Posts on Catholics Against Rudy

Catholics Against Rudy declares mission accomplished on the news that Rudy Giuliani is set to drop out of the presidential race.

Catholics Against Rudy is looking for help producing anti-Giuliani ads and is "holding a contest to see who can produce the best political advertisement for CAR based on the substance of this website. You won’t receive any money if you win, but you will be recognized here for your efforts, and perhaps elsewhere (keep in mind that CAR’s founder has already appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews and CAR has been mentioned by several major publications and blogs recently). More importantly, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you played a key role in helping to prevent Rudy from receiving the GOP presidential nomination. And what could be better than that!"

Almost from the moment he entered the Republican Primary, Rudy Giuliani’s campaign has come under fire from the Right.  

In large part because of his marital history and his views on reproductive choice, several high profile right-wing leaders – including James Dobson, Richard Land, Richard Viguerie, and Tony Perkins - have already publicly declared that they will not, under any circumstances, vote for Giuliani or support his campaign.  In addition to this pressure, Giuliani is also coming under attack from grassroots organizations such as Catholics Against Rudy, which seeks to expose his “abysmal record on non-negotiable ‘Culture of Life’ issues.”

Faced with this mounting opposition to his candidacy, Giuliani has recently launched a concerted effort to neutralize these efforts and perhaps even entice a fair number of so-called “values voters” by appealing to their desire to see the Supreme Court utterly controlled by ultra-conservative justices.

Dominance of the Supreme Court has long been a right-wing goal and it is no secret that the confirmation of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the court has been one of the most significant and, for the Right, most gratifying and highly-praised  accomplishments of the Bush administration.   

Going into the 2008 election, the future of the Supreme Court is going to be a central issue and those on the Right know, in the words of Tony Perkins, “that next vacancy is just so incredibly important” – which is exactly why Giuliani is currently in the midst of pledging to just about anyone who will listen that, if he wins the GOP nomination and is elected, he will deliver for the Right:

As President, I will nominate strict constructionist judges with respect for the rule of law and a proven fidelity to the Constitution – judges in the mold of Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito and Chief Justice Roberts.

Giuliani’s commitment to nominating Scalia and Thomas-like judges has recently become a centerpiece of his campaign and is even listed as one of his “12 Commitments” that frame his campaign.  To demonstrate just how much Giuliani is banking on this pledge, his campaign recently unveiled a “Justice Advisory Committee” designed to signal to the Right just how committed he is to filling the bench with hard-right ideologues.  

Consisting of the likes of former Solicitor General Ted Olson, failed DC Circuit nominee Miguel Estrada, and Federalist Society co-founder Steven Calabresi, among others, Giuliani’s “Justice Advisory Committee” exists primarily in order to assure conservatives who may have qualms about him that he can and will deliver to them their ultimate prize: the Supreme Court.   

As Miguel Estrada stated during the unveiling of the committee:

[W]e need to make every effort we can to have the quality judicial appointments that we have had in Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts. And Rudy has stated in no uncertain terms that those are the models for what he looks for in his judges. He will be what our court system needs, is what our litigation society needs, and I am confident that with all of our help and your help he will be able to bring that home.”

For his part, Calabresi did his part to drive home the message:

 “The next President of the United States could easily end up making four appointments to the Supreme Court and I think the future of our 25 year struggle to rein in judicial activism is at stake. I’m convinced that Rudy Giuliani is the man who can win that fight. It’s an honor to be here and to be a member of his campaign advisory committee.”

Giuliani may not be the Right’s favorite candidate, but with no clear front-runner emerging, he appears to be seeking to position himself as the candidate most committed to fundamentally and lastingly shifting the balance on the Supreme Court in favor of the Right – a temptation he hopes just might be enough to weaken the resolve of even his most hardened right-wing foes.  

A few months ago, the New York Observer reported that various right-wing Catholic activists were gearing up to target Rudy Giuliani’s campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.  

One of those efforts, Catholics Against Rudy, is in the process of gearing up while the other, headed by Joseph Cella of Fidelis, doesn’t yet have much to show for its bold goals:

Mr. Cella says that the organization will try to provide a comprehensive, Web-based “clearinghouse” of issue-based opposition research, and that it will also engage in the distribution of more traditional negative literature, as when the group recruited a handful of volunteers to network and pass out its anti-Rudy materials at the South Carolina debate earlier this month.

