Elliot Spitzer came to Albany in January as the you're-not-gonna-know-what-hit-you reforming governor. This hot shot prosecutor was expected to be a political steamroller, and of course a not-too-distant-future presidential candidate.

• In order for your government to be just, you have to be morally serious, concerned not for yourself but for the public good. You are a principled political leader, not an ambitious pol.


• In order to be prudent, you have to recognize the natural limits to what can be accomplished through politics generally as well as in one's particular political circumstances. In 1787, you advocate the three-fifths compromise with the hope of defeating slavery down the road, rather than display your political purity and pass up the opportunity for a union of the American states. You must also have experience in order to judge wisely how to maximize justice in any given situation.


• If you share power with others, you need the ability to persuade them in order to bring them into concert with your just and prudent plans. This persuasive ability--mastery in the art of rhetoric--is also necessary if you wish not only to change things for the people, but also change the people themselves, to make them more inclined to justice and more open to persuasion by just arguments.
  

As a follow-up to my last post on Bill's Debate Party (follow the links to the two before that), I am pleased to report that the whole thing was an innocent affair, strictly above board, and a respectable time appears to have been had by all. You can watch the video here. There is no sign of Bill even getting a telephone number.


There is a lot of talent in the Clinton campaign. I get emails from Thompson and Obama too, but Hillary makes them look like Student Council campaigns. If only skill at getting power were always matched by wisdom in using power.

Of course, it is all designed to make Hillary appear human, and I must say that in unguarded moments even I am almost convinced. And while I was watching the video (as I encourage you to do), I actually felt warmth for President Bill. I don't mean the warmth of humanity that a person should feel for any fellow human being. Everyone should feel that. I mean, I felt (I stress "felt," not thought or wondered) that it might be a great thing to have a good man like this back in the White House, especially when he spoke so seemingly sincerely about the prospect of government being "back in the solutions business" when Hillary is president. But then Reason returned to the throne and, in counsel with Memory, brought me back to reality.

I'm reading more and more social conservatives who are coming out for Rudy. They are are seeing that there is no righteous evangelical statesman rising from the lower ranks or riding in to answer the call. They are re-assessing Rudy and they are being persuaded by arguments that appeal to prudence. Martin Knight at RedState.com is one who has seen "Rudy's Appeal."

He likes Giuliani primarily because "he fights." He has a powerful point. When you are faced with wishy washy Republicans in a Democrat controlled Congress where the far left and jaw droppingly irresponsible Harry Reid and Nancy Polosi are in the top positions of leadership, an unbudgeable scrapper of a President is no small asset. In Giuliani, Knight sees, "an articulate, intelligent, tenacious and aggressive Conservatism that does not shy away from a fight, routinely engages the other side on the battlefield of ideas, and never ever pulls its punches."

Rudy's tenure as Mayor of New York is remarkable not just for what he got accomplished, from reducing crime, slashing welfare rolls, cleaning up Times Square, cutting taxes, etc. - things that conventional (i.e. liberal) wisdom had long declared impossible in "ungovernable" New York City, it was that he was able to be so effective in the face of the unrelenting and vituperative hostility of the New York Press Corps (at the head of which, of course, the New York Times), wave after wave of constant attacks and slander by the Left's myriad shrieking organizations, a virtually dead Gotham GOP (which, to his discredit, he did not do much to revitalize) and a City Council where his allies were less than 10% of the total body.

