Rudy May Yet Hear an Amen From Values Voters

Amid the booths pushing abstinence ("Pet Your Pet'' T-shirts), commandment-of-the-month bumper stickers and religious statues the size of aircraft carriers, the attendees at last weekend's Values Voters Summit are more open to heresy than I would have thought.

As they hung out around the Starbucks kiosk outside the Washington Hilton ballroom, these evangelical Christians were willing to give former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani points just for showing up. It's not that he told them what they wanted to hear -- he didn't -- but that he wanted to be heard at all.

"Isn't it better that I tell you what I really believe, instead of pretending to change all of my positions to fit the prevailing winds?'' he said.

The simple answer to that is no. Being pandered to reinforces how powerful the values voters are.

Still, they're only human. They don't like being disappointed by those who promise them everything and deliver little -- think Supreme Court Justice David Souter, Harriet Miers or the scoundrels in their midst like fallen evangelist Ted Haggard and Senator Larry Craig.

They like celebrities and converts. It's as good to be Paul on the road to Damascus as a Mitt Romney, who was once to the left of Ted Kennedy in his love for gays and who now rests to the right of Pat Robertson, who blames 9/11 on homosexuals. Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council and co-sponsor of the event, said, "Rudy didn't get a halo by coming, but he lost his horns.''

Read the whole column here.

Comments

[ms.understood]

These "values voters" wouldn't know their asses from a hole in the ground, especially if they would endorse a closeted-freak like Rudy, Judy, or whatever his name is!

[Zanti]

Terrific piece. Thank you!

[cynara]

Oh, please let Rudy get the general nomination. Then we can remind all those value voters of Rudy Guliani's past in the general election. (Rudy in a dress photos, angry ex wives, gay roomates, etc..). They may be grudgingly moved at a little attention while not being reminded of his past, but the second they remember, ooooh, that will be fun...

[ihavenobias]

I guess we shouldn't be surprised considering the contradictory nature of most of these "values voters".

These are the same "pro-life" people who voted for an unnecessary-war president (and then elected him again) who also stopped federal funding for (zygotic, not really embryonic, but that's another issue) stem cell research.

These SAME people that argue that we can't destroy potential life (in the form of a fertilized egg), even if there is the potential to *save lives in the long run*.

Oh really? Yet they support a "war on terror"?

Isn't the bottom line of this war supposed to be that we're taking lives (not just potential lives but actual ones, directly or indirectly) to *save lives in the long run*?

I don't hear enough people framing it quite that way, they usually just let them get away with saying "well, it's unfortunate but this war is to protect us and save lives."

In other words, it's *sometimes* ok to take life in order to save life but sometimes not. I'd be interested to read Bible passage on that one.

PS---That's not even getting into the fact that voting republican means voting against programs to provide healthcare (aka, pro-life care) for children and others, or social security and other such programs for the elderly (and here I thought democrats were the ones who didn't care about babies and the elderly due to abortion and euthanasia?).

Far too many of these voters clearly lack any nuance and have an incredibly narrow view of what it means to be "pro-life".

Also, here's a video clip discussing Rudy's "flip-flops":

theyoungturks.com/story/2007/10/16/103434/38