Rudy On Abortion: Dropping The Games

The New York Times reports today that former NY mayor, Rudy Giuliani, is going to end his song and dance around the issue of abortion, and he will come out in favor of abortion rights:

After months of conflicting signals on abortion, Rudolph W. Giuliani is planning to offer a forthright affirmation of his support for abortion rights in public forums, television appearances and interviews in the coming days, despite the potential for bad consequences among some conservative voters already wary of his views, aides said yesterday.

At the same time, Mr. Giuliani’s campaign — seeking to accomplish the unusual task of persuading Republicans to nominate an abortion rights supporter — is eyeing a path to the nomination that would try to de-emphasize the early states in which abortion opponents wield a great deal of influence. Instead they would focus on the so-called mega-primary of Feb. 5, in which voters in states like California, New York and New Jersey are likely to be more receptive to Mr. Giuliani’s social views than voters in Iowa and South Carolina.

That approach, they said, became more appealing after the Legislature in Florida, another state they said would be receptive to Mr. Giuliani, voted last week to move the primary forward to the end of January.

The shift in emphasis comes as the Giuliani campaign has struggled to deal with the fallout from the first Republican presidential candidate debate, in which he gave halting and apparently contradictory responses to questions about his support for abortion rights.

Now the question on many minds is will this hurt Rudy's chances? I do not think it will, really. We have known for quite some time now that Mayor Giuliani is pro-choice, and given the media's feeding-frenzy over contributions he gave to Planned Parenthood there is no doubt now that he is pro-choice. I know there will be many social conservatives turned off by his shift, and there are many that disliked his stance in the run-up to the debates and primaries. But, those people have stated that their primary concern in the upcoming 2008 presidential election is not abortion. It is national security.

Rudy has helped his cause by stating he would appoint the sort of jurists to the bench that would, in effect, work to deal Roe a deathblow at the federal level, and return the issue to the states where it belongs. That is his saving grace and it is one he should not shift his views on.

There are other candidates that look better than Mayor Giuliani. Mitt Romney is an energetic and intelligent candidate. John McCain is a hawk on the war, and would likely be a stand-up president when it came to national security, but his woes with the base are more than evident; his first quarter fundraising shows us just that. Between the three though, both Thomas and I doubt McCain will be in the race for very long, especially if his numbers -- both in the straw polls and in fundraising dollars -- do not drastically improve.

Enough people have complained about Mayor Giuliani's social stances, but many have said they could put that aside in favor of a general election nominee that can win, and one that is as hawkish on the war as any other GOP candidate. (With the exception of Ron Paul who does not seem to have a firm enough grasp of the Constitution.)

If this is Rudy's move, then I hope he sells it well. If this backfires on him, and he retreats, the calls that he "flip-flopped" will be the death rattle of his camapign.

(Hat-Tip to Captain Ed Morrissey for the NY Times story.)

Marcie