Giuliani Quotes Disturb N.Y. Conservative

The battle for the 2008 nomination may be in full gear.

Tuesday a Catholic group issued a press release attacking former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as unfit to be the Republican nominee for president in 2008.

The Culture of Life Foundation, headed by Austin Ruse, said it issued the anti-Rudy document as a way to "slow down and even stop the presidential buzz around former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani."

The release quotes extensively from a compilation of quotes from Giuliani that the group said "is sure to make social conservatives queasy."

The group cites a four-page document, "The Quotable Rudolph W. Giuliani," which has been compiled by George J. Marlin, an author and long-time activist in New York's Conservative party.

Marlin, former head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, had run as a Conservative Party candidate against Giuliani when he first ran for mayor in 1989 on the Republican and Liberal party lines.

Marlin said that on a daily basis he hears Giuliani's name mentioned as a possible GOP candidate for the 2008 presidential elections, a prospect he finds frightening.

"I though that it was time that people get a better sense of where he stands on cultural issues," Marlin told Culture & Cosmos.

Marlin says one of the more telling quotes about Giuliani comes not from Giuliani but from a statement issued in 1989 by the New York State Liberal Party, which endorsed Giuliani during his run for mayor that year.

"[W]hen the Liberal Party Policy Committee reviewed a list of key social issues of deep concern to progressive New Yorkers, we found that Rudy Giuliani agreed with the Liberal Party's stance on a majority of such issues. He agreed with the Liberal Party's views on affirmative action, gay rights, gun control, school prayer and tuition tax credits. As Mayor, Rudy Giuliani would uphold the Constitutional and legal rights to abortion," the statement said.

Most troublesome for Rudy may be his strong advocacy for abortion rights.

The document shows Giuliani's support of abortion has been strident.

The Marlin document also contains a quote from the New York Newsday of Sept. 1, 1989 in which Giuliani says that he so strongly favored abortion, "I'd give my daughter the money for it [an abortion]."

According to the New York Times, Giuliani supports government funding for abortion.

Back in 1989 the newspaper of record said: "As mayor, Rudy Giuliani will uphold a woman's right of choice to have an abortion. Giuliani will fund all city programs which provide abortions to insure that no woman is deprived of her right due to an inability to pay. He will oppose reductions in state funding. He will oppose making abortion illegal."

In 1998 the New York Times reported that Giuliani opposed outlawing partial-birth abortions.

Giuliani, along with Arizona Sen. John McCain, has been touted as one of the leading candidates for the Republican nomination for president. A recent Quinnipiac University Poll had both of them tied in a hypothetical race against New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But Marlin and others believe Giuliani's fire will dwindle as Republican primary voters become more familiar with his positions.

Giuliani, for his part, has not made clear his intention for a 2008 race, nor has he indicated his current views on the social issues that may be so vexing for him.

Condi Rice, also touted as a presidential contender, may face similar problems. Rice told the Washington Times last week that she is pro-choice on the abortion issue.