Republican debate: Giuliani fights for the GOP base

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, far right, is trying to get closer to the hearts of the religious right in a Republican campaign dominated by the four above, including (L to R) Sen. John McCain, former Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Fred Thompson, pictured at their last debate. AP photo.

by Mark Silva, and updated with debate

The Spin Room is open.

Rudy Giuliani, the front-running Republican candidate for president in national polls, has some explaining to do to the considerable conservative base of his party, judging from results of the "Values Voter Summit'' in Washington over the weekend.

He will get that chance this evening, at a nationally televised debate of the eight remaining Republican candidates in Orlando that the Fox News Channel will air live at 8 pm EDT. Fox is billing the 90-minute encounter as "a chance to cater to the party's conservative base.''

Giuliani, who supports abortion rights and gay rights, drew a sum total of 107 votes of 5,776 cast in the straw poll of the Family Research Council-sponsored forum in Washington that gave the former New York mayor and the rest of the party's candidates a chance to make their pitch to a Christian evangelical base of the party that accounts for nearly four in 10 GOP votes.

Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who stoked that straw poll and won it with a concerted online voting-campaign, and Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and Baptist pastor who wowed the house and ran a close second to Romney in the straw poll (1,595 to 1,565), are competing with former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson (fourth place in the FRC straw poll) for the hearts ot the party's most conservative voters.

The debate will be somewhat more focused than shows past, with the withdrawal of Kansas Sen. Sam Browback from the race. Yet Huckabee and others still will compete for the limelight in a contest dominated by Giuliani, Romney, Thompson and Sen. John McCain (who, by the way, finished ninth and last in the FRC straw poll, with 26 fewer votes than Giuliani.)

Each of the front-running Republicans in this debate are asked if he is more conservative than the next, and each is pressed about Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton's early lead in polls. And Giuliani is asked about criticism that there is not much difference between him and Clinton.

“You have got to be kidding,’’ Giuliani replies. “There are two things I agree with Hillary Clinton on. First of all, we’re both Yankee fans. I became a Yankee fan growing up in New York, She became a Yankee fan growing up in Chicago… Do you believe that?’’

At the close of the debate, Thompson is asked to counter the criticism that some consider him lazy.

"I was a father at the age of 17 and a husband at the age of 17… I was able to be an assistant U.S. attorney at 28... Howard Baker selected me to be his general counsel…. at the age of 30… Condoleezza Rice called on me… .President Bush called on me to help shepherd now-Chief Justice Roberts through the confirmation process…. If a man can do all that and be lazy, I recommend it to everybody,'' said Thompson, who added a postscript about his own second marriage: "Plus, I’m now the proud father of five. Two of them are under the age of four.’’

Read about the debate here. The Spin Room is open for comments:

The debate opened with direct challenges from the moderator to each of the leading candidates: Who is more conservative?

And it got personal between some of the candidates fighting to climb from the second tier of the Republican pack.

“Gov. Romney,’’ McCain said to his rival, "you've been spending the last year trying to fool people about your record. I don't want you to start fooling them about mine.....I stand on my record as a conservative. I don’t think you can fool the American people… They may not agree with me on a couple of issues, but they will know I am speaking the truth.’’

Giuliani, the front-runner, is the primary target here.

“I can tell you that George Will wrote a couple years back… that I ran the most conservative government in the United States,’’ Giuliani said. “I fought down crime more than anybody… when I was mayor… I balanced a budget that was perennially out of balance. … had success with a Democratic council…I think I had a heck of a lot of conservative results.’’

“In my view, we’re going to have to bring together the same coalition that Ronald Reagan put together,’’ Romney said. “All of us are trying to put together that same coalition… We’re not going to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House by acting like Hillary Clinton … My approach, I believe, is best for our nation.’’

Thompson was asked if his rivals had convinced them that they are more conservative than he is. “Well, we’ve got an hour and a half,’’ he said slowly. “Maybe we can work on it.’’

“In eight years in the U.S. Senate, I fought for tax cuts. and budget reform,’’ Thompson said. “All that time, I compiled a 100 percent pro-life voting record… Mayor Giuliani believes in federal funding for abortion… He is for gun control… I simply disagree with him on those issues… He sides with Hillary Clinton on each of those issues I just mentioned.’’

“Fred has his problems too,’’ Giuliani said. “Fred was the single biggest obstacle to tort reform in the United States Senate…. Fred Thompson, along with very few Republicans, blocked tort reform over and over and over again. That is not a conservative position.’’
Thompson said he had supported tort reform in securities legislation and in product liability, but “Local issues belong at the local level.’’

