Behind the scenes at FRC Briefing

Saturday I attended a private meeting of conservative leaders during the Family Research Council Washington Briefing, a Salt Lake City II if you will, to discuss dilemmas we face with the 2008 presidential candidates.

Instructions were given not to speak to the media, and since I am the media, I took that to mean details discussed were off-the-record and, of course, I'll honor that.

But speaking in generalities, two dilemmas were hashed:

Which Republican primary candidate should pro-lifers rally behind?
What if Rudy Giuliani ends up the nominee?

Generalized outcomes of the meeting:

Most in the room supported Mike Huckabee. A few important figures supported Duncan Hunter.
For many well-researched reasons, third-party chatter was laid to rest.
It doesn't seem Romney will be able to surmount the Mormon and flip-flop obstacles among pro-life leaders, at least in the primary.
Giuliani was still anathema to everyone, despite his commendable attempt to reach out by speaking at the Briefing.

Although the FRC straw poll had slightly confusing results, Huckabee came in No. 1 or No. 2, depending whether results included combined online and onsite tallies or onsite tallies alone.

Thanks to that, Huckabee "will get a significant bounce," FRC head Tony Perkins told CBS. How high? "He could be a first-tier candidate," said Perkins.

The sole hold-up with Huckabee's ascension to Tier One is money. If he had it, no doubt he'd join the club. CBS, reporting on Gary Bauer's analysis, wrote:

He said Huckabee, who raised only $1 million in the third quarter of the year, doesn't have the time or resources to compete with the top GOP candidates.

"I'm skeptical, I am," Bauer [former presidential candidate and current president of American Values] said. "I just don't see how you go from having $600,000 in the bank one year before the election and go on to leap-frog everybody else, beat Giuliani and then go on to beat Hillary Clinton. I just don't see it happening."

My friend Janet Folger, head of Faith2Action and Huckabee's strongest supporter among pro-life leaders, dismissed that, reminding me of his surprise second-place finish to Romney in the Iowa straw poll, despite spending no money on advertising.

The fact is, s/he who has the most money almost always wins. Almost. I hesitate to use the word naive to describe those not incorporating that into the mix. I'd love this paragraph to come back and bite me, but funding is a political reality.

Add to that, Huckabee's ground team is disorganized, certainly not doing what it takes to see their candidate nominated. In my home state of Illinois, for instance, his people haven't had the wherewithal to nominate delegates to the state Republican convention.

Of course, a lot can happen in the next few months. (The best thing Huckabee could do for himself is stop right now and do some serious fundraising, reporting back in one week that he has raised $1 million. That would get him some respect.)

But what if conservatives cannot rally around one candidate, therefore dividing their vote, and winning Giuliani the primary? What if pro-lifers are faced with choosing between him or Hillary in the general?

Dr. James Dobson said in a speech at the Briefing he pledged at the 1988 March for Life never to vote for a pro-abortion candidate, and he is sticking to that. He would not vote for Giuliani, even in a match-up with Hillary.

Because of that, Dobson has received much hate mail during the last three weeks, he said, up to the point of people withdrawing financial support from Focus on the Family.

Perkins had the same answer for Wolf Blitzer of CNN Oct. 20.

They both have expressed understanding of the gravity of this decision. They know not voting for Giuliani would hand Hillary the election.

Paul Kengor, author of the new book "God and Hillary," had this disturbing observation of her in an Oct. 9 interview with psychology professor and blogger Warren Throckmorton:

I don't know of any politician who is more uncompromising and extreme on abortion rights than Hillary Clinton. ... Her extremism on abortion rights was the single most shocking, inexplicable find in my research on her faith and politics. I couldn't understand it. No question. It is truly extraordinary. Nothing, no political issue, impassions her like abortion rights. For Mrs. Clinton, abortion rights is sacred ground.

Under Hillary's watch, the Freedom of Choice Act would likely advance to law, overturning every pro-life state and federal law passed since 1973.

She would ensure federal funding of human embryo experimentation.

She would overturn many, most, or all of the 20 or so pro-life riders currently attached to appropriations bills, like the Mexico City policy, which all must be renewed every year.

Hillary could conceivably nominate the most Supreme Court justices one president has ever nominated. As of Jan. 20, 2009, the day the new president takes office, five of the nine current Supreme Court justices will be 70 or over: Stevens (88), Ginsburg (75), Scalia (72), Kennedy (72) and Breyer (70). Souter will turn 70 later that year. Certainly Stevens and Ginsburg, if not others, are hanging on for the day a liberal Dem picks their 50-year-old successor, ensuring the Supreme Court will lurch left for the next 20-30 years when it was only one justice away from correcting itself. This would have devastating if not irrevocable consequences not just on the pro-life issue but on other critical issues of our day, like homosexual marriage and property rights.

The magnitude of the 2008 presidential nomination and election process is almost overwhelming.

Almost. Leaders at the Briefing reminded everyone to pray. It seems we Christians have a propensity not to do that until we're in critical situations with no apparent way out.

This is one of those situations.

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"On Message: The Pro-Life Handbook"