“It’s like listening to a good Baptist preacher,” she said, standing outside the crowd swarming the presidential candidate, near the free-throw line of an Iowa high school basketball court that had been transformed into a stage for national political theater.
“You’re gonna get me in trouble with my preacher,” she told me, when I asked her to elaborate. “But he made me want to say ‘Amen’ a couple times. I like what he says. And, when you like what the preacher says, you say ‘Amen.’ ”
Name the candidate. Sam Brownback, perhaps, flexing his social-con muscles for the middle-America crowd of West Des Moines? Maybe Mike Huckabee working that Southern drawl? Or, John McCain whipping the crowd up with his populist popularity?
Nope.
She was speaking of Rudy Giuliani, who made his first trip to Iowa this week to woo conservative caucus-goers. Many wondered how Giuliani’s socially liberal record and personal life might affect his reception among the socially conservative of the Hawkeye State.
When he arrived, he found he was up against the Conservative Declaration of Independence, in which 100 Iowan conservative leaders vowed not to vote for America’s Mayor should he win the Republican nomination.
Declaration co-author and former Christian Coalition field director Tom McMillin sent out an e-mail April 2 seeking Iowa signatures in preparation for Giuliani’s first visit. Co-signers “agree that we are conservatives first and Republicans second,” and that Giuliani’s “liberal record” and “the conduct of his personal life make it impossible for us to support his candidacy under any circumstances.”
Giuliani’s speech in the Valley High School gym Tuesday — or, the Tiger Pit, as locals call it, and which Rudy dutifully called it, as well — was pointedly free of social issues, except for one sentence.
When explaining that his idea of leadership didn’t include an innate ability to change his opinions as swiftly as the latest poll numbers, he said, “I could tell you whatever you want to hear,” on a host of issues, and named “social issues” in the list.
But, he said, that would make him less of a leader than the one he takes pride in being.
It’s an interesting strategy on the social issues question, and sort of endearingly straightforward for a politician. It plays up Rudy’s anti-Beltway, what-you-see-is-what-you-get image while taking a backhand to Romney’s more recent conversions to socially conservative positions.
Giuliani sounded like he was pitching a deal to caucus-goers in Iowa on Tuesday night, and to the conservative electorate in general.
Giuliani added that his personal life “gets best measured by my public performance — nobody knows someone’s soul, nobody knows the inner workings of someone’s life. When you have a job, when you have a public job, the best way to judge it is: ‘What’s your public performance?’ ”
It’s as if he’s saying, “I’ll give you tough on terror. America’s Mayor, tax reform, proven results, the right judges and all this charisma, but we’re always going to have differences on some social issues. Come on, you know you wanna. You won’t have to get nervous about terrorists killing you or about watching your president speak in public. Four years with me? It’ll be a blast!”
He grins, he struts, talks about protecting fellow Americans with that Italian New York machismo all over his voice, and even Christian conservatives start to think, “Amen.”
But for how long will simply laying the social issues aside work for Giuliani? Charisma is a huge part of the presidential electoral process (incidentally, it’s been a miniscule part of the last couple of Democratic campaigns).
But even the grandest of candidates needs ground operatives, and social conservatives make up a part of the political machine that Rudy can’t do entirely without.
What I heard from social conservatives on the ground in Iowa is that they want Rudy to talk to them,to address the issues. They don’t necessarily want him to convert, but they do need to be talked into taking his deal.
“I’m willing to listen to his story,” said MaryAnn Spicer, a Christian conservative who attended the Rudy rally Tuesday. “And, if he can convince me that he’s the right person to consider, then I would consider him.”
But Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Christian Alliance, said Rudy has yet to start convincing. In arranging house parties and events around Iowa, the alliance has received “overtures” from all of the other Republican camps, but not Giuliani’s. He’s hoping that will change.
It will likely have to before Rudy can turn charisma into capital in Iowa. Talking like a good Baptist preacher won’t get him nearly as many “Amens” as talking to a few of them.
Mary Katharine Ham is a member of The Examiner Blog Board of Contributors and blogs at Townhall.com.
