The Republican candidates for President will debate again tonight in South Carolina, and Rudy Giuliani will be on the spot:
Ten Republican presidential candidates will gather in South Carolina tonight for their second debate of the month, with much of the focus likely to be on former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and his continuing effort to extricate himself from a controversy over his position on abortion.
Giuliani, the putative front-runner for the GOP nomination, has struggled for the past two weeks after declaring at the first GOP debate in California that it would be “okay” if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide, but then added that it would also be “okay” if the justices upheld that ruling.
Giuliani sought to put the controversy behind him with a speech in Houston last Friday in which he declared abortion “morally wrong” but defended the right of women to decide for themselves. He then added fuel to the fire during a taped interview on “Fox News Sunday” when he declared that he did not have an answer to the question of whether life begins at conception.
“I think the candidate that has the most to prove is Giuliani,” said Scott Reed, a GOP strategist and former presidential campaign manager for Robert J. Dole. “Since the first debate his standing with conservatives has spun out of control, and he has a real challenge ahead of him.”
Given that South Carolina Republicans are generally conservative and pro-life, it could be a rough night for Giuliani.
