Poll: 27 percent of Republicans would vote for pro-life 3rd party candidate
A just-released Rasmussen poll (via Eric Kleefeld), coupled with James Dobson’s New York Times op-ed, shows that the Religious Right is poised to set off a potentially major shift in the electoral landscape. The poll:
If Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination and a third party campaign is backed by Christian conservative leaders, 27% of Republican voters say they’d vote for the third party option rather than Giuliani. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that a three-way race with Hillary Clinton would end up with the former First Lady getting 46% of the vote, Giuliani with 30% and the third-party option picking up 14%. In head-to-head match-ups with Clinton, Giuliani is much more competitive.
Over this past weekend, several Christian conservative leaders indicated they might back a pro-life, third-party, candidate if Giuliani wins the nomination.
…I firmly believe that the selection of a president should begin with a recommitment to traditional moral values and beliefs. Those include the sanctity of human life, the institution of marriage, and other inviolable pro-family principles. Only after that determination is made can the acceptability of a nominee be assessed.
The other approach, which I find problematic, is to choose a candidate according to the likelihood of electoral success or failure. Polls don’t measure right and wrong; voting according to the possibility of winning or losing can lead directly to the compromise of one’s principles. In the present political climate, it could result in the abandonment of cherished beliefs that conservative Christians have promoted and defended for decades. Winning the presidential election is vitally important, but not at the expense of what we hold most dear.
Whether the Religious Right is playing chicken with the Republican party or genuinely pushing away from the table is anybody’s guess right now, but bluff or no, the very public nature of the fight is a sure sign that the Republican coalition is cracking. At issue is whether the party’s strongest bloc can force upon the party a nominee with dimmer general election prospects than the favorite. That is no mere quibble. The future of the party appears to be at stake.
As long as Richard Land of the SBC ERLC; Land Karl Rove’s conference caller weekly in closing stages of Campaign 04; as long as Land continues to receive blindly Cooperative Program dollars from Southern Baptists who should know better; get money from Churches like Dawson Memorial in Bham and countless other churches across the South whose congregations are mostly college educated professionals; whose members include one of the most progressive politicians in the state, former Gube candidate Lenora Pate; as long as what for all practical purposes is a PAC whose numbers are stronger than Dobson’s Focus on the Family; until progressive bloggers within SBC ranks can topple Richard Land and Baptists stop funding this ruse; the religious right will continue to be a huge problem for the country of Jefferson, Madison and George Truett.