Knight lists what Rudy thought was worth going toe to toe over with the fire-breathing New York elite:

• supervised a 57-percent overall drop in crime and a 65-percent plunge in homicides.
• curbed or killed 23 taxes totaling $8 billion. He slashed Gotham's top income-tax rate 21 percent and local taxes' share of personal income 15.9 percent. Giuliani called hiking taxes after September 11 "a dumb, stupid, idiotic, and moronic thing to do."
• While hiring 12 percent more cops and 12.8 percent more teachers, Giuliani sliced manpower 17.2 percent, from 117,494 workers to 97,338.
• Rather than "perpetuate discrimination," Giuliani junked Gotham's 20 percent set-asides for female and minority contractors.
• Two years before federal welfare reform, Giuliani began shrinking public-assistance rolls from 1,112,490 recipients in 1993 to 462,595 in 2001, a 58.4-percent decrease to 1966 levels. He also renamed welfare offices "Job Centers."
• Foster-care residents dropped from 42,000 to 28,700 between 1996 and 2001, while adoptions zoomed 65 percent to 21,189.
• Giuliani privatized 69.8 percent of city-owned apartments; sold WNYC-TV, WNYC-FM, WNYC-AM, and Gotham's share of the U.N. Plaza Hotel; and invited the private Central Park Conservancy to manage Manhattan's 843-acre rectangular garden.
• Giuliani advocated school vouchers, launched a Charter School Fund, and scrapped tenure for principals.
• While many libertarians frowned, Giuliani padlocked porn shops in Times Square, paving the way for smut-free cineplexes and Disney musicals.

Those are family values. That approach is the other side of the mountain from Hillary Clinton who is sure to be the Democratic nominee.

Even our Lord told us to be innocent as doves, but wise as serpents. In other words, you can behave prudently among the mixed multitude with whom we share this world, and still maintain a good conscience.

Also read Wall Street Journals' Daniel Henninger, "Can Rudy and the Right Come to Terms" (October 25, 2007), and a fine couple of articles by Tony Blankley on the prudence that Christian citizens should exercise when casting a conscientious vote: "The GOP Needs a Survival Instinct" (October 3) and "Electoral Pragmatism Reconsidered" (October 10).

Having waited for Fred and given up, having weighed Huck and found him wanting, and having dismissed practitioners of bizarre religion and co-sponsors of McCain-Feingold (am I forgetting anyone important?), I turn to Rudy.

Bill Simon is a social conservative who would be happy with America's Mayor as America's Chief. He was the conservative candidate for Governor of California in 2002, and he is now Rudy Giuliani’s policy director. Here is his argument in "Confessions of a Social Conservative: Why Rudy Can Be the Right’s Guy" (National Review Online, October 12, 2007):

Giuliani saved New York City by fighting on the right side of some very important social issues. "Under Rudy, New York City became the safest large city in America. And the one million citizens on welfare? Over 640,000 of them were moved from the public dole to the private sector payroll."


On abortion: "First, the primary battles on the life issue are being fought in the courts, and the ultimate determination regarding our nation’s policy on abortion will come from the nine Justices of the Supreme Court. ...Rudy Giuliani, relying on the advice of such conservative legal stalwarts like Ted Olson, Miguel Estrada, and Steve Calabresi, will appoint strict constructionist judges in the vein of Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas."

On abortion again: "Rudy has also pledged to uphold the Hyde Amendment’s restrictions on the funding of abortions here at home, and the Mexico City Policy, ensuring that taxpayer dollars will not be distributed to non-governmental organizations that perform or promote abortions overseas. He supports parental notification laws and agrees with the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the partial-birth-abortion ban." In his Twelve Commitments to the American People, Rudy pledged, “I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions, and protect the quality of life for our children.” His record supports this claim. Adoptions in New York City rose dramatically under his administration and abortions fell 30% faster than the national average. (That's what we want isn't it? Fewer abortions?)

Michael Medved, who is "unhesitatingly pro-life," similarly sees no reason for Dobson and associates rejecting Giuliani on the basis of his abortion position. ("Abortion's Shades of Gray," USA Today, October 24, 2007)

Consider, for instance, the key differences between Giuliani's platform and those of the leading Democratic candidates. Giuliani has committed to preserve the Hyde Amendment, banning taxpayer money for abortions; the top Democrats urge repeal and favor federal funding. Giuliani applauded the recent Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion; all leading Democrats condemned it in harsh terms. The former mayor supports tougher rules requiring parental notification (with a judicial bypass) for underage girls who seek abortions; Clinton and Barack Obama oppose such legislation. Most significant of all, Giuliani has specifically cited strict-constructionists Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and John Roberts as his models for future justices of the Supreme Court — and all three of those jurists have signaled their support for allowing states more leeway in limiting abortions. The top Democrats regularly express contempt for the conservative jurists whom Giuliani admires, and worked against the Alito and Roberts nominations.

