By Christopher Cook

It is being widely reported in political circles that a group of "Christian conservatives" has met and decided that if Rudy Giuliani is the GOP nominee, they may back a 3rd party candidate. Read these examples to get some good background...

Powerline: The Dreaded "Religious Right" Rears Its Head
Captain Ed: Christian Conservatives For Hillary

I am a conservative. I am a Christian. But if this is what it means to be an official member of the group known as "Christian Conservatives," then count me out.

Point 1:
If their ultimate goal is---and it ought to be---to create a situation in which fewer babies are killed in the abortion mills of the left, then this is NOT the way to do it.

A conservative third party candidate will do one thing, and one thing only: make it vastly more likely that Hillary Clinton will be the 44th President of the United States. Kind of has a ring to it, doesn't it? That ring, of course, is the death knell for millions more of the unborn.

Think about it...

Given the current climate, the only hope the GOP has of gaining back Congress---or at least not sliding further into the minority---is a landslide victory by the GOP nominee for president. In order for this to happen, we need a candidate with a broad appeal, and we need him to be so far ahead in the polls that the left despairs and stays home on election day. Unless something dramatic changes, that is really the only way we have any hope of victory (or at least a stoploss) in the downticket races.

Here's the other scenario. If Clinton wins, there is virtually no chance that we will get back the Congress. That means a Democrat in the White House and a Democrat controlled Congress. There will be more than one Supreme Court retirement during a Clinton presidency. A president doesn't have much to do with abortion, other than appointing judges and justices, and you can be sure that Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Pat Leahy (D-VT) will push through Clinton's nominees, who are all going to be to the left of Erwin Chermerinsky. Republicans, in the minority in Congress, will be basically powerless to stop this.

So, what do y'all think THAT will do to the number of abortions?

The following calculus, it seems to me, is unassailable:

• We may get a GOP president and a Democrat Congress.
• We may be really lucky and get a GOP president and a GOP Congress.
• We may get a Democrat president and a Democrat Congress.
• But we will NOT be getting a Democrat president and a GOP Congress, at least not in 2008.

That means that if we get a Democrat president, the GOP will not be able to stop him/her from appointing judges and justices who are not friendly to the rights of the unborn.

And that is exactly what we're likely to get if a conservative third-party candidate gains real traction --- MORE dead babies, not fewer. I am sure that's not what these folks really want.

Point 2:
If their goal is to "scare" GOP primary voters into picking someone other than Giuliani, then this is still not helpful. We need to keep the primary bloodletting to a minimum, so that our nominee, whoever he is, is not bled out for the fight against Hillary (or whoever). But these folks aren't thinking pragmatically. They're only thinking about their cause. Unfortunately, it appears that they've gotten so used to the mechanics of the fight that they've forgotten to think clearly about how to bring about its ultimate goal.

If the ultimate goal is to reduce the number of abortions, then they ought to be thinking about which candidate would have the biggest coattails, because we NEED Congress in our control in order to make any real headway. They should be looking at polls, looking at the electoral map, thinking about which candidate might bring over independents, who are necessary if we are going to get back Congress. They should be doing the hard work of politics---figuring out who will bring about the best gain for their ideology, given the current political landscape.

Instead, they are holding meetings whose ultimate result is to resolve to follow a course that will damage the cause that they claim to value, and damage a whole lot more in the process.


You'll forgive my bluntness here, but this is petulant, preening narcissism. Every time someone allows the perfect to be the enemy of the good, they do the cause they espouse damage.

It has been credibly estimated that when the Bush drunk-driving story broke on the weekend before the 2000 election, some four to eight million evangelicals stayed home. Rather than stopping to think clearly about what a Gore presidency would mean in its totality, they just picked up their marbles and went home over that one issue. They were thinking more about their personal status vis-a-vis sin than they were the good of the country. They were thinking, I can't support someone who would sin in that way. I judge his actions to be sinful. My vote would be an endorsement of such behavior. How would that look for me before God? I, me, my. Me me me.

I am not suggesting that we vote willy-nilly for immoral scumbags. I am suggesting that we use the heads God gave us when we are making our voting decisions. I am suggesting that we see the big picture....that we try to think of elections pragmatically, rather than believing that somehow we're ever going to be given a choice between voting for an angel and voting for a devil.

Holding conferences to endorse third-party candidates...picking up your marbles and going home... these things serve only one purpose---they make people FEEL BETTER ABOUT THEMSELVES. It's nothing more than a gesture, a selfish act that makes people feel like they've done what they should vis-a-vis their own personal salvation.

This kind of selfish, gestural politics usually puts at risk the very values and policy aims that the gesturer claims to seek. Moreover, doesn't this kind of selfish concern with one's one salvation, at the expense of what's best for the world, put at risk that very salvation? Ironic, that.

And in this case, it also seems very likely to get more babies killed, not fewer.