A mixed message for Rudy from the Christian right

Giuliani gets applause, but not votes, from a pro-Huckabee crowd at the Values Voter Summit.

By Michael Scherer

Read more: Republican Party, Rudy Giuliani, Politics, Religious Right, News, Gary Bauer, Mike Huckabee, Michael Scherer, 2008 election, Mitt Romney

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani speaks to the Family Research Council's Values Voters Summit in Washington on Oct. 20.

Oct. 21, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- From the back of the ballroom, it was hard to see if Rudy Giuliani had a forked tongue. The jumbo video screens that bracketed the stage Saturday morning failed to show any horns growing from his shiny forehead. And when the former New York mayor turned to leave, receiving a standing ovation from most of the 2,000 religious conservatives in attendance, no pointy red tail jutted out from beneath his suit jacket.

In other words, Giuliani seemed to be having a pretty good day at the Values Voter Summit, where the pro-choice candidate came to pay his respects to the Republican Party's pro-life base, which has been staging a slow-motion revolt against his candidacy. "I come to you today as I would if I were your president, with an open mind and an open heart, and all I ask is that you do the same," Giuliani said at the beginning of the 40-minute address. "Please know this, you have absolutely nothing to fear from me."

As time passed, the skeptical crowd seemed to warm to him. He spoke of his efforts in New York to clean up pornography (applause), his support of home schooling (applause), and his plans to nominate anti-Roe v. Wade judges like Justices Scalia and Thomas (lots of applause). He boasted of attempting to deny funding for a museum that showed a painting of the Virgin Mary made partly from elephant dung and girly mag money shots. He said he supported parental notification for abortion, a ban on partial-birth abortion, and the denial of taxpayer funding for abortion.

"I've made mistakes in my life," Giuliani said, an allusion to his three marriages and estranged children. "I pray for forgiveness. I pray for strength. I pray for guidance. I feel my own faith deeply, although maybe more privately than some."

Hours later, however, when the votes in a straw poll were counted, Giuliani had received less than 2 percent. The clear preference of those in attendance at the Values Voter Summit was former Arkansas Gov. (and ordained Baptist minister) Mike Huckabee, who finished second overall but a strong first among those casting their votes on-site. Giuliani, meanwhile, finished second in a diferent tally. He trailed only Hillary Clinton among contenders of both parties as the "least acceptable" candidate.

For weeks, socially conservative leaders have been gradually increasing their opposition to a Giuliani nomination, fearful of his continued lead in the mostly symbolic national polls. Some Republicans have threatened to form a third party if he wins, and they continued their conversations in a private meeting here Saturday afternoon. Others have threatened to stay home from the polls. Still more have promised to drop their traditional volunteer roles as Republican Party volunteers, leaving phone calls unmade and envelopes unstuffed.

But all the early agitation against Giuliani, including talk of a third party, has also provoked a backlash from some conservative leaders, which was on full display this weekend. "Social conservatives have always been against suicide and I think at the end of the day we are going to be against political suicide too," Gary Bauer, the former presidential candidate, told Salon when asked about the third-party threat. Ohio Rep. Jean Schmidt, who famously suggested that her Democratic House colleague Rep. Jack Murtha, a Marine veteran, was a coward, came down from the Capitol to plead for GOP unity. "When we get through the primary, stand behind the individual that is at least the better alternative to what we have on the other side," she said.

Conservative jurist Robert Bork, the failed Supreme Court nominee echoed those sentiments during a Saturday morning speech. "The defection of enough conservatives to ensure victory for the Democrats will mean that for 20 or 30 years Roe will be entrenched," Bork said of the Supreme Court ruling that ensures the legality of abortion. "It's good to stand on principle, but it's also good to understand what your ultimate objective is."

All of them were talking about the prospect of a general election that pitted Giuliani against a pro-choice Democrat. But they were also getting ahead of themselves. The Republican nomination is still anybody's fight, and no single candidate is likely to become a clear favorite for conservative evangelical voters before the end of the year. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the conference straw poll, but only because his supporters stuffed the ballots, so to speak, with more than 1,000 online votes from people who were not in attendance at the Washington Hilton. Mike Huckabee, who continues to run an underfunded campaign, garnered 51 percent of the in-person votes and earned the loudest cheers and the warmest reception from the conservative crowd. Meanwhile, a new poll from CBS News showed that former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson has the most national support among Republicans who attend church each week.

Next page: "It's not going to do me any good to be pro-life if I am blown up"