudy begins to explain his pro-choice views, how he’s arrived at them, what they practically consist of, he takes the peculiar step of putting his would be supporters in the position of wishing to argue with him. And on what is likely to be one of their most treasured beliefs. The only way Rudy wins is if he makes people forget about the abortion issue, and its certainly the only way I’d consider voting for him. And you can’t make people forget something, when you’re clearly trying to defend the very position they despise. Had Rudy gone with ‘I’m pro-choice and I realize not everyone will agree with me on that issue, but I can be no less then who I am’ and then gone on to articulate a federalist stance (which he didn’t quite do during the interview). I think the issue would dissipate to some extent.
If abortions are made illegal, who is it that gets thrown in jail? Women who’ve had abortions, or the doctors who perform them? If it’s the abortionists, then the “I don’t want women to be thrown in jail” argument is inavlid.
I’m pretty confident that pre-Roe, it was almost exclusively the abortionists that were charged with crimes. Certainly, I think that was the case when illegal abortions were actually performed by doctors. I have no idea what occurred during the handful of “coathanger” abortions that pro-choicers are so fond of citing. The point is though, Rudy’s obfuscating on abortion just like pro-choice Democrats. He’s creating false dichotomies and using them to justify his position. And its maddening when liberals do it, and doubly so when its “conservatives” leading the charge. And far more dangerous. Because Hillary and John Kerry aren’t going to convince anyone, one way or another. Rudy might, because conservatives like Rudy in a way they don’t Hillary or Kerry.
As a conservative pro-life catholic married to a former nun, I wonder how everyone would like President Clinton’s position on abortion. We better win. Go Rudy go.
I can’t wait to see Hillary appoint a Roberts or Alito. With a Democratic Congress, don’t hold your breath waiting for a Constitutional amendment banning abortion. And with Hillary we are so lucky, we can have a European style socialist. I’d like to keep some of my own money. Then I can contribute to anti-abortion causes.
GOP Activist isn’t the only one to claim that “security trumps everything”, and that we should disregard all other issues and vote for the 9/11 hero. This is the last line of defense for Rudy’s candidacy…falling back on what is his core strength and claiming that to be more important than all other issues.
1. Rudy has a demonstrated capability as an executive leader in disaster management and response.
2. Why is #1 perceived to make Rudy strong on security, Iraq, or GWOT? He didn’t exactly send the NYPD into Afghanistan.
3. If the answer to #2 is rhetoric, Rudy is not unique. Both McCain and Romney speak effectively about the broader aims of the GWOT.
I hope there are more answers to these questions than polls and 9/11 emotions, which is generally all that gets cited and does not do Giuliani justice if there are better reasons. I’m not trying to say Rudy is a poor choice for sequirity, Iraq, and GWOT, I’m trying to say he’s not the only good choice.
This was a terrible interview, I have never seen someone stutter and fumble on the issues as much as Rudy did right then. This is a real vulnerability, he comes off weak every time he fails to explain an issue.
After watching this interview, I would be completely shocked if Rudy doesn’t commit a major political gaffe that dooms his candidacy before Iowa.
It’s unbelievable how this great public speaker can be so terrible in Q&A, but in full campaign mode, I have no faith that Rudy will be able to handle it.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:28 am
[...] post by Kavon W. Nikrad and software by Elliott [...]
February 6th, 2007 at 9:27 am
I’ve got to agree with Matt and HeavyM comments on the other thread about Rudy’s discussion of the actual abortion issue. He needs to avoid the dodges that Democrats use at all costs. Republicans have become so used to Democrats dodging with the whole “I don’t like abortion, but it should be legal,” tripe that it really turns you off to hear a Republican spewing it. His evasion of the question about Roe v. Wade also pretty much confirms that he doesn’t see anything wrong with it. It casts doubt on whether he will take the approach DaveG has advocated. If he really is going to go with a federalist approach to abortion, now was the chance to explain that overturning Roe v. Wade returns the matter to the states where it should belong and doesn’t ban abortion. This was his chance to say, “I’m pro-choice, but I believe in the constitution and this issue belongs at the state level. Roe v. Wade was poorly reasoned.” He also missed the chance to assure pro-lifers that he will not work against their cause. With that said, I was glad to see him come out against PBA and support parental notification. They are such no brainers that if he had balked on them, it would have been bad. He needed to get this out of the way.
