Redstate

Posted at 8:06pm on Jan. 28, 2008 The New Federalism Speech

The Speech Rudy Should Have Given

By Dan McLaughlin

As regular readers know (see here and here), I continue to believe that Rudy Giuliani is the best potential president in the GOP field - and specifically, the one most likely to accomplish conservative policy priorities - and would be a strong candidate in the general election. That assessment, which I won't rehash here, is based in large part on Rudy's personal characteristics, temperament and accomplishments; after all, ideas don't run for president, people do. Of course, Rudy's record on social issues has long been the primary obstacle to winning the nomination, and everyone who paid any attention whatsoever to Rudy's record and to Republican politics over the past few decades knew that. Thus, a Rudy for President campaign needed to have a well-thought-out plan from Day One as to how to deal with that obstacle.

Since the summer of 2005, I have been laying out in public and in private - including to people who hoped, at the time, to have the ear of the Giuliani camp - my roadmap to how Rudy could overcome this obstacle. I never thought he could win over everyone, but I believed then and believe now that there was an opportunity, had Rudy played his cards the right way at the right time, to take the goodwill and respect Rudy enjoyed with socially conservative voters who respected him as a leader and offer a compromise that would keep enough pro-lifers, in particular, on board to build a winning coalition in the primaries and hold enough of the party together - and appeal to enough independent or swing voters - to march to victory in November.

Rudy has followed some of the paths I laid out (not that I take credit for this), but he never gave the speech I thought would really make the difference. When voters go to the polls tomorrow in Florida, they may breathe new life into Rudy's campaign, or more likely they may end it. Either way, it's probably too late to give this speech - and so I offer it to you, dear readers, and to posterity.

Read On...

Posted in 2008 | 2008 Presidential Campaign | Roe v. Wade | Rudy Giuliani | Schism — Comments (28)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:59pm on Jan. 22, 2008 Still Crazy After All These Years

Remember Who Made This A Divisive Issue

By Dan McLaughlin

I can't add right now to Alex and RightMichigan in commemorating the horror or legal abortion on this 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, other than to note the rhetorical corner the proponents of legal abortion have painted themselves into these days. They can't plausibly argue that Roe is well-reasoned constitutional law or embodies a rule that was ever envisioned by We The People in adopting any part of our Constitution, so they are forced to rely on the notion - itself a caricature of conservatism, ironically - that the Court having made a mistake ought not to correct it. They argue as well that the issue is not for the people, having been "settled" by their betters on the Court. They fear arguing on normative or religious grounds that an unborn child is not a human being, but they are equally insistent that the matter is not one for science, as the scientific evidence (of the development of the unborn person and his or her viability outside the womb) has only moved against them in the intervening three decades. Indeed, one searches in vain for a strictly secular and scientific definition of a human being that doesn't come down to the unique genetic code that each of us receives as an embryo and that remains our scientifically traceable unique identifier throughout our lifespans and even after death. (Call an unborn child a "clump of cells" if you want; you still haven't answered the question, "well, whose cells are they?") There's a recipe for legitimate decisionmaking: no popular legitimacy, no grounding in law, religion, morality or science. Just an exercise in raw political will.

Anyway, the merits aside, I think we would do well this day to reflect on Justice Scalia's observation about the political impact of Roe and its distorting influence on our national politics, the courts and the rule of law:

Not only did Roe not . . . resolve the deeply divisive issue of abortion; it did more than anything else to nourish it, by elevating it to the national level, where it is infinitely more difficult to resolve. National politics were not plagued by abortion protests, national abortion lobbying, or abortion marches on Congress before Roe v. Wade was decided. Profound disagreement existed among our citizens over the issue - as it does over other issues, such as the death penalty - but that disagreement was being worked out at the state level. As with many other issues, the division of sentiment within each State was not as closely balanced as it was among the population of the Nation as a whole, meaning not only that more people would be satisfied with the results of state-by-state resolution, but also that those results would be more stable. Pre-Roe, moreover, political compromise was possible.

Roe's mandate for abortion on demand destroyed the compromises of the past, rendered compromise impossible for the future, and required the entire issue to be resolved uniformly, at the national level. At the same time, Roe created a vast new class of abortion consumers and abortion proponents by eliminating the moral opprobrium that had attached to the act. . . Roe fanned into life an issue that has inflamed our national politics in general, and has obscured with its smoke the selection of Justices to this Court, in particular, ever since.

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 995-96 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting). Recall those words next time you hear pro-lifers accused of being the divisive ones. It was the authors and proponents of Roe who made abortion a national issue.

Posted in Justice Scalia | Life Issues | Roe v. Wade — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:53am on Jan. 22, 2008 A day to remember a moral and judicial abomination

By Alexham

Thirty-five years ago today, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Roe v. Wade that a woman has a constitutional right to kill her unborn child. There is much I could say about Roe, which I believe is, hands down, the worst judicial decision in the history of our constitutional republic. But for today, I will hold my tongue.

Instead, I would like to acknowledge the tireless efforts of the foot soliders in the pro-life movement; many of whom will brave the cold today to stand up for a "Culture of Life" in this country. God Bless you all. Thank you for being a voice for the voiceless; for being people who are willing to defend the most vulnerable members of our society. It is a call that we all should heed. As Pope John Paul the Great once remarked:

The inviolability of the person, which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights -- for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture -- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination . . . The human being is entitled to such rights in every phase of development, from conception until natural death, whether healthy or sick, whole or handicapped, rich or poor . . . [Moreover, if,] indeed, everyone has the mission and responsibility of acknowledging the personal dignity of every human being and of defending the right to life, some lay faithful are given particular title to this task: such as parents, teachers, healthworkers and the many who hold economic and political power.

And to that, all I can add is: Amen.

Posted in Abortion | culture of death | Life Issues | Roe v. Wade — Comments (10)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:00pm on Oct. 23, 2007 Cautions for Conservatives

Elections Have Consequences, Sometimes Unintended

By Mark I

Jeffrey Lord has a very important piece at The American Spectator online today. He recounts the often overlooked story of the 1986 Senate elections, in which the GOP lost control of the Senate, their impact on the defeat of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, and the consequences for Roe v. Wade six years later.

Mr. Lord recalls that the GOP lost seven of the twelve freshman Senators who had been elected on Ronald Reagan’s coattails in the Republican Senate takeover of 1980. Six of those Senators were defeated by less than four percentage points in their 1986 bids for reelection. All seven were the victims of apathy and hostility from relatively small handfuls of conservative voters in their home states.

Read on…

Posted in 1986 | 2008 | Abortion | Bork | Roe v. Wade | senate — Comments (7)/ Email this page » / Read More »