In Houston, Giuliani Defends Abortion Stance

NY Times
By MARC SANTORA and MARIA NEWMAN
HOUSTON, May 11 – Rudolph W. Giuliani offered a direct challenge to Republican Party orthodoxy on Friday, asserting that his support for abortion rights, gun control and gay rights should not disqualify him from winning the party’s presidential nomination and that Republicans need to be tolerant of dissenting views on those issues if they want to hold the White House.

In a forceful summation of the substantive and political case for his candidacy, delivered to a conservative audience at Houston Baptist College, Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, acknowledged that his views were out of line with many Republican primary voters.

But Mr. Giuliani argued that the presidential election should not turn on social issues, but on which party would better protect the nation from terrorism. Mr. Giuliani suggested that his own record as mayor of New York – leading the city after the attacks of Sept. 11 and overseeing a dramatic decline in violent crime during his eight years in Gracie Mansion – made him the most electable of the Republican candidates, no matter his stand on issues like abortion...

Ironically, his reasons as to why he is qualified to be president, in that last paragraph, explain why NY'ers have not thrown their support behind Rudy. NYers weren't impressed with his leadership. As far as his liberal social leanings go, he said that his pollers have not found that voters would choose a candidate based on a single issue such as abortion. So I guess we will see where this goes.