What “Everybody Knows” Changes Almost Daily

Editor’s note. Please send me your thoughts at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

By the time I finished writing this, let alone by the time you have the opportunity to read it, matters discussed in today’s edition of TN&V will no doubt already have changed. This is the basic irony to a seemingly interminable presidential campaign.

Rather than prognostications becoming more firmly rooted and more carefully nuanced, the closer we get to something of real substance taking place (like the first caucuses and primaries), the faster ideas are put forward, critiqued, and discarded. The further irony is that since there are only so many basic story lines for the 2008 presidential election, some ideas, previously deep-sixed, will be revived.

How long ago was it that “everybody knew” that securing the Democratic Party’s nomination for President was a mere formality for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Nothing could stop her. That seems like a long, long time ago, doesn’t it?

She is still the odds on favorite, make no mistake about it. But the impact of one stumble in one debate tells us even more about the next few months than it does the immediate aftermath of her gaffe.

For one thing, it reminds us that Sen. Clinton, like all front-runners, is bound and determined to say nothing. Silence provides few openings for loud criticism and closemouthedness allows her to hide views which a vast majority of Americans do not share.

And that worked, so long as her Democratic rivals treated her like fine china and so long as her support for a wildly unpopular proposal (support she seemed to recant a moment later and reaffirm the next day) was not widely known.

For another thing, elections can turn on a dime.

Chinks in the armor of another item of conventional wisdom are beginning to show. This is the curious notion that of all the GOP presidential candidates, pro-abortion former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is the best—if not the ONLY Republican —who can defeat Sen. Clinton.

This never made any sense. If Republicans offer a pro-abortion nominee who also espouses views that are incompatible with those held by a large part of the party’s base, how can this possibly help the party?

A Giuliani nomination would mean that the issues—whose foundation is an unapologetic opposition to abortion-- that have powered Republicans to five victories in the last seven presidential elections would be off the table. What would be the anchor securing the votes of “Reagan Democrats”--those tens of millions of men and women who turned their backs on the party for whom their families had voted for generations—if abortion is just “one issue among many”?

Giuliani is ahead of his rivals for reasons that go beyond 9/11. He is running as the only pro-abortionist, so he can be the champion of that wing of the GOP. But to others, including those who really ought to know better, he offers “assurances” (such as appointing “strict constructionists” to the bench) that are so hollow it’s like tapping on the Tin Man’s chest. When they believe Giuliani, it allows him to have it both ways.

Matters are rapidly changing, as pro-lifers begin to unite. Thus the convention wisdom that appears solid today will melt like butter in the tropics tomorrow.

   Stay tuned.

Please send your comments to Dave Andrusko at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.