Saturday, November 17, 2007

Riding the fence? more like the clothes hanger.

Guiliani. That anomaly of anomalies. Or is he? At first glance, his positions on some issues are a bit spotty - and the press has, for the most part, gone out of it's way to make sure people continue to be confused by exaclty what Rudy is trying to sell. And actually, it's probably doing his campaign more good than harm -- at least in a national sense. In terms of primary votes, it remains to be seen whether or not the warbly quality of Guilani's campaign platform turns out to his favor. One thing is agreed so far - that Guiliani's approach is not a platform of solid bedrock, but one of shifting tectonic plates - who knows what seismic turns it might take.
But as of right now, Guiliani is confusing people on a few key issues - abortion, religion, and gun control - the holy trinity of Republican pundits. Normally, to be a viable candidate your answers to the trinity must be: "Never, Always, and 'Ready, Aim, Fire', Amen." But Guiliani has adopted the tact of pandering slightly to the left with abortion, yet winking knowing at those stubborn donkeys to his right.

What his strategy entails is thus: he proclaims himself a pro-women's rights politican, saying that he should not dictate choices for a woman. This serves the purpose of allowing some on both sides to see his bipartison attempts. However, anyone - and pro-choice people especially, would be extremely naive in assuming that Rudy is actually FOR them. Because on the other side (yet at the same time), Guiliani says he would support the confirmation of supreme court judges in the vein of Scalia and Thomas. If that isn't scary, this blogger doesn't know what is - and it certainly trumps Rudy's attempts to appease the middle-left. Because Guilani can't exactly outlaw abortion himself, the most likely way we'd see the outlawing of abortion in the near future is through the courts - and that is where Guilani is fiercely pro-life -- so he isn't even close to riding the fence, only perhaps the clothes hanger. We'd be better off having a right wing candidate being strictly pro-life, yet open to supporting the nomination of judges who themselve sit on the abortion fence (i.e. they actually want to hear the evidence and decide independent of their own moral/religious belief - an idea we don't see too often nowadays).

Guilani is portrayed as a "different" candidate, one that is more centrist, and yet his facade is very thinly spackled, and it crumbles into a heap of GOP rhetoric upon any good analysis, (and that heap's as toxic as the lead paint chips we get from China). So I'd urge anyone on the fence, leaning toward voting for Guilani because of his high marks for National Security (can you say 9/11 in huge numerals?) and his supposed liberal bent to be weary - you might just end up with exactly what you always knew you never wanted but didn't think you'd get.

* and lets not forget that Guiliani's pro-women (and pro-family for that matter) standings are lame at best - the man's children, and certainly his ex wives, don't even back him.

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