Upper Left Coast

Thoughts on politics, faith, sports and other random topics from a red state sympathizer in indigo-blue Portland, Oregon.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Quote of the Day: the next president

Mark DeMoss, a prominent evangelical and founder of the DeMoss Group public relations firm, wrote an open letter to evangelicals this week asking for their support of Mitt Romney for president. It was reprinted on Hugh Hewitt's website, and while I haven't made up my mind about Romney or any other Republican candidate, I found this section extremely critical (emphasis mine):
Perhaps most troubling to me is the idea I keep hearing that electing someone like Hillary Clinton would “actually be good for the conservative movement,” since it will “galvanize our forces, enable us to build our mailing lists and raise more money…therefore, I’m not going to vote for anyone this time around.” Well, I am not willing to risk negatively changing the Supreme Court, and our entire judicial system, for the next 30 years in exchange for building our conservative mailing lists and operating budgets for the next four or eight years. That, in my opinion, is selfish, short-sighted and dangerous.

Here is what I believe is at stake in this election: Someone is almost certain to appoint two, three, or four justices to the Supreme Court. Do we want that person to be Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney?
It all goes back to the question of whether voters should insist on purity in their candidates, or whether they can recognize that purity will never be found this side of heaven and choose the best winnable option. I recognize that, for instance, Rudy Guiliani would present an unpleasant choice for those who value the life of the unborn, but if he's the Republican nominee, it will mean the next president is either Guiliani or (most likely) Hillary Clinton; no third-party candidate will have a chance, so voting for Guiliani is a no-brainer.

And the same (though the unborn have a much better shot with him) goes for Mitt Romney.

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4 Comments:

  • At 10/12/2007 8:45 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I am a social conservative and I have ZERO problems with Giuliani. I know he isn't perfect, but neither am I. Near as I can tell, the last perfect person on Earth got nailed to a cross for it.

    The two justices most likely to retire in the first term of the next President are John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. These are two of the most liberal justices ever on the bench.

    Even if hypothetical-President Giuliani chose a pair of wishy-washy moderate "Sandy O'Connor" types, it would be a HUGE shift in the makeup of the court, and would make it darn-near impossible for SCOTUS to author ANY opinion that wasn't at least concurred by the "four horsemen" of Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito.

    Contrast a hypothetical Hillary Clinton White House, and who she would appoint. We would end up with two EVEN MORE disgusting justices. Worse, should she make it to a second term, she would probably have the opportunity to replace current swing-voter Justice Kennedy... he's no relation to Ted, but his replacement very well could be! That would then mean a solid bloc of 5 liberals, and a guaranteed 5-4 split with the Scalia crowd always in the minority.

    There are a LOT of important issues facing the next President. Abortion and gay marriage are only two of them, and so far America has survived 35 years of Roe v. Wade and the state of Massachusetts without falling into the Abyss. But terrorism, immigration, taxes, and big government can all join forces to ruin our nation, and fast, if we have the wrong person in charge.

    Giuliani is NOT my first choice. I'm a Fred Thompson man. But I will support ANY Republican nominee in 2008, because I know I will *NEVER* see a "perfect" candidate elected and I had better be willing to compromise something, else I lose EVERYTHING.

     
  • At 10/12/2007 11:38 AM, Blogger OregonGuy said…

    For those of us who oppose abortion it should be noted in my case that while I oppose it I would vote against criminalizing it.

    Usually, those who would see Roe v Wade repealed don't know that that would accomplish little in terms of our state's laws on abortion.

    Who was it that said abortion should be private and rare? A recognition of the divide between the perfect and the world as it is tends to suggest that those who oppose all abortion and concommitently wish to criminalize abortion are pandering. My opinion.

     
  • At 10/12/2007 7:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    most of the pro-lifers would be shocked if they actually understood the legal ramifications of a strict-constructionist SCOTUS reversing the precedents of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

    Such an action would result in removing the federal government's authority to regulate abortion altogether, and under the 10th Amendment, such regulation would go directly to the states.

    Virtually every state would then wind up making its own abortion laws, and even pretty conservative states would have a hard time passing an outright ban on abortion. Sure, South Dakota worked on that recently, but that was done knowing full well the law could never be carried out under current Supreme Court jurisprudence. If the lawmakers thought they were ACTUALLY going to outlaw all abortion and get away with it, they would never have even thought about it for a minute.

    What we would end up with would be each state making its own laws, and virtually every state would end up seeing its own state supreme court suddenly dreaming up ways to "discover" a right to abortion in state constitutions.

    That, and probably 40 or so of our 50 states would simply see legislative action making virtually all abortion legal.

    In fact, it would probably be WORSE for the pro-lifers than current law, because the court recently affirmed a federal partial-birth abortion ban. But a strict constructionist court would reject that as well.

    With many states then voting to allow partial-birth abortion, we would end up with MORE legalization of abortion under federalism than under federal regulation.

     
  • At 10/12/2007 8:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I agree with Anonymous. Repealing Roe v Wade would send the whole song and dance to the states and we might not have as much deterence as we presently do. Still, that's the way our Democracy is supposed to work. Regardless of the result I want the system to work the way it was designed. When we let Washington be our big brother it just weakens each of our voices. State rights make for a messier climate but maybe that's the whole idea.....

     

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