Republicans torn by recriminations, ideological purges?

former US Rep. J.C. Watts (R-OK), speaking on CNN's Situation Room, equates 2008 presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's abortion hypocrisy to slavery.

Watts, an African-American, says, "I disagree with Rudy Giuliani on the life issue and I think the rationale that he gives I disagree with even more because that's the same as saying, 'Well, I'm personally opposed to slavery, but if somebody else wants to own slaves, that's fine.'"

The conservative blog Redstate featured a posting yesterday with the title "Rudy's Done," citing the decade-old contributions to Planned Parenthood and demanding apologies from the former mayor.

Adds Tom Tancredo, the anti-immigration Congressman desperately trying to become a two-issue candidate: "If a Republican President of the United States won't vigorously fight to protect the life of the unborn, how long before the trend toward the culture of death becomes irreversible?"

I'm glad Rudy is "at peace," with losing over his abortion stance, because no matter how much money and name recognition he has or what strategies he tries, this is going to be the final nail in his coffin. [..] Rudy may as well go ahead and drop out of the race because it's all over but the crying and retrospectives on what went wrong, no matter what his poll numbers look like at the moment.

"Rudolph W. Giuliani is planning to offer a forthright affirmation of his support for abortion rights [..]," writes The New York Times.

If true, it marks either the beginning of the end of the Giuliani campaign -- or the beginning of the end of the Party of Ronald Reagan. For Reagan's party was a pro-life party. Life defined the man. Life defined the movement he led. It was Reagan who insisted that his speechwriters include mention of the life issue in every State of the Union. [..]

If Rudy were to be nominated as a pro-choice Republican, millions would stay home or vote third party. [..]

A Rudy nomination would bring the culture war right down onto the floor of the Republican convention. For Rudy is not only pro-choice on abortion, he has supported affirmative action, favored amnesty for illegals, turned New York into a sanctuary city where the NYPD was forbidden to ask arrestees their immigration status, has championed gay rights, marched in gay pride parades -- once not all that far behind the big float of the North American Man/Boy Love Association. [..]

And Rudy is now suiting up to lead the family values party into battle? Dr. Dobson, call your office.

While some evangelical Christians are defending the presidential candidacy of Mormon Mitt Romney from an attack by Al Sharpton, another prominent pastor is going further in his condemnation - saying a vote for the former Massachusetts governor is a vote for Satan.

That's the word from Bill Keller, host of the Florida-based Live Prayer TV program as well as LivePrayer.com.

"If you vote for Mitt Romney, you are voting for Satan!" he writes in his daily devotional to be sent out to 2.4 million e-mail subscribers tomorrow.

The GOP will not take back the House in 2008, and part of that blame will rest on Tom Cole's (R-OK) shoulders. As Rob noted yesterday, Tom Cole has a unique strategy for winning. First, he will back candidates who disagree with fundamental premises of the GOP base and second, he will try to out Democrat the Democrats in the general election. [..] He also wants the GOP to recruit more moderates.

Well, here's the kicker -- the country saw a purging of a few of its good conservatives last year, but there was a bloodbath among moderate Republicans. [..]

Cole tends to be a conservative guy, but he's also been part off the problem these past few years. Cole was Steve Largent's pollster during Largent's trainwreck of a gubernatorial campaign. [..] And now he wants to oppose former Congressman Ryun in favor of taxhiker Lynn Jenkins. [..] Lastly, let's not forget Cole basically ran the campaign of Tom Coburn's primary opponent, Kirk "the Squish" Humphries, in 2004. [..]

Note to RedState readers: You may want to avoid giving money to the NRCC this cycle.

Free Republic Purge: Conservative Web Site Bans Giuliani Supporters

The New York Observer
May 24, 2007

A few weeks ago - in between Hillary Clinton's official entry into the presidential race and the first Republican primary debate of the cycle - the fiery online conservative forum Free Republic marked a decade in operation as one of the premier online forums for right-wing political discussion.

It also experienced one of the biggest internal battles to rock the site since the 2000 election of George W. Bush -- a tumultuous campaign year that nearly tore the site apart, as its founder and chief administrator first cleansed commenting ranks of Bush supporters, then, later, rallied to his support.

At the heart of the latest controversy: the fight over the conservative bona fides of Rudy Giuliani.

Over the past few weeks, chaos has reigned in the "Freeper" community as members sympathetic to the former mayor's candidacy claim to have suffered banishment from the site. They were victimized, they say, by a wave of purges designed to weed out any remaining support for the Giuliani campaign on the popular conservative web forum. Another significant chunk of commenters have migrated away from the controversial site over the action, according to a number of former site members and conservative bloggers who have been tracking the situation.

In a plaintive post on the blog "Sweetness & Light," exiled commenter Steve Gilbert, who says he does not support the former mayor's campaign, blasted the site's new "anti-Giuliani, anti-abortion jihad." Since George W. Bush was elected president, he wrote, "there haven't been any large scale [Free Republic] purges to speak of - until now."

The fight began one month ago, when site founder Jim Robinson posted an anti-Giuliani manifesto titled: "Giuliani as the GOP presidential nominee would be a dagger in the heart of the conservative movement." Then the virtual ax started to swing. Longtime posters to the freewheeling discussion threads, used to serious no-holds-barred web etiquette, were still stunned by the intensity of the anti-Rudy activity; conservative blogs buzzed with the development.

[..] "Anyone who posts any support for Giuliani at the site, if it's at all forceful, will be banned" [complained a user on the GOPUSA Web site].


Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg marching in the gay pride parade in Manhattan in 2001.

OMG!

Nimh found examples of right winged media! *gasp*!