Why I -- a Staunch Pro-Lifer -- Am Voting for Giuliani

In most of the presidential elections since 1973, I have been what the pollsters refer to as a "single-issue" voter, being ever stalwart in my support for vigorous pro-life candidates. But this primary, I'm voting for Rudy Giuliani, despite his pro-choice stance. Here's why.

First of all, contrary to a great deal of hysterical feminist rhetoric, the president can really only do three things to advance the pro-life cause as long as Roe stands. One, he can appoint strict constructionist judges who interpret the Constitution as written, as opposed to the hocus-pocus, magical finding of things that are not there in reality. Giuliani has demonstrated to my satisfaction that he intends to do exactly that.

Secondly, a president can avoid vetoing any pro-life legislation — such as the ban on Partial-Birth Abortion — that happens to find its way to his desk. I would like to see Republicans urge Giuliani to make this a formal commitment.

Lastly, he can veto any anti-life funding bills. In reality, those are the only areas where the president has influence in the pro-life arena. I could argue all day and all night with Giuliani over the "rightness" of any woman's choice to kill her offspring in the womb, and it still would not change the current Law of the Land one iota. Despite NARAL propaganda, the president does not wield lawful control over any American woman's body or what she does with it.

Unfortunately, in 2008, we Americans do not have the luxury of focusing our votes towards any domestic agenda. That we have some very large, ever-looming domestic problems — health care crisis, out-of-control entitlement programs, an irresponsible deficit, to name a few — goes without belaboring. But to give any of those center stage right now is, in my view, pure folly. Whether we like it or not, we are in a war, a war we neither asked for, nor started. And, no matter what happens in the short run in Iraq, we are going to be at war for a long time.

The last thing we need in the White House is an equivocating, sloganeering, poll-obsessed politician worried about his/her image. This time around — when we are fighting for our very way of life — we do not need a president who cares more about his coiffure than his message. The time for smooth-talking, carefully-stepping, popularity-wooing candidates bit the dust on 9/11/2001. And, in my opinion, the one person we have in America right now who fits the bill is Giuliani.

Believe me, I have had to overcome an awful lot of lifelong notions to get to this point. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia and have always been more than a little suspect of any New Yorker. I still remember when everyone I knew who ventured to the Big Apple came back with some horror story that included a mugging, public restrooms too filthy for humans, prostitutes everywhere, and drug dealers hustling on street corners. I kept up with the news that supposedly the hard-nosed, Republican, Yankee Mayor had cleaned up the city, but put little stock in it.

This past summer, however, I summoned enough courage and took my 20-year-old daughter there for a week's visit. The streets were clean, the people were nice, and I never even heard a gunshot or saw a mugger. Anyone who could pull that off — fighting the New York Times and the ACLU at every turn — won't be hoodwinked by CAIR over here or that little madman who claims to be President in Iran.

Would any us even be looking at Giuliani if it were not for 9/ll? I doubt it. But a crisis of that magnitude does highlight the leadership skills — or lack thereof — of the person in charge. I'm not sure I've ever been more proud of any politician than I was of Giuliani when he said, "No, thanks," to the millions offered by that Saudi prince. And, before that, Giuliani expelled that gangster, Arafat, from New York's Lincoln Center. I think he will do just fine with the world's hoodlums, and I don't think we'll need to be constantly worried whose interests will come first in his mind.

I got into a bit of a verbal tussle with a Brit this past summer — in New York, of course. He was demanding to know why W didn't pay more heed to the European interests before starting a bloody war that involved the whole bloody world. At first, I could barely believe my ears, but then I simply reminded him that we, the citizens of the United States, pay our president to worry about us first - and everyone else after that. He bolted back that, well, Clinton had cared about them. I just said that perhaps that was one good reason why his party was out and the ones who put America first — and foremost — are IN. I don't figure that the Europeans will like Giuliani any better than they like W, but I don't care - do you? The bottom line is that when our national security is threatened the way it is now, we simply do not have the luxury of considering every aspect of a candidate's domestic positions. Because if we are not safe, then nothing else really matters.