October 4, 2007

Dr. James Dobson’s Temper Tantrum Makes Him Hillary’s Best Friend

Hillary Clinton wants to be president. Dr. James Dobson is here to help. And she will need it.

Only one Democrat has cleared the 50 percent popular vote hurdle – Jimmy Carter in 1976, and just barely – in the past 10 presidential elections. A Democrat cannot win the White House without help, which usually comes in the form of some Republican fool who throws a temper tantrum because the GOP is not a) nominating the candidate preferred by the fool; or b) taking the pet issue position favored by the fool.

Dr. Dobson looks ready to become this campaign’s fool. Dobson is a conservative Christian psychologist – not an ordained minister as many believe him to be – who sells books and multimedia material about family issues and criticizes the leftward lurch of the culture.

But mostly, he rants about abortion politics and demands that the Republican Party never nominate a pro-choice candidate for president.

Rudy Giuliani, who has an excellent shot at the GOP nod, does not toe the Dobson line, and refreshingly declines to pretend he does. Giuliani does not view the issue as a high priority in his presidential campaign. Nor should he. The only thing a president can do to impact the abortion issue is appoint Supreme Court justices who may or may not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade when considering a case that may or may not come before the Court. And when a president appoints a new justice, he should not do so on the basis of how that person may vote on a specific, hypothetical case that may never even come up.

In other words, if you want to end abortion, it is hard to think of a bigger waste of your time than to try electing a president of the United States who agrees with you. Having the pro-life George W. Bush in the White House has not prevented a single abortion. Electing Rudy Giuliani would not cause a single abortion – although, if he stays true to his word and nominates a justice along the lines of John Roberts or Samuel Alito, Giuliani could, without seeking to, go down in history as the president who toppled Roe v. Wade.

But none of this matters to James Dobson. After a meeting last week with a few of his fellow travelers, Dobson and crew decided to issue a statement that, if Giuliani is nominated, they will “consider” running a third-party candidate. Why merely consider it? Probably because they haven’t yet thought of anyone they can talk into doing it, although it’s just as likely they are crying wolf to try to influence the primary process.

Either way, they are giving Hillary Clinton the gift that will keep on giving. Dobson himself has declared that he would “waste” his vote on a fringe candidate or sit out the election entirely before he would vote for Giuliani. Fine. Free country, buddy. But if many others follow his lead, it could be enough to put Ohio or Missouri into the Clinton camp, and that could be enough to put her in the White House. If Dobson finds a third-party candidate with any viability whatsoever, it would almost guarantee that Clinton wins the presidency.

This does not appear to trouble Dr. Dobson. Clinton and Giuliani are both pro-choice. One is no better than the other in his mind, because he thinks the only job of the president of the United States is to advocate the banning of abortion, even though this is something the president cannot actually do.

The real issue here is that many people have stopped listening to James Dobson, and he cannot seem to deal with it. A recent Pew Research Center poll showed that a plurality of evangelical Christians favor Giuliani for president. Perhaps they understand, as Dobson does not, that the most important work for the next president will be to fight terrorism (including winning in Iraq), further cut taxes, reduce federal spending and improve health care through free-market solutions. Rudy Giuliani would do all of this. Hillary Clinton would do none of it.

Yet, for a guy who counsels people on family issues, Dobson has a remarkable ability to behave like a two-year-old who isn’t getting his way. And if this one time, the Republican Party doesn’t nominate someone who passes his irrelevant single-issue litmus test, he is going to blow the whole thing up.

Let’s be clear. If Giuliani and Clinton are nominated, Giuliani or Clinton will be the next president. Dobson knows this. Who do you think he would rather see in the White House? Obviously, Clinton.

That would be bad for the country. Hillary Clinton would be a horrible president. But she would give James Dobson something to talk about, and he could show the Republican Party that they can’t ignore him!