Sure, GOP, listen to Cecile Richards
In his November 8 Crisis Magazine piece, “Romney’s abandonment of social issues contributed to his defeat,” Austin Ruse cites several Republican and Democrat pundits who are calling on the GOP to abandon the abortion issue in the wake of several defeats.
(One of those Ruse quoteds was Michael Walsh, former editor of Breitbart’s Big Journalism, who edited or nixed my pro-life articles to such an extent I finally stopped submitting them. Unbiased source, he.)
Shock, even Cecile Richards, CEO of Planned Parenthood, joined the chorus. “There’s a clear pathway to [win back women’s support], and it’s to listen to the middle of their party instead of the extreme fringe,” Richards told the Huffington Post.
As if President Obama’s bff and Democrat Party spokesperson really