Thursday, February 15, 2007

Giuliani a Social Conservative?

Jennifer Rubin has an interesting take on Rudy Giuliani in The American Spectator.

She argues that Giuliani may not be the sort of social conservative we are used to talking about, but that doesn't make him a liberal. He's more of a law-and-order conservative.

Giuliani has a convincing argument that he is an ethical or cultural conservative who in the end will protect the values that most conservative Republicans hold dear. What does this mean? It means that he sees the world as a battle between good and evil, and politics as a struggle between decent hard working people and elites who have too little respect for their values -- public safety, respect for religion and public virtue.

This statement made me wonder how narrow and boxed-in our definition of social conservative has become. To be a social conservative these days has developed into a cramped version of what it used to be. These days, one is only a social conservative if one opposed abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research. But, frankly, there's only a tiny fraction of Republicans who hold all of those opinions. How can Republicans hope to convince the majority of Americans that they are the better party to govern if that is all they have going for them?

Rubin points out that Giuliani won over famously liberal New Yorkers by taking care of the basic necessities of urban life. He implemented policies which reduced crime, brought back tourists, and made the streets safe again. He also appealed to cultural conservatives by booting Yasser Arafat from the Lincoln Center and fighting the Brooklyn Museum of Art over insulting religious art. When Giuliani said, "You don't have a right to government subsidy for desecrating somebody else's religion," he was speaking for all of us.
His list of enemies is certainly long, but his friends and admirers are numerous and devoted. He is the best friend of the cop, the fireman, the school parents, the Catholic parishioners and even the Midwest tourists who now flock to New York City. For him and those he has befriended, social conservatism means defending a functioning civil society where families enjoy physical security, religious respect, and public decency. These may sound like pedestrian concerns, less dramatic than the battles some wage against gay marriage or embryo destruction in stem cell research. Nevertheless, if they seem be more concrete and immediate to the ordinary Republican primary voter, Giuliani may prove to be not only the Republican nominee but a new kind of "social conservative."

Of the candidates seeking the '08 nomination, Giuliani is my favorite, atm. Perhaps I would perfer a guy who was more to my liking on life issues, but I'm willing to bend on those things to keep a Democrat out of the White House.