“More is afoot—not just from us, but others,” said Mr. Cella, who has also served as an editor at the popular conservative Web site Redstate.com. “It will be edgy. Creative. Hard-hitting.”

Cella and his organization, Fidelis, seem to exist primarily to level accusations of “anti-Catholic” bigotry against Democrats, which is why his anti-Giuliani work was interesting … and which makes this development all the more intriguing:

Now the Christian right is eyeing former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, who is thought to be on the verge of entering the race. And Thompson is waging a rigorous behind-the-scenes effort to win its support.

U.S. News has learned that [Fred] Thompson recently hired Bill Wichterman, who served as conservative outreach director for former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and Joseph Cella, president of a conservative Catholic group called Fidelis, to lead the effort. The aides are arranging more meetings between Thompson and conservative Christian leaders and have launched a rapid-response operation to fend off attacks on Thompson's conservative credentials.

But Cella is not the only right-wing figure that Thompson has approached - and he seems to be winning a lot of converts:

A few weeks ago we noted the formation of an anti-Giuliani Catholic front, including Joseph Cella of Fidelis and Steve Dillard of Catholics Against Rudy, right-wing activists key to forcing the withdrawal of Harriet Miers from nomination to the Supreme Court. Now more self-identified Catholic activists are mobilizing against Rudy Giuliani, himself a Catholic and the leading GOP candidate for president.

Acting under the rubric of “Republicans Against Rudy Giuliani,” two activists put out a press release targeting the candidate for “liberal views on foundational issues of abortion, homosexuality, judges, and gun control” – in particular, his dressing in drag for comedy sketches:

Republicans upset with Rudy Giuliani's anti-family policies protested on Sunday, June 10th when the "Republican" presidential candidate appeared in Irvine. A "Rudy Giuliani in drag" was among dozens of sign-holding protestors outside the hotel. …

"Imagine what heads of state would think of an American president known for dressing up as a woman," said Bob Cielnicky, a southern California pro-life leader. "What was Rudy Giuliani thinking when he did this publicly three times as mayor of New York? Obviously not the Presidency." …

"It's appalling to see some Republicans abandoning their Republican Party core principles for Rudy Giuliani," said Ken Fisher, a conservative Republican activist in Orange County, California. "If you support Giuliani, you aren't supporting family values."

Fisher is president of Concerned Roman Catholics of America, which seeks to “undo the last thirty-plus years of watered-down Catholicism.” One section of the group’s website attacks the “Pro-Sodomite, Pro-Abortion” Knights of Columbus, listing politicians associated with the Catholic fraternal order. Fisher is joined by Cielnicky, who has been involved with various groups in California including the Life Priority Network, the Alliance Against Abortion Funding, and Californians Against Assisted Suicide.

In addition, the New York Observer reports on the question of whether the Roman Catholic Church itself will get involved against Giuliani’s bid. Some U.S. bishops made headlines in 2004 by announcing that they would not permit Democratic candidate John Kerry to receive communion in their dioceses; one clergyman told the Observer, “We’ll wait and see if the dozen or so bishops who all went after Kerry, if they go after Giuliani for the same thing.”

Back in 2005, when Harriet Miers was humiliated and forced to withdraw her nomination to the Supreme Court, the Republican Party’s right-wing base was largely responsible.  Having torpedoed their own president’s nominee for being insufficiently zealous regarding their social and legal agenda, the Right forced President Bush to send them someone whose ideological commitment could not be doubted, which he did by nominating Samuel Alito.  

In the face of what, initially, seemed insurmountable odds, the Right mobilized and managed to torpedo Miers’ nomination in just under a month, achieving arguably their single most significant political triumph of the entire Bush presidency to date. 

Now, heading into 2008, the Right is facing what some of them see as an even more ominous threat: the prospect that Rudy Giuliani could win the GOP presidential nomination.  And just as they did with Miers, right-wing activists - especially anti-choice Catholic ones – are gearing up to launch an all-out attack in an effort to deny Giuliani the nomination: