Re: ...it must be an easily manipulated and gerrymandered two-party-system.
Btw, "third parties" only exist in two-party systems, the few that are left on the earth.
Boy, you've lucked it out!!! You've got your THIRD PARTY --at last!! You've got your dream come true --a JESUS PARTY:
Giuliani nomination could split the right
07:38 AM CDT on Friday, October 5, 2007
Five months ago, Deal Hudson, a leading Catholic conservative, sat in a Washington restaurant and made a prediction.He said that if Rudy Giuliani becomes the Republican nominee for president, there will be a third-party challenge by an anti-abortion candidate.
"Almost a certainty," he said over lunch at the politically connected Capital Grille. "Which means you're siphoning off 5 percent, maybe 10 percent, of the vote."
The result, he predicted darkly, would be the election of President Hillary Rodham Clinton.
It is a message that Mr. Hudson, head of the Washington-based Morley Institute for Church and Culture, and others have been pressing for months among social-conservative leaders, hoping to head off a Giuliani nomination.
The former New York City mayor supports abortion rights, gay rights and gun control – a breach of GOP orthodoxy and anathema to many evangelicals who constitute the party's political base.
For Christian conservatives who have enjoyed three decades of growing political influence, the 2008 presidential election is a watershed moment.
White evangelical Protestants are the most reliably Republican voting bloc. Despite last year's drubbing, 72 percent voted for Republicans for Congress – down only slightly from the presidential race two years earlier. In other words, they stuck with the party despite its problems.
So the choice is to swallow the issues they care about most or, Mr. Hudson warns, "break into pieces" and lose their political influence.
Giuliani allies frame it a different way – the mayor is the only candidate who can beat Mrs. Clinton, the ultimate bogeyman for conservatives.
So, the Giuliani campaign is ground zero in the fight over the future of the religious right, which burst into the open last weekend when a network of religious conservatives, including James Dobson of Focus on the Family, served notice that it was prepared to bolt the party if the former New York mayor becomes the nominee.
Immediately, Team Giuliani produced Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas, to defend its honor.
"There are clear differences between my guy and Mrs. Clinton," Mr. Sessions said in an interview. "The differences we have in this party are healthy for us to debate. But we have a real winner on our hands."
Mr. Sessions is a staunch opponent of abortion rights, gun control and gay marriage. He is the most conspicuous social conservative in the Giuliani camp.
"There aren't a lot of me in the organization yet," he said this week, laughing. "But I've spent time with the guy. I've known him for a long time. I know what is in his heart and his mine. And people are going to come to his side."
The message: Mr. Giuliani can keep the White House in GOP hands.
Mr. Sessions has scrambled in recent days to reassure wavering social conservatives that Mr. Giuliani would act in their interest – from appointing "strict constructionist" judges to supporting the ban on so-called partial-birth abortion to battling Islamic terrorism.
Giuliani aides take heart in Pew Research surveys showing that many religious conservatives consider national security a top issue. Mr. Giuliani maintains a plurality among those voters, according to the surveys.
"His leadership qualities have overriding potential," said Mr. Sessions.
The Texas congressman is taking that case to the media, from the Christian Broadcast Network to The New York Times. And in doing so, he has drawn the dire consequences of a third-party revolt.
"We have already seen the answer to this, and that was eight years of Bill Clinton," he said, citing Ross Perot's third-party challenge in 1992. "It would mean eight years of Hillary Clinton. That is a vast desert for any conservative."
The rise of the modern religious right came in response to two Supreme Court decisions: one in 1963 outlawing school-sponsored prayer and another in 1973 legalizing abortion.
The Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and other groups galvanized millions of social conservatives as a potent political force. Their influence swelled through the 1980s and 1990s to dominate the GOP and assure the election of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
As he sat over lunch in May, midway between the White House and the U.S. Capitol, Mr. Hudson wondered whether Christian voters would be divided and marginalized in the year to come.
He recalled that four years ago, he worked to defeat John Kerry, a Catholic who favors abortion rights.
"I would be extremely disappointed if my party were to nominate exactly the kind of candidate we fought against in 2004," he said.
"If Giuliani is the nominee," he said, "people like myself can no longer say the GOP is the natural home for religious conservatives. At least for now."
wslater@dallasnews.com
dallasnews.com
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