Rudy Who?

DIGG THIS

It's hard to choose the best Presidential candidate from the motley pack put forward by the two major parties. Don't touch that delete button! I am as big a Ron Paul fan as anybody reading this. However, in my view that effort serves longer-term, more important purposes than merely picking a U.S. President.

What stands out like a beacon in the current Presidential contest is the worst option. I refer to "America's Mayor," Hizzoner Rudy Giuliani.

For the moment, I assume next year's ultimate winner will be Hillary Clinton. To paraphrase a modern street saying, "stuff happens." As a conservative, my focus has shifted beyond 2008, to future days and years when Republicans, conservatives and libertarians struggle to make sense of their 2008 defeat and decide what to do next.

That's when the apparent melt-down of Rudy Giuliani may pay off. Rudy's previously commanding lead over Republican rivals in national polls has shrunk to a dead heat with Mike Huckabee (21 points each in the Dec 9 American Research Group poll, slightly more for Rudy in other December polls). As I write (December 18, 2007) the Rasmussen report gives the Iowa caucuses to Huckabee. Rudy chose not to compete in Iowa.

The only appeal Giuliani ever had with the public was the media-hyped, self-hyped impression that he would do the best job of perpetuating George Bush's Global War on Terror. The basis for even that dubious credential is unclear. Giuliani's pre-9/11 record is as devoid of competence in national security issues as his subsequent career. Military service? Are you kidding?

True, the rest of the GOP pack (less Ron Paul) also apes the President on terrorism – but none with the ghoulish enthusiasm of Giuliani. Loyal Republicans won't say so (publicly) with Bush still in office, but the thoughtful among them will code a Giuliani collapse as voters also repudiating Bush anti-terrorism policies, or at least downgrading their priority.

All politicians like cheap victories. Throughout the history of democracy a popular route to that goal has been whipping up a majority to hate some group (preferably one that doesn't vote, at least not in great numbers). For post-9/11 "Bush Republicans" that somebody has been Muslims. Whoops! I forgot to be politically correct – Islamofascist terrorists. Democrats stuck with their old reliable whipping boys – the rich. Same game, each party just casts its stones at different targets.

The day after George Bush leaves office (January 21, 2009 to be precise) I and a growing army of "freedom Republicans" will step off the sidelines and go back to work, rebuilding the GOP on the morally higher ground of its historic mission; defending individual freedom, personal responsibility and Constitutionally limited government. Other returnees will focus their attention on equally valid, but different interests, among them fiscal responsibility and preserving traditional American beliefs and practices.

It will be hard work. Perhaps thankless work. Ordinary American voters are not famously interested in "complicated" political messages. The temptation will be strong to forget philosophy and get "pragmatic" – go for the gut – go for the flashy issue.

We who demand something better than victory from the Republican Party will make our boring, ponderous case against such a strategy. With luck the next weeks may provide a more convincing and graphic image to keep the pragmatists on the high road. I refer to the increasingly possible political demise of the most famous win-for-its-own-sake-Republican of the 2008 campaign. To use Richard Nixon's occasionally appropriate phrase, "May Rudy twist, slowly, slowly in the wind."

December 20, 2007