Rudy and the Commitments

...Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior editor at National Review and author of The Party of Death, opposes Giuliani on pro-life grounds...

...The campaign anticipates a barrage of attacks on some of Giuliani's positions, his business associates, and his personal life...

...And this week, Foreign Affairs will publish Giuliani's national security manifesto, "Toward a Realistic Peace...

...A senior policy adviser to Giuliani gives three reasons the mayor thinks his Eighth Commitment is important...

...by Matthew Cqntinetti On the stump in Iowa last week, Mitt Romney tried to portray himself as the conservative in the race for the Republican presidential nomination and the man best able to sink national frontrunner Rudolph Giuliani...

...This is more familiar territory for Giuliani, whose law-and-order, disciplinarian image has taken hold in the public imagination...

...Giuliani would veto congressional attempts to repeal the Hyde amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortions...

...But these measures also have almost nothing to do with abortion...

...Romney attacked the former mayor of New York for running a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants...

...Giuliani is pro-choice in a pro-life party, and every time he discusses the Eighth Commitment, he's touching on an issue that divides him from the Republican electorate...

...We do not have the ability to write a check for $100 million," says the outside communications adviser...

...He may not have to...

...Romney's attack was "a good wake-up call for us," says another of Giuliani's advisers...

...Giuliani, he said, would oppose attempts to overturn the Mexico City policy, which bans federal funds from going to overseas nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote abortions...

...The problem here is that his disagreement is with the voters he wants to nominate him for president...

...A day spent on values issues is a day not spent on secu-rity—and a day more likely to be spent on the defensive...

...That's why the mayor continues to minimize his appearances on the stump in favor of private fundraising events...

...On August 7, in Davenport and Clinton, Iowa, Giuliani talked up the law enforcement measures he would pursue to jail child predators, shut down the underground methamphet-amine market, and combat human trafficking...

...On adoption, what Rudy offers seems perfectly reasonable," Ponnuru writes in an email...

...A good day for Giuliani is when he stresses the security issues—the war on terror, the Iraq war, border enforcement—that are among his strengths and also top priorities for GOP voters...

...What is Giuliani trying to sell...

...The attack seems to have caught the Giuliani campaign off guard...

...And Governor Romney does...

...It may have been exactly what Giuliani needed to avoid a perilous confrontation with pro-life activists...

...The stage was set for a more forceful statement from Giuliani himself...

...It's a bold move, befitting a politician who has never Matthew Continetti is associate editor of The Weekly Standard...

...If Romney emerges as the sole conservative alternative to Giuliani, there's no doubt that the attack will be well-funded...

...That's a statement that might win over some pro-life voters—but Giuliani himself has never said this on the record...

...After the debate, Giuliani stayed two more days in Iowa, outlining his "Eighth Commitment to the American People": "I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions, and protect the quality of life for our children...

...Fortunately for Giuliani, on August 8 Romney changed the conversation back to security...

...His staff is making a good faith effort to reach out to pro-lifers," says Michael J. New, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama and author of a widely circulated National Review Online essay on how Giuliani could court pro-lifers...

...Giuliani "cares about children," says the adviser, and he can point to his record of increasing the number of adoptions in New York City...

...Still, "I'm really not sure that pro-lifers are buying what he has to sell here...

...If the mayor were president," says the adviser, "the policies he would have as president would be essentially as they are today, and the same as any Republican candidate...

...New has also discussed pro-life issues with Giuliani's staff...

...A focus on adoption is a "little more substantive than 'safe, legal, and rare,'" says New, referring to Bill and Hillary Clinton's abortion mantra...

...He instructed city workers not to provide information to the federal government that would allow them to enforce the law...

...Whether or not the conventional wisdom is right, the debate likely won't matter in the long run, as it took place at a time when most Iowans (and most Americans) were in church, and it did not include former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, who is expected formally to enter the race in September...

...At a stop in Bettendorf, Iowa, Romney told an audience, "If you look at lists compiled on websites of sanctuary cities, New York is at the top of the list when Mayor Giuliani was mayor...

...But it has almost nothing to do with abortion...

...But Giuliani's campaign deftly fired back, shifting the conversation to security—hizzoner's strength...

...More important, though, the mayor wants to emphasize common ground with pro-lifers and get practical about steps he can take as president to reduce abortions...

...The senior adviser to Giuliani is a more forceful advocate of pro-life policies...

...Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, currently enjoys a double-digit lead in Iowa, and the conventional wisdom has it that he won the nationally televised debate in Des Moines on Sunday morning, August 4. He held his own against attacks from Kansas senator Sam Brownback and showed himself a top-tier candidate alongside Giuliani and John McCain...

...At a campaign stop in Fort Dodge, Iowa, on August 6, the mayor focused on adoption policy...

...Soon enough, though, the mayor's communications team went on the offensive, drawing attention to Romney's own evolution on immigration issues...

...Still, the immigration fight may have been more than a wake-up call...

...According to a campaign press release, a President Giuliani would promote an "innovative national effort to communicate the rewards of adoption to potential parents," implement policies designed to "speed up and simplify" adoption procedures, allow states to receive child welfare bloc grants from the federal government, direct the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to "promote organizations uniquely prepared to provide the necessary assistance to women who choose adoption," and make the $10,000 adoption tax credit, set eventually to expire, permanent...

...blanched at controversy...

...What troubles pro-lifers is Giuliani's reluctance to say that adoption should be pursued over abortion, as opposed to its being one of many options...