He argues that "it's a major distortion to label Giuliani as 'pro-abortion' and indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton or the other Democrats." He says that polls indicatethat most Americans taking Giuliani's position: anti-abortion and yet pro-choice. If we are going to live in America, we need to be able to live with a "President Giuliani," and even be grateful if abortions decrease and adoptions increase under his watch. Indeed, he states that that is his goal, and he can show that that is his record.

Abortion is not just any issue. It is mass murder, and it is dehumanizing to us on a massive scale. But when both nominees are for it--and you know that one of them will be President--it is morally incumbent upon a conscientious voter to examine the subtle, though important differences between the two candidates on the subject, and then vote to make the best of the situation. In a Giuliani versus Rodham Clinton contest, the choice is clear.

Tony Blankley, in "GOP Needs a Survival Instinct" (Oct. 3, 2007), puts it this way. Voting for a third-party candidate over this issue "would assure the election of Hillary, who, notwithstanding anything she might say to get elected, surely will set in motions policies that will kill more unborn humans and will advance more biblically prohibited policies than Rudy ever would." From a simply political perspective, he adds: "Given the grotesque irresponsibility of the national Democrats, keeping them out of the White House should be the first calling of every patriotic conservative."

There is a sympathy developing among Evangelicals toward Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, former baptist minister, and presently just-passed-into-double-digit-support candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

But Pastor Mike is no evangelical dream. And he's no conservative fantasy either. John Fund entitled his Wall Street Journal article "Another Man From Hope," and he means that in the worst possible sense. Huckabee is "hard right on social issues but liberal-populist on some economic issues." Betsy Hagan, Arkansas director of the conservative Eagle Forum remembers that, as Governor of her state, "he was pro-life and pro-gun, but otherwise a liberal." Phyllis Schlafly, president of the national Eagle Forum, adds that, "He destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles." Blant Hurt of Arkansas Business magazine: "He's hostile to free trade, hiked sales and grocery taxes, backed sales taxes on Internet purchases, and presided over state spending going up more than twice the inflation rate." This does not look good.

Fund learned from Southern Baptist minister Rick Scarborough of Vision America, a Huckabee backer, that "When conservatives took over the Southern Baptist Convention after a bitter fight in the 1980s, Mr. Huckabee sided with the ruling moderates." He quotes Paul Pressler who led the conservative revolt within the SBC saying, "I know of no conservative he appointed while he headed the Arkansas Baptist Convention." Bill Clinton was a Southern Baptist of the "moderate" variety. Oh, and wasn't Jimmy Carter one of those too?

Fund reports a former top Huckabee aid saying, "He's just like Bill Clinton in that he practices management by news cycle. As with Clinton there was no long-term planning, just putting out fires on a daily basis. One thing I'll guarantee is that won't lead to competent conservative governance."

Perhaps these are just enemies telling tales. But those are a lot of tales. And John Fund has impressed me a reliable man. Quin Hillyer at The American Spectator, in "A Tale of Two Candidates," reports that Huckabee has a thin skin, a wicked temper, and all too many moral parallels with the other Man from Hope.

He used public money for family restaurant meals, boat expenses, and other personal uses. He tried to claim as his own some $70,000 of furniture donated to the governor's mansion. He repeatedly, and obstinately, against the pleadings even from conservative columnists and editorials, refused to divulge the names of donors to a "charitable" organization he set up while lieutenant governor -- an outfit whose main charitable purpose seemed to be to pay Huckabee to make speeches. Then, as a kicker, he misreported the income itself from the suspicious "charity."

Huckabee has been criticized, reasonably so, for misusing the state airplane for personal reasons. And he and his wife, Janet, actually set up a "wedding gift registry" (they had already been married for years) to which people could donate as the Huckabees left the governorship, in order to furnish their new $525,000 home.

It seems that former Arkansas governors have to be held to a higher standard of scrutiny. Once burned, twice cautious.

What we learned from Jimmy Carter is that there is more to good government than what seems like an Evangelical profession of faith. Some would say we learned that from George W. Bush as well (though we got two good Supreme Court justices and a few critically important vetoes out of him, all of which were closely related to that Christian faith).

In fact, an Evangelical Christian faith may not even be necessary for good government. Though there is no forgiveness of sins without saving grace in Christ (Ephesians 2:8-10), the Lord also gives common grace and distributes it quite liberally. This is why there are lots of decent and kind people who are nonetheless dead in their trespasses and sins. This is why there is much wisdom to be found in works by non-Christians like Plato and Locke, and even Machiavelli and Nietzsche (in many respects more than can be found in Christian authors). We don't read them only to "know what the enemy is thinking" and to understand the pagan darkness from which Christ saved us and where Western civilization has taken its wrong turns bringing us to our present sorry state. Common grace is also what God gives to the non-Christians who, despite their ungodliness of one kind or another, are nonetheless concerned and able to govern for the common good, i.e. as statesmen, punishing evil at home and repelling it abroad. Was Ronald Reagan a Christian? Was he born again? It's debatable. It is also irrelevant.

Mike Huckabee may be a Christian, but he should not be the first choice of conservative Evangelicals for their President.

There appears to be a significant realignment of support in progress among Republicans who are following the primaries. Evangelical Christians are are re-assessing Rudy Giuliani and everyone is getting to know Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee.

Fred Thompson was supposed to be the man we all wished were running. Socially and fiscally conservative. An able and winsome communicator. Federalism. Only one divorce, and that was a while ago. Experience in the Senate. But he took forever to get into the race. And now that he's in, where's the fire? Instead of exploding into the campaign as the obvious choice, he has people asking, "Is he too lazy to win?" Read "Idle Worship: In Praise of Fred Thompson" by Michael Crowley of the New Republic (October 25, 2007). He gives an unconvincing defense of Thompson's lackadaisical campaign style. He says we Americans work too hard. Perhaps we need another Calvin Coolidge in office who slept twelve hours a day. Oh but that was back before the President had lots to do as leader of the free world, not mention the vastly expanded domestic duties.

His Saturday Night Live character explained, "I'm not sayin' I don't want to be your president, because I kinda do." That's funny only because there's truth in it. But there is good reason that Alexander Hamilton believed it necessary that a strong presidency draw "men of ambition" to the office. People who combine ambition with virtue (or we would say drive and good character) are people who actually want to accomplish something in office. Reagan combined both of these qualities. Bill Clinton was ambitious, but only for power, money, babes and flying in a cool plane. Bob Dole just wanted his turn at the top. George Bush wanted to be "the education president" and then lost in 1992 because of his indifference toward re-election.

A president who is actually able to govern must have ambition. It is fundamental. Thompson has not demonstrated that he has this. There is a fault in being overly detail oriented. Jimmy Carter. A good President will make his principles clear, then delegate. But even so, the job is demanding. The consequences of falling short in that seat of power are vast.

Given this, I'm less inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on his support for McCain-Feingold. Ann Coulter is quite opposed to him based exclusively it seems on his vote to oppose removing President Clinton from office in 1999. Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has abandoned ship. "If Thompson manages to slouch his way into St. Paul and gets the Republican nomination, he'll have my vote. But I refuse to continue putting more energy into supporting him than he's put into his own campaign." He and others at EO have thrown their support to Huckabee.