THIS PAST week, Rudy Giuliani lost my vote. He's probably not that upset about it. After all, I'm what one of my friends recently called "something to the left of Democrat." Still, I was keeping pretty close tabs on the Republican side of the race, and Giuliani already had me pretty nonplussed -- what with the two divorces, daughter threatening to campaign against him and mentioning Sept. 11 in every single answer.
But last week Giuliani did something so horrendous, so outrageous, so completely brash it pushed me from indifferent dislike to active enmity. Last Tuesday in New Hampshire, Giuliani, owner of four Yankee World Series rings, announced he was rooting for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.
In case you are not familiar with baseball, let me put the crime in perspective. It would be as if John T. Casteen, III, slapped some turkey feathers on his butt, marched over to Virginia Tech, announced his candidacy for governor of Virginia and topped the whole speech off by yelling, "Whooo Hokies!"
Of course, I shouldn't have been all that surprised at Giuliani's switch. New Hampshire is a solid part of the Red Sox nation, and announcing his everlasting support for the Yankees certainly wouldn't have made Giuliani any friends. Still, one hopes there are some beliefs at least on which politicians will not waver. But Giuliani for one has been more of a limp bamboo stalk than a mighty oak when facing political winds of pressure.
Take, for example, Giuliani's term as mayor of New York City. Back then, Giuliani supported the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. He also filed a lawsuit against gun manufacturers and distributors, and at one point even went so far as to call the National Rifle Association "extremists."
Speaking at an NRA convention this past September in Washington, D.C., Giuliani sang a slightly different tune. In front of the same "extremists" he had called out a decade ago, Giuliani declared that the right to own handguns was just as important as the right to free speech.
Giuliani has also been pretty vague in outlining his stance on abortion. Giuliani states on his campaign Web site his official stance on abortion: "Rudy Giuliani supports reasonable restrictions on abortion such as parental notification with a judicial bypass and a ban on partial birth abortion -- except when the life of the mother is at stake. He's proud that adoptions increased 66 percent while abortions decreased over 16 percent in New York City when he was Mayor." For a Republican presidential candidate, this is an incredibly liberal view of abortion.
This view gets a little more complicated when one reads Giuliani's stance on the appointment of federal judges. His Web site reads, "The kind of judges he has said he would appoint are strict constructionists like Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito." Quick game of Jeopardy -- Answer: Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito. Did you come up with "Who are judges likely to uphold Roe v. Wade?" No? Me neither.
So sure, switching your allegiance from the Yankees to the Red Sox isn't that big a deal to those of us who don't live and breathe baseball. But it brings to light other issues that should be a big deal.
The voting public is entirely too accustomed to politicians saying whatever they need to say at any given time to get votes. In this race it's been nearly impossible to nail down any politician's platform solidly. And it's only the primaries. It's now understood that in the game of politics religion is alterable, morals are malleable and personal views are flexible. Over time I've even come to accept all of this as the state of politics today.
But baseball? Baseball is sacred.
Margaret Sessa-Hawkins' column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at msessahawkins@cavalierdaily.com.
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