I won’t vote for Giuliani or McCain

By Scott Tibbs, October 4, 2007

Republicans could face a major problem in 2008 if former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination for President. Evangelical leader James Dobson said months ago that he will not vote for Giuliani, and other conservatives are expressing similar reservations. John McCain, who was the driving force behind an unconstitutional law regulating the content of political speech, will also face problems with conservatives should he secure the nomination.

As I've said in the past, I will also not vote for Giuliani or McCain. Giuliani's pro-"choice" views are an automatic disqualification when it comes to getting my vote in 2008. Any candidate that thinks it should be legal to murder an unborn child by dismemberment will not have my support if he is running for an office with the authority to make decisions on the legality of abortion. With 50 million lives lost to the abortion industry in the past 35 years, abortion is the preeminent moral issue of our time.

McCain's support for "campaign finance reform" makes him an unacceptable candidate. Newt Gingrich has said that the primary reason he will not be running for President is that he would be forbidden from involvement with American Solutions, an organization he has supported for the past year. McCain-Feingold has certainly benefited the law's author by sabotaging the campaign of a potential rival for the GOP nomination.

Gary Bauer warned that Hillary Clinton will be worse than Giuliani, and that is true. After her husband disgraced the White House for eight years, I certainly do not wish to see her as President. But there comes a point where the argument that "the alternative is worse" does not hold water. What if John Kerry was the Republican nominee and Ward Churchill was the Democratic nominee? Churchill may be the worse of the two candidates, but would Bauer really suggest that Republicans vote for John F. Kerry?

Some conservatives will vote for any of the current candidates just to cast the most effective vote against Hillary Clinton. At the end of the day, however, you have to give conservatives something to vote for, and not just something to vote against. That was the lesson Republicans should have learned after losing the House of Representatives last year, a loss due in large part to passing several significant pieces of legislation that were anything but conservative.

Hillary Clinton might be the Republican Party's dream opponent in 2008, but that only holds true if the GOP nominates a conservative to run against her. By nominating Giuliani or McCain, the GOP runs the risk of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory while significantly strengthening the Libertarian Party.