Giuliani Shoots Himself in the Fetus

Did Rudy Giuliani just blow his chances of getting the Republican nomination for president in 2008?

Giuliani is gambling that his image as the hero of 9/11 will more than make up for his heterodox (for a Republican, anyway) views on abortion and gun control. He seems to think that being a tough guy will more than make up for his deviation from conservative orthodoxy -- and it might, in a general election. But before that he has to win Iowa and New Hampshire, and the voters in those two states are hard-right true believers. Those 200,000 voters are unlikely to be willing to vote for a pro-choice, pro-gun control candidate -- no matter what he did on 9/11.

This is how Giuliani defended his position at Houston Baptist University on Friday (text from the AP):

"This is a matter of deep and profound judgment. It's a matter of morals. It's a matter of your interpretation of how laws should operate, your interpretation of how respect for the rights of others should operate. But in a country like ours ... I believe you have to respect their viewpoint and give them a level of choice. I would grant women the right to make that choice."

Sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it? Almost rational, coming from a Republican. There are of course some interesting and revealing caveats in that otherwise reasonable statement. For example, he says he would give women "a level of choice" (my emphasis), and that "I would grant women [again, my emphasis] the right to make that choice." It's as if the right to choose was a personal gift of Giuliani's, something he can bestow and/or take away any time he feels like it.

But soon Giuliani was backtracking even from this position, saying on Sunday in an interview on Fox News that, "I am open and will continue to be open to ways to limit abortion."

How do you reconcile these two positions? Are they reconcilable? Women have the right to make the choice to terminate a pregnancy but Giuliani is open to ways of limiting that choice? Imagine a similar argument on, say, gun control: would he really say words to the effect of, "I am in favor of gun ownership but I'm open to the idea of taking those guns away"? Would he really get away with such an idiotic statement?

Giuliani is stuck between a rock and a hard place -- and, typically, he's trying to have it both ways. He knows that if he shifts gears and retracts his original position in the way that Mitt Romney did he will lay himself open to the charge of being an opportunist and a flip-flopper. If he holds firm to his position he risks alienating the very people who are in a position to deny him the nomination.

Abortion is "morally wrong" (Giuliani's words) but should be protected. Now that's something the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are just dying to hear. As an article in the International Herald Tribune about his interview Sunday says:

The high stakes he faces, and the strain of having to explain the more conservative views he has adopted, were evident Sunday when Giuliani, after a 10-minute grilling in the Fox News interview about his abortion views, began to quite visibly perspire.

That's probably symbolically appropriate. In his place, I'd be sweating too -- because I would have, in all likelihood, thrown away my chances of the nomination.

Tom Moran