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Pat On The Back
John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri
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4 Responses to “Pat On The Back”
For a change, a good cartoon was put on here. The cartoon says it all. Giuliani is far from conservative, and doesn’t appeal to non-liberals of all kinds. His task is to be seen as more conservative than he really is, as is also true for Romney, a task at which there hasn’t been any real success. This does not constitute any kind of success, either. What it does illustrate (literally, here) is that celebrities in the social-conservative community (most noteworthy being the Religious Right, object of much hype here and elsewhere) are willing to sell their souls in order to defeat the devil — Hillary.
Weyrich has endorsed Romney and who knows (and hardly anybody but the Left cares, as is true with Robertson) whom Dobson will choose. (I chuckle at the amusing notion of Dobson hoping for the entry of Newt Gingrich into the contest; an endorsement of Gingrich by Dobson would be even more odd than Brownback’s support for McCain, and would make an even better cartoon. Will Dobson pray for Gingrich’s ex-wives?)
I really believe the Robertson endorsement is going to kill Giuliani. His support is based precisely on the notion that he is not the typical crackerjack fundie Republican that dominates the party these days. His appeal among many of my Yankee Republican college friends was that he could stand up to the Robertsons of the party, not kowtow to them. With Robertson’s endorsement – and Giulianis’s acceptance of it – Giuliani has become just another Republican. Expect his general election numbers to shrink after this (thought he Kerik indictment will hurt him too).
The Religious Right has less power and influence in the GOP than critics believe (this is especially true in Washington), and Giuliani’s problem is that he has been less than truly conservative in the past, in “social” and ideological ways that in no way are exclusively “owned” by, or can be mainly attributed to, the Religious Right.
The fact that Robertson would endorse such a weak candidate shows the woeful state of the Religious Right, and its current desperation, more than anything else.
The only way Robertson weakens Giuliani is the string of bizarre comments Robertson has made lately — it’s guilt by association (though Kerik is a worse example of this).
Giuliani’s associates raise concerns