The California Conversions of Republicans Campaigning in the Golden State

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Peter Schrag

Rudy Giuliani's pirouette around abortion finally landed him on a pro-choice position that no major national Republican candidate has held since 1980. That was when George Bush I, who had backed abortion rights, told Ronald Reagan he could support his party's anti-abortion platform.

For Bush even the vice-presidency was worth a conversion. The conversion, as everybody knows, was tribute to the growing political power of the religious right. Reagan, who had signed the California Therapeutic Abortion Act in 1967, at the time one of the nation's most liberal abortion rights laws, didn't care much one way or another. He later said he'd regretted signing the California law.

Giuliani, who chose to dress necessity in the garb of principle, may have decided that, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, he could ignore the waning Republican orthodoxy on social issues and not be turned to stone. That Giuliani, also like Schwarzenegger, has an ego that eclipses any party platform didn't hurt.

But he may also have sensed that the political clout of the Christian right had passed its high water mark. The death last week of Jerry Falwell, who had done so much to forge that power, was only coincidental but it was symbolic nonetheless.