He’s gone and done it now.

I read with some surprise (or maybe I shouldn’t have been) that Pat Robertson has endorsed Rudy Giuliani in his bid for the Republican nomination. Remember we haven’t even had a primary or caucus yet!

He says (and I’m not quoting here) that he feels even though we disagree on social issues, Rudy’s the right man for this time – mostly because of our world-wide situation; as if that trumps everything domestic.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be concerned about things in Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Myanmar, etc. but I don’t think we can set aside our major, and I mean really major differences.

If I’m going to do that, and I mean say that ‘OK for America, things like abortion don’t matter’, then I have no reason to stick with the Republican party.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think I could vote for Hillary if she came and had dinner with me and asked me to vote for her. But I also think some probably really good ideas get tossed just because they come from the Democratic side of the aisle.

All I’m saying is if we can (and I don’t think we should) dismiss so-called “social issues” as not being reasons to select or reject a candidate, then we have to be open to consider ALL the other reasons. And I don’t even know what they are at this point; I’m just making a general point.

This sort of goes back to my blog of last month or so about guessing that the final result of this will likely be a 3rd party run by a conservative candidate. I didn’t expect this to happen until AFTER the Jan/Feb run of primaries in 2008.

Now here’s another prediction: Rudy will start talking with Mike Huckabee to get him to be his running mate. He’ll use that to satiate those for whom Robertson’s endorsement isn’t enough. ‘See’, he’ll say, ‘I believe that conservatives should have a voice, so I’ll put one of your own in the VEEP slot’. This helps him in the south, helps in all the Red States and with the Christian Right so they can maybe stomach a vote for Rudy (given the alternative is either a vote for Hillary OR for a 3rd party person which might as well be another vote for Hillary).

I used to work for Mr. Robertson and always found him to be an extremely bright person even though I didn’t always agree with him. I have no idea what his agenda is in this endorsement but it is bound to have some far-reaching and perhaps unintended consequences.