Left Behind

I've been talking about Rudy Giuliani's pitch to conservatives for some time now. The conundrum is how to reconcile a pro-choice, pro-gay-rights, pro-gun-control municipal leader to a religious right that has formed the backbone of the footsoldiers and mid- to low-level donors for the GOP for years.

As I've been noting, there are a significant number of values voters, religious conservatives, and the like who are reconciling themselves to Giuliani. But, as the Gray Lady reported recently, there are also those who are dissatisfied with their existing choices. The elite and influential among them gathered in Florida this weekend, including the likes of Tim LaHaye, Grover Norquist, James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Wayne LaPierre, and Paul Weyrich.

There, they listened to speeches from the likes of Duncan Hunter, Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum. And the verdict of these luminaries of the "movement"?

Apparently, they were unimpressed with the lot. They tried to draft Mark Sanford, the Governor of South Carolina, who no one has heard of other than these guys. Governor Sanford replied not just "no" but "hell, no, and don't ask again!"

So this all leaves the right wing no better off this week than it was before all of this -- with no identifiable standard bearer, and a choice of either accepting that they won't be calling all the shots next time around (and will have to be good members of the coalition as they've urged other GOP factions to be in the past in the name of party unity) or opting out altogether. Sometimes there just aren't any good choices, fellas, and you have to make the best of a series of less-than-perfect options.

Suck it up. Libertarian-slanted Republicans like me have been doing that for years.