Get Real

I blogged in July about pro-lifers threatening to sit out the 2008 election if Giuliani wins the nomination, and why this is a very, very bad idea. I don't want Giuliani as the nominee. I don't trust him. I don't expect social conservatives to be enthusiastic about him if he gets the nomination. But this increasing talk about supporting a third party candidate if Giuliani is the nominee is just madness.

I keep pointing out: the Supreme Court is the real issue. President Giuliani, even if you don't believe his current talk about appointing strict constructionists, is likely to appoint a mixture of moderate, libertarian, and conservative Republicans to the federal courts, including the Supreme Court. President Clinton will appoint what?

Over at Slublog is this rather important list:

Justice John Paul Stevens is 87.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 74.
Justice Anthony Kennedy is 71.
Justice Antonin Scalia is 71.
Justice Stephen Breyer is 69.
Justice David Souter is 68.

As the Anchoress points out:

The third-party pipe-dreamers will once again make the Clinton tag team victorious. And with a Supreme Court likely to need three quick replacements in '09, the third party folks will watch as the court becomes a permanent 5-4 liberal majority activist court - for decades. Decades, folks. The America you think you’re going to “preserve” with your third party candidate may become unrecognizable in a very short time. The Roe v Wade you think you’re going to reverse with your unelectable third candidate will seem almost quaint when compared with the "compassionate" euthanasia and the "practical, community-serving, environment saving" limitations on life you'll be watching get handed down as law by an activist court determined to see the Constitution as a "living" and flexible document.

I understand that there's a lot of rage about abortion. But guaranteeing a Democratic victory in 2008, in the hopes that the Republican Party will start to listen to social conservatives is really, really foolish. You might get a social conservative Republican nominee in 2012--but so what? The Supreme Court will be fully stacked with liberals who will make social conservatives wish for the return of Sandra Day O'Connor.

I'm hoping that a lot of this talk about supporting a third party candidate is just an attempt to threaten Republicans into not backing Giuliani, and that if Giuliani wins the nomination, everyone will sulk for a while and face reality. But I am rather fearful that this is not the case.

There are not enough conservatives to win a national election. Some people want to imagine that there are, but they are grossly mistaken. Those who want to disagree might want to look at this Barna Group report. Now, there are probably a lot of social conservatives who don't have what the Barna Group study considers a "Biblical worldview." But if only 4% of Americans have a "Biblical worldview," it seems unlikely that the number of of people in America is large enough to elect a candidate whose primary reason for being is that he is a social conservative.

Imagine Stephen Reinhardt on the Supreme Court--the 9th Circuit judge who decided that speech that offends homosexuals isn't constitutionally protected. That's what helping Clinton get elected will do for us.

UPDATE: I received a variety of responses. Several said, "If we accept someone like Giuliani, why will the Republican Party ever listen to us?" I understand that concern. But as another reader pointed out, "If social conservatives walk away from the Republican nominee, why will the rest of the party ever trust them?"

These are both real serious perspectives. If we don't demand a conservative Republican nominee, we won't ever get one. But if we aren't prepared to vote for a Republican over a Democrat, why should we expect the libertarian wing of the Republican Party to support a social conservative nominee in the future?

Obvious solution: pick someone that is acceptable to a broad swath of the party, and a broad swath of the American voters, like Fred Thompson.