RK ARCHIVE - Rudy (Hearts) Planned Parenthood

*Talk Left says that the "Rudy meltdown was inevitable" and adds, "I can not imagine what he was thinking when he decided to run for the GOP nomination."

*Mahablog notes that "To the Right, supporting Planned Parenthood is worse than admitting to being a Communist devil worshiper." Ha.

*At MyDD, James Boyce writes that it's time to "stick a fork in Rudy Giuliani" because "he's done." The bottom line is that "Despite Giuliani's recent attempts to flip, he is a strong social progressive and his record is far too extensive to handle the flopping needed to appeal to the far right."

*Finally, Oliver Willis predicts that he will "quarterback the Redskins to the Superbowl before Rudy Giulani becomes the Republican party's presidential candidate." Nice. :)

Comments

Robert Novak on Giuliani (Lowell - 5/9/2007 9:54:28 PM)

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) had the worst performance of any candidate in the Republican debate. Despite months of preparation on how to address the abortion issue, he was all over the map, very uncertain of himself. His shoulder-shrugging answer that the repeal of Roe v. Wade would be "okay" sounded quite flippant -- after years of defending the decision, it was a poor answer, given as though the topic were not serious. His repeated statement that he "hates" abortion is getting old. His answer on public funding for abortion made no sense. His answer on the influence of Christian conservatives effectively amounted to a duck.
Giuliani can certainly learn to give better answers, but his poor performance in debate corresponded with a drop in the polls. He is currently at his lowest point of the year with 25 percent in CNN's poll, although he remains the frontrunner. His problems in the coming months will likely come from places other than his failure to give good answers on abortion. For example, a video is currently circulating on the Internet in which Giuliani praises his wife -- a controversial figure for a number of reasons -- as an expert on biological weapons (she previously worked in pharmaceutical sales). His ties to Bernard Kerik remain potentially problematic as well.

Sounds like the social conservatives are getting (very) restless about the cross-dressing, public-funding-of-abortion-and-gay-rights-supporting former mayor of New York City. Something tells me that Giuliani's performance on 9/11 ultimately won't be sufficient to counterbalance all those other "problems," as the right wing perceives them to be.

Planned Parenthood and abortion (Andrea Chamblee - 5/10/2007 12:00:05 AM)

I volunteered for Planned Parenthood in college, and it's worth emphasizing that they do NOT promote abortion. They include abortion in the array of available choices. For a lot of women, knowing they could if they absolutely had to is all the assurance they need. They want to know they are not backed into a corner, that birthing and handing the baby over to strangers is not their only option. They want to know their health risks, their emotional and financial hurdles, the help they might get with child support and prenatal care, and how they can work through this unplanned pregancy (or planned pregnancy with an unplanned twist of fate). They want to talk through its effect on their educational and career plans. For most women, they decide they don't want to end the pregnancy. I doubt any back-alley doctor talked a woman out of that. He'd lose his pay.