This is a continuation of an analysis of the “social conservatives take their ball and go home” argument.

Over at The Evangelical Outpost, Joe Carter argues (pretty well, I think) about why Republicans — and particularly social conservatives — should support a candidate other than Rudy Giuliani as the RNC nominee. There’s even a game theory table there, to please your inner geek.

As part of his post, he proposes that it is wrong to state that Giuliani is the most electable RNC candidate (in the general election) and therefore should be the nominee if the RNC wants to have its best hope of victory. I think I’m with him on that — it’s been my belief for some time that primaries are for voting with your conscience, I’m pretty sure I’m going to stick to that belief come February, and that will mean not voting for Giuliani in the primary.

Joe’s belief is that Rudy couldn’t beat Hillary Clinton anyway, thereby further dismantling the “electability” argument. I don’t know if I agree with that part of his premise, but like I said, I agree in general that electability is not to be considered (or at least, it shouldn’t be a major consideration) in a primary election.

But Joe’s argument breaks down when he concludes that if Giuliani becomes the RNC nominee, his disdain for Rudy will cause him to stay home for the general election (or, at best, not vote in the presidential race). His argument is that if Giuliani’s actual supporters make him the nominee, and he loses to Clinton, it’s solely their fault, regardless of what Joe does (or doesn’t do) in the general election. The math/logic to show the fallacy of this argument is even simpler than his.

For sake of argument, let’s say that Hillary gets 46% of the vote, Rudy gets 45%, and the other 9% goes to third-party candidates, or simply is not cast because of disdain for Rudy. Like it or not, American government is a two-party system. As I said in the last post, a viable third party may arise eventually, but it’s not happening in 2008. Given that fact, and the fact that the presidential race is only for a plurality of the vote, Rudy’s loss would be as attributable to the fact that he didn’t get 55% of the vote as it is to the fact that he did get 45%. The 9% are no less culpable for Hillary’s election than the 46% that actually voted for her.

Joe states that those who would call on him to vote for Giuliani in the general election are asking him to sacrifice his principles for the sake of pragmatism. While there’s not a complete correlation, words like “principle” and “pragmatism” ring a bit hollow right now, when James Dobson (ab)uses them in his thinly-veiled argument for a power grab.

Though admittedly not by Joe, it has also been stated that a Clinton victory over Giuliani would help “clean out” the GOP, and would show the party that it can’t get along without social conservatives, and hopefully in 4 or 8 years, the party will nominate someone more acceptable to them. While these things might be true, such “we’ll show them a thing or two” thinking is simply pragmatism in a slightly longer run. In other words, it’s not principle to spurn Giuliani and pragmatism to vote for him — it’s just different flavors of pragmatism. (I’m not saying that Joe is not principled; I’m just saying that it’s not simply an either/or situation.)

Unfortunately, I have to wonder if long-term pragmatism is really all that pragmatic. Put differently, it may be sacrificing the immediate for a future that is much more uncertain than it’s made out to be.

How’s that? Next post.

Stay tuned. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

1. fetuses as political pawns
2. pragmatism, not pragmatism
3. mickey returns
4. realism, not derangement