Campaigning on ‘what matters most’
Core principles that uphold the most important and sacred values of life are based on the natural law, and not pliable or negotiable by politicians, or anyone. But policies can differ on how to apply the principles, and you look at who best represents your approach to policy. Everyone probably agrees we should feed the poor, but how to do that (programs, resources) is a debatable question.
Some Catholic politicians think some core principles are debatable, too.
When Rudy Giuliani faces Republicans concerned about his support of gay rights and legal abortion, he reassures them that he is a conservative on the decisions that matter most.
So what matters most, if not the fundamental right to life of the unborn?
“I would want judges who are strict constructionists because I am,” he told South Carolina Republicans last month. “Those are the kinds of justices I would appoint — Scalia, Alito and Roberts.”
But most of Giuliani’s judicial appointments during his eight years as mayor of New York were hardly in the model of Chief Justice John Roberts or Samuel Alito — much less aggressive conservatives in the mold of Antonin Scalia.
In fact, Guiliani’s appointees have generally pleased the hard left.
Cumulatively, Giuilani’s record was enough to win applause from people like Kelli Conlin, the head of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, the state’s leading abortion-rights group. “They were decent, moderate people,” she said.
That obviously translates to ‘people who were soft on abortion.’
“I don’t think he was looking for someone who was particularly conservative,” added Barry Kamins, a Democrat who chaired the panel of the Bar Association of the City of New York, which reviewed Giuliani’s appointments…
That is the kind of praise that will amount to damnation (not necessarily faint) among some of the people Giuliani will be trying to impress in Washington on Friday, when he addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference. The group is filled with social conservatives, for whom the effort to recast the ideological orientation of the federal judiciary has been a generation-long project. Giuliani already faced a high threshold of skepticism from many of these activists because of his comparatively liberal record on such hot-button issues as abortion rights, tolerance of gays and gun control.
Why are social conservatives always called “activists” while liberals, even fringe liberals, are not?
Giuliani’s judicial appointments continue to win good reviews in New York legal circles for being what conservatives sometimes say they want: competent lawyers selected with no regard to “litmus tests” on hot-button social issues.
The ‘litmus tests’ are okay if applied the other way. Remember the Senate confirmation hearings on John Roberts and Samuel Alito? Double standards. And doublespeak.