He did pretty well on guns and marriage I guess. Immigration sounded just like McCain or Bush…uggh.
With the lead he has right now, his answers may be sufficient to win him the nomination. If he didn’t have star status already, I don’t see how he could make any headway with this approach. He needs to improve.
February 6th, 2007 at 9:29 am
“AbortionI hate it. As a personal matter it is something I would advise someone against. However, I believe in a woman’s right to choose.”
-Rudy 02/05/07
February 6th, 2007 at 10:02 am
David, I agree. Rudy really missed the boat big time on this one. How any conservative can be okay with this guy, I will never understand. It’s his star power and his star power only that’s carried him this far and may carry him to the nomination. I hope that is not the case, however.
After seeing it, it’s even worse than DaveG’s analysis. My willingness to vote for Rudy after this interview went from around a 5 out of 10 to a 1 out of 10.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:06 am
“I cannot tell you how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins. I’m a Catholic. Raised a Catholic… What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn’t share that article of faith. I believe that choice is a woman’s choice.”
Rudy Giuliani? Nope.
John Kerry.
Scary, isn’t it?
February 6th, 2007 at 10:22 am
In some senses it is worse for me whenever someone says that they think abortion is bad, but want to keep it legal. By admitting that they hate abortion, they are also admitting that they think a fetus is a person. Otherwise they wouldn’t dislike abortion, it’s just removing a blob of tissue. Once you have admitted a fetus is a person, not to protect that person from being murdered is a horrible thing. So while I vehemently disagree with people who say that a fetus is not a person, I can accept that they want abortion to be legal. But, anyone who thinks a fetus is a living person has a moral obligation to protect that person through force of law.
I already knew Rudy was pro-choice, so in many ways this doesn’t change anything. One thing is does do is make Romney and McCain look better. Even if McCain doesn’t put any effort into pro-life causes at least he votes pro-life. And even if Romney did change his position, a simple “I was wrong about abortion. Here is what changed my mind. We have to protect unborn children” statement is so much sweeter to my ears than, “I hate abortion, but I but I want to leave it up to a woman.” And at this point Giuliani has changed on PBA, so he and Romney are even.
In the end, I’m still where I started out. I can’t support Giuliani or McCain in a primary, but I won’t have to hold my nose to vote for them in the general election either.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:29 am
“It’s his star power”
HeavyM,
I have to agree, it is his star power. But that star power is rooted in something real, and that’s proven leadership. His leadership after 911 inspires everyone, and that’s going to be tough to beat.
Think of it, we may be competitive in states like California again. This could really turn things around for the GOP.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:44 am
While I can’t say I share the dominant sentiments around here regarding the interview, I am a bit surprised by the way pretty much everyone who has commented on it came away with the same visceral reaction.
I’m interested in better understanding just what it was that was such a turn off about this interview.
I mean, as David Ensley said, we all knew Rudy was pro-choice. And even in the fantasy scripts on the abortion subject that Kavon and I were writing for Rudy, they all involved Rudy at some point saying the words “pro” and “choice” consecutively. The uniting factor for Rudy and pro-lifers was always intended to be his prospective judicial appointments. So what was it about Rudy’s language that garnered the negative reaction around here this morning? Was it simply that a pro-choice, pro-conservative judges candidate sounded good in theory, but was less appealing when the position was actually articulated? That is, was it just kinda weird to hear a potential GOP leader say he’s in favor of legal abortion?
February 6th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Dave,
I think it’s all about abortion. I can respect that. I am personally pro-life.
“Rudy has stated in crystal clear terms his commitment to nominating judicial conservatives in the mold of Scalia, Roberts, and Alito”
This will satisfy the majority of social conservatives on this issue, but not everyone.
I do believe that security trumps everything. Iran is building a nuclear weapon, the Democrats are trying to turn Iraq into a Vietnam, and the MSM is blaming Republicans for everything.
As a 911 hero, Rudy could really turn things around.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:58 am
DaveG,
For me, I was really curious as to how he would handle the whole abortion thing – how he could finesse the issue and make himself palatable to conservatives.
The shock for me was his sudden and disruptive 180 degree turn on PBA with no explanation whatsoever, along with a sudden support for parental notification laws with no explanation. Couple that with the “I’m personally pro-life but believe a woman should have the right to choose” and you’ve got yourself a bona fide John Kerry in sheep’s clothing trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
Nobody can really be personally pro-life but politically pro-choice. I said that in 2004 when Kerry was running, I said it about the early Mitt Romney (which is why I trust his conversion story, by the way – the cognitive dissonance of such a position is too great to overcome over time), and I’ll say it about Rudy! as well. I don’t believe him, I don’t trust him, and seeing him in the video made that even worse than reading it on the screen.
He sounded like he was going down a mental check list of ways he had to placate conservatives. Hannity asks a question about an issue, and Rudy repeats the issue, thinks, then answers. “What’s your stance on abortion?” “Abortion? …. I hate it.”
It just did not come across well for me at all. Rudy seemed shifty, crafty, and too much like a panderer completely overturning past positions with no explanation at all.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:01 am
I may have overemphasized the extent to which it “turned me off.” Parts of the interview were good and Rudy did not make any horrifying mistakes. So don’t get me wrong. If you are trying to understand where he went wrong, I think it was going into too much detail about why he is pro-choice. All the arguments have been heard a hundred times. In the future, after talking about judges and federalism, I think he should just acknowledge that he is pro-choice and leave it at that.
Really though, looking at it from any angle, Rudy is in a tough position. We all know that. He has advocated positions in the past that Republicans disagree with him strongly on. He isn’t just going to be able to wave a magic wand of rhetoric and make that all go away. He doesn’t want to just change his position and he can’t go around playing up his pro-choice stance. So, just take it as a compliment, Dave. You do such a good job of talking up Rudy that when we hear the real thing we are disappointed
February 6th, 2007 at 11:04 am
GOP Activist, I may be a lot worse then many people when choosing someone to vote for for President, but my general top three issues are: abortion, smaller government (including spending, taxes, and reform), and the war on terror. Not necessarily in that order.
When I select a candidate to vote for, my ideal is someone who is strong on all three points. Rudy is strong on only one, and even that is based off of a star power image he built after 9/11. Nobody really knows how he will prosecute the war on terror.
In the absence of someone who is strong in all three areas, I could vote for someone who is strong in two out of three. Or, in a worst case scenario, I could vote for someone who is strong in one out of three. But luckily, in this race, there is a front runner who I feel confident in, in all three of those: Mitt Romney.
If, for some reason, Mitt is not running by the time May rolls around and it’s time to go to the useless Wyoming caucus, I will now have a very hard time selecting between Rudy and McCain. I used to say Rudy over McCain in a heartbeat, but after seeing how Rudy is planning on running, it’s a tossup between the two. I might vote for whoever else is left out of protest.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:10 am
David,
Security trumps everything, without security we have nothing.
This may be tough pill to swallow for some conservatives.
