Dodge, Dive, Dip, Duck and Dodge: Rudy Giuliani Deals With Issues Of Faith And Family

August 19, 2007 | Permalink

In an early election cycle, where candidates are under intense scrutiny over relevant and not so relevant issues, it is striking how Rudy Giuliani has been able to largely avoid addressing issues that other candidates have been (or would be) forced to. Despite the fact that the mainstream press has avoided pressing Giuliani on issues of his faith or family, voters begun to inquire about these topics.

Referring to recent reports about Giuliani’s daughter’s apparent support of Democratic candidate Barack Obama, a questioner at a campaign stop in Iowa asked Giuliani why voters should support him when his own daughter won’t. Giuliani replied by saying:

“There are complexities in every family. . . . The best thing I can say is kind of ‘Leave my family alone, just like I’ll leave your family alone.’”

Earlier this month in Iowa, Giuliani was pressed to discuss the role of religion in his life. He responded by saying that he did not believe there should be a “religious test for public office.” At the same event, Giuliani was also asked whether he considered himself a “traditional practicing Roman Catholic.” Giuliani skirted the issue, saying:

“My religious affiliation, my religious practices and the degree to which I am a good or not so good Catholic, I prefer to leave to the priests. That would be a much better way to discuss it. That’s a personal discussion and they have a much better sense of how good a Catholic I am or how bad a Catholic I am.”

No doubt a difficult question to answer given the fact that Giuliani is no longer allowed to receive communion due to the fact that his second marriage to Dona Hanover was not annulled.

Giuliani seemed to justify his reluctance to address matters of faith as part of political strategy that would maximize his viability in traditionally democratic states thereby giving him an electability edge over his Republican primary rivals:

“I can make this campaign a nationwide campaign. We [Republicans] have only run in certain states.”

This rationale seems like nothing more than a cheap attempt to dismiss the questions of his faith as politically irrelevant and possibly destructive. Especially in light of the fact that the Democratic candidates participated in a forum solely dedicated to discussing faith and values, it simply sounds absurd to suggest that by somehow discussing his own faith, Giuliani would be undermining his chances of winning the general election. In reality, Giuliani likely doesn’t want to discuss faith, values and family issues because that discussion would likely have an adverse effect on his support within the Republican party.

Bending to the pressure of continued questions like the above referenced, Giuliani indicated on Friday (8/17/07) that he would be willing to discuss family and faith issues, but on his own terms:

“But I’ll talk about it [my family] appropriately, and in a way to preserve as much as I can the privacy of my family and my children, which I think any decent person would.

I think the best thing to do is to concentrate on the public things that I accomplished. Measure that, take a look at that, and then see how much do newspapers really have to probe into these things, or how much of it is being done really for reasons that have nothing to do with measuring public performance.”

Unfortunately for Rudy Giuliani, he’s not already running in the general election. He’s going to need to win the support of religious conservatives within his party, which is going to require him to address his personal faith and his family values at some point. Pressure will continue to mount against Giuliani from the religious/values sects of the Republican party, while support from those groups will be given to Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson (if he ever actually starts to run) and to a lesser extent Mike Huckabee. “Value voters” simply don’t see as clean a distinction between personal values and public life as Giuliani is trying to impose on them. Accordingly, his refusal to really deal with this issue now is simply offering rival candidates a longer opportunity to shore up the essential values voters.

Contrast Rudy’s public discussions about his faith with this clip of Mitt Romney from earlier this month:

It’s important to note that this video was uploaded to YouTube by the Romney Campaign. Thus, you’re not seeing something that they don’t want you to see, quite the contrary. This video of Romney passionately and reasonably discussing his religion enables voters to see where he’s coming from, get a feel for his moral compass and most importantly possibly connect with him on the issue of religion. Not necessarily the Mormon religion, but rather, the fact that they feel passionately about their own religion and want to elect someone that also cares deeply about their own. Instead of focusing on the unique attributes of Mormonism, Romney instead, as he has done from the beginning, highlights the similarities. Value voters seeing this clip and/or listening to Romney’s standard discussion of his faith are simply more likely to connect with Romney than Giuliani, despite Romney’s Mormon religion. Romney’s ability to maneuver into the value voters field without any current top tier opposition within this group is part of the reason why he has grown so quickly.

My biggest issue with Rudy Giuliani’s ability to dodge questions of faith and family is with the mainstream press’ handling of it. They are just wildly inconsistent on issues like this. Ignoring the fact that they spend significantly more time covering the substantive issues of Democratic candidates, thus placing them on the defensive significantly more than Republican candidates, they also hold individual candidates to different standards. They’ll spend weeks covering John Edwards’ haircut, they’ll scrutinize Mitt Romney’s religion, they’ll ask questions like, “Is Barack Obama black enough?” or “Would someone actually support a woman?,” but they’ll flat out refuse to probe Rudy Giuliani on issues that value voters care about. I can understand not intensely scrutinizing his immediate family, it seems unnecessary. However, it’s somewhat frustrating for them to let Giuliani get away with saying that these issues are personal when he announced to his family for the first time his divorce from Dona Hanover on television. Like it or not, voters care about a candidate’s faith. If the media is willing to use the “public interest” argument to justify spending countless hours discussing Edwards’ hair, then they are somewhat obligated to press Giuliani on issues of public concern as well.

[Photo Credits: Flickr user Michael Millhollin and CapeCodOnline]

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