A while back, I wondered whether those convervative Catholic voices who opposed Kerry so strenuously in 2004 would oppose with equal fervor the pro-choice, pro-gay rights (and Catholic) Giuliani. The Huffington Post has a report on a few who are beginning to do so:
In its campaign to thwart Giuliani, The Conservative Declaration isjoined by a recently-established group named Fidelis, a Chelsea,Michigan-based organization with the goal of becoming the preeminentCatholic political operation within Republican ranks. (Data based onexit poll surveys in 2002, 2004 and 2006 suggest that about 20 percentof Republican primary voters are Catholic.) Fidelis was founded byJoseph Cella, who in 2004 founded the annual National Catholic PrayerBreakfast in Washington, an event regularly attended by President Bush.Federal Election Commission and IRS reports filed by the Fidelis PACand the Fidelis Media Fund, two political arms of Fidelis, reveal thegroup raised only $22,386 in the 2005-2006 election cycle.
But Fidelis organized anti-Giuliani protests in April at theRepublican debate in Columbia, South Carolina, and the group intends tobe a constant presence at Giuliani events from now on. Cella, who iseager for publicity, contends that "using new media strategies andtactics, we can mobilize hundreds of thousands of people against anunacceptable nominee, or candidate in this case, and have a verypowerful impact with a relatively small financial investment."
The anti-Giuliani group with the least visibility - but substantialambition -- is run by Steve Dillard, a Catholic activist in Macon,Georgia. Dillard, a former law clerk to conservative Judge Daniel A.Manion of the Seventh Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals, in 2002 createdSouthern Appeal, a conservative legal blog. He is currently launching aweb site, Catholics Against Rudy, with the goal of becoming an integralpart of the Catholic blogosphere, consisting of more than 1,000 websites accessible at www.catholicblogs.com. A search for "Giuliani" oncatholicblogs.com suggests that Dillard may have a ready audience: theoverwhelming majority of posts are from people who share Dillard'sbelief that "a faithful Catholic cannot in good faith vote for RudyGiuliani."