But the polls indicate that the majority of conservatives are comfortable with Rudy and it now appears that he stands a very good chance of winning the nomination.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:27 am
I was only talking about why some conservatives are going to be uncomfortable whenever Rudy has to talk about social issues. I know that lots of conservatives are making tough choices about which issues are most important to them.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
My reaction was probably closer to David Hensley’s then Heavy M’s, in the sense that my primary difficulty with the interview was his insistence on framing the abortion debate in precisely the same manner the average pro-choicer does. I can accept him being pro-choice, but I cannot accept him attempting to justify that position from the bully pulpit, as it were, of the Republican nomination. I think another difficulty he has with going into a semi-detailed explanation of his pro-choice stance (i.e., I hate it but I won’t throw women in jail) is a practical one. When Rudy begins to explain his pro-choice views, how he’s arrived at them, what they practically consist of, he takes the peculiar step of putting his would be supporters in the position of wishing to argue with him. And on what is likely to be one of their most treasured beliefs. The only way Rudy wins is if he makes people forget about the abortion issue, and its certainly the only way I’d consider voting for him. And you can’t make people forget something, when you’re clearly trying to defend the very position they despise. Had Rudy gone with ‘I’m pro-choice and I realize not everyone will agree with me on that issue, but I can be no less then who I am’ and then gone on to articulate a federalist stance (which he didn’t quite do during the interview). I think the issue would dissipate to some extent.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
If abortions are made illegal, who is it that gets thrown in jail? Women who’ve had abortions, or the doctors who perform them? If it’s the abortionists, then the “I don’t want women to be thrown in jail” argument is inavlid.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
I’m pretty confident that pre-Roe, it was almost exclusively the abortionists that were charged with crimes. Certainly, I think that was the case when illegal abortions were actually performed by doctors. I have no idea what occurred during the handful of “coathanger” abortions that pro-choicers are so fond of citing. The point is though, Rudy’s obfuscating on abortion just like pro-choice Democrats. He’s creating false dichotomies and using them to justify his position. And its maddening when liberals do it, and doubly so when its “conservatives” leading the charge. And far more dangerous. Because Hillary and John Kerry aren’t going to convince anyone, one way or another. Rudy might, because conservatives like Rudy in a way they don’t Hillary or Kerry.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
As a conservative pro-life catholic married to a former nun, I wonder how everyone would like President Clinton’s position on abortion. We better win. Go Rudy go.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
With the exception of the adoption thing, Grant, I don’t see a difference between Hillary’s and Rudy’s positions on abortion.
February 6th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I can’t wait to see Hillary appoint a Roberts or Alito. With a Democratic Congress, don’t hold your breath waiting for a Constitutional amendment banning abortion. And with Hillary we are so lucky, we can have a European style socialist. I’d like to keep some of my own money. Then I can contribute to anti-abortion causes.
February 6th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
When has Rudy advocated an amendment banning abortion?
February 6th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Guiliani really didn’t seem excited about running for president, he seemed a little hesitant.
February 6th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
GOP Activist isn’t the only one to claim that “security trumps everything”, and that we should disregard all other issues and vote for the 9/11 hero. This is the last line of defense for Rudy’s candidacy…falling back on what is his core strength and claiming that to be more important than all other issues.
1. Rudy has a demonstrated capability as an executive leader in disaster management and response.
2. Why is #1 perceived to make Rudy strong on security, Iraq, or GWOT? He didn’t exactly send the NYPD into Afghanistan.
3. If the answer to #2 is rhetoric, Rudy is not unique. Both McCain and Romney speak effectively about the broader aims of the GWOT.
I hope there are more answers to these questions than polls and 9/11 emotions, which is generally all that gets cited and does not do Giuliani justice if there are better reasons. I’m not trying to say Rudy is a poor choice for sequirity, Iraq, and GWOT, I’m trying to say he’s not the only good choice.
February 6th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
This was a terrible interview, I have never seen someone stutter and fumble on the issues as much as Rudy did right then. This is a real vulnerability, he comes off weak every time he fails to explain an issue.
February 6th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
After watching this interview, I would be completely shocked if Rudy doesn’t commit a major political gaffe that dooms his candidacy before Iowa.
It’s unbelievable how this great public speaker can be so terrible in Q&A, but in full campaign mode, I have no faith that Rudy will be able to handle it.
February 6th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
You got to love the Fox News Alert: “Rudy says is in to win”
February 6th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Rudy can’t flip flop. He is the “I have the grapefruints” candinate and to start flipping and flopping makes him looks week.
February 6th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
IT”S SIMPLE TO ME RUDY IS THE ONLY one that can go toe to toe with BILL’S WIFE!
February 6th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
There is no tougher candidate, currently, than Giuliani on the War on Terror.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Giuliani 2008,
Can you explain why in more detail, or point me towards someone else’s more detailed explanation?
February 8th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
[...] From race42008, video of Rudy’s inteview with Sean Hannity a few days ago: [...]