Giuliani Tests GOP on Social Issues

FAR-RIGHT FRUSTRATION

Giuliani Tests GOP on Social Issues

The growing anguish on the right over Rudy Giuliani's presidential candidacy signals a coming test of strength inside the Republican coalition, a test that will help answer whether the power of religious and social conservatives has crested.

Eight months ago, all the smart money said Giuliani had no chance to win the Republican nomination because of his positions on abortion and gay rights.

Now, the strength of his candidacy has brought rare agreement between former president Bill Clinton and James Dobson of Focus on the Family, though expressed with different emotion.

Over the weekend, Clinton admitted with some sense of admiration that the candidacy of the former New York mayor has surprised him. "I think that Giuliani proved quite durable, and we don't know whether this will endure when [his opponents] start to advertise," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Giuliani's durability so alarms Dobson and other Christian conservatives that a small group of them meeting over the weekend let it be known that they would consider bolting from the Republican Party to back a third-party candidate who opposes abortion rights if Giuliani is the GOP nominee.

That scheme is far from hatched, but the evidence is clear that religious and social conservatives are nervous about their place in the party. For the first time in perhaps two decades, their influence is being called into question by the nominating contest.

Two events have contributed to declining influence. First was the intervention by Congress into the Terri Schiavo issue, which led to a backlash among many others in the GOP family. They objected to the idea of religious and social conservatives seeking to dominate the party -- and public reaction to interference by the GOP-controlled Congress demonstrated the risk to the party of continuing on that course.

Terrorism also has changed the Republican landscape, elevating national security issues and diminishing the influence of social issues in the eyes of many conservative voters. One surprising element of the GOP nominating battle has been Giuliani's relatively strong support in South Carolina and some other states where religious conservatives hold considerable sway.

Some of them had harbored hopes that Newt Gingrich would run, but the former House speaker's weekend decision ending his flirtation with a presidential bid leaves the social conservative constituency without a big-name candidate. Fred Thompson so far hasn't caught fire. Mitt Romney has too many questions about his past positions to make them feel comfortable, and John McCain has never been seen as a friend. Two true social conservatives, Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback, have struggled to be taken seriously.

The result is a sense of panic among some religious conservatives and a possible all-out conflict between Giuliani and the religious right. GOP strategists doubt this will ever come to pass, even if Giuliani becomes the nominee. They argue that with the choice of an antiabortion running mate such as Huckabee and no effort to change the abortion plank in the Republican platform, Giuliani could prevent the party from splintering over his nomination.

Whoever becomes the Republican nominee will need a mobilized religious right to win the election. But what some Republicans are asking is: at what cost?