McCain was asked about his criticism for Romney having said that he represents the Republican wing of the GOP.

“I think that statement was a pretty obvious paraphrase of the Howard Dean statement of the Democrat Party,’’ McCain said. “I have fought wasteful spending… I have a strong record on national security… I understand the issues… I am prepared, need no on the job training… I wasn’t a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn’t a governor for a short period of time… I led, I led for patriotism.’’

Romney was asked about McCain’s repeated suggestions that Romney is misleading people about his conservatism – McCain has told audiences that he won’t “con them.

“Sen. McCain… is a hero… and I respect his service,’’ Romney said. “When I ran against Sen. Ted Kennedy in 1994, I knew that was going to be a big uphill climb… I was fighting against the liberal lion in perhaps the toughest state in America

“I served for four years. My legislature was 85 percent Democrat,’’ Romney said. “I fought to put English in our schools… I cut taxes… The question is who will strengthen the house that President Reagan built.’’

McCain was asked about a debate comment that Romney had made about calling on his lawyers for consultation in time of crisis.

“I don’t think that’s the time to call in the lawyers, when we’re in a national security crisis,’’ McCain said. “Those are the last people I call in… I call in my knowledge, my wisdom.’’

“If there were ever a question of a security threat to this country,’’ Romney said, “I would act immediately to protect America and our citizens. …The decision to take our men to war is the most important…. I would do that on a deliberative basis.’’

The candidates conflict on same-sex marriage.

“I want to make sure that our kids have a mom and a dad,’’ Romney said. “The status of marriage, if it’s allowed among same-sex members in one state, it’s going to spread… I want to make sure that we strengthen the institution of marriage in this country.’’

Giuliani said: “With basically one state which by judicial fiat has created same-sex marriage… I don’t believe we need a constitutional amendment at this point… If a lot of states start to do that… if we’re dealing with a real problem, then we should have a constitutional amendment,’’

Giuliani, noting that he had performed 210 marriages as mayor, also said: “They were all men and women – I hope… You’ve got to give me a little slack here, it was New York City.’’

“For the first time in about nine debates, I’m glad I wasn’t in on the’’ start, said Huckabee. “I’m not interested in fighting these guys. What I’m interested in is fighting for the American people.’’

The Republicans – all of them trailing Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at least marginally in national polls – also were pressed to comment on the fitness of the former first lady to serve as president. Is she fit to be commander-in-chief?

“I’d vote no,’’ Romney said. “I don’t believe she has the experience.’’

“Look at the challenges we face,” he said. “The idea that someone wants to be president who’s never worked in the private sector is really a big question…. That skill, that experience, is essential… Hillary Clinton wants to run the largest enterprise in the world… She hasn’t run a corner store. She hasn’t run a state. She hasn’t run a city. The idea that she wants an internship… doesn’t make any sense.’’

Giuliani was asked about criticism that there is not much difference between him and Clinton.

“You have got to be kidding,’’ Giuliani said. “There are two things I agree with Hillary Clinton on. First of all, we’re both Yankee fans. I became a Yankee fan growing up in New York, She became a Yankee fan growing up in Chicago… Do you believe that?’’

Citing Clinton’s comment that America cannot afford everything she would like to see achieved, he said: “No kidding Hillary, America can’t afford you.’’

Asked about trailing her in the polls, Giuliani said:

“Almost every one of them is within the statistical margin of error… If those polls are correct, we’d have Al Gore here… It might be a little colder… Thank you, Florida, thank you, you saved us… You saved us in 2000, that was a big one.

McCain, who supports the war in Iraq – while Clinton promises to end it – was asked if this will be a “winner’’ for the GOP in 2008. “I don’t know and I cant be concerned,’’ he said, “because I know too many brave young Americans who are serving… I would much rather lose a campaign than lose a war.’’

Clinton wants to spend $1 million of federal “earmark’’ money on a Woodstock museum, said McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam at the time of the 1969 music festival.

“I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event,’’ he said. “I was tied up at the time.’’

The audience, in a hall holding 3,000, stood and applauded.

“I will have this debate and win, because she is a liberal Democrat and I am a proud and consistent Republican conservative,’’ McCain said.

Huckabee, acknowledging the humor in the hall, said;

“Theres nothing funny about Hillary Clinton being president… If she’s president, taxes go up… We’ve got an enemy that wants to kill every last one of us. We can;t be soft. We have to be strong… With all the fun we’re going to have talking about it, there is nothing funny about Hillary becoming president.’’