The Giuliani Schism

The wingnuts are threatening to abandon the Republican Party and run their own candidate if Rudy wins the GOP nomination.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 — Alarmed at the possibility that the Republican Party might pick Rudolph W. Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate.

The threat emerged from a group that broke away for separate discussions at a meeting Saturday in Salt Lake City of the Council for National Policy, a secretive conservative networking group. Participants said the smaller group included James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, who is perhaps its most influential member; Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council; Richard A. Viguerie, the direct-mail pioneer; and dozens of other politically oriented conservative Christians.

Almost everyone present at the smaller group’s meeting expressed support for a written resolution stating that “if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate we will consider running a third-party candidate,” participants said.

Dobson, Perkins, and Viguerie are three of the biggest nuts guns in the modern conservative movement. If they can persuade their followers to quit the GOP, the uneasy coalition between the pro-business wing and the Christian conservatives may unravel. It goes without saying that such a split would doom the Republicans to minority status for the foreseeable future and as such, we should do all we can to encourage it. Go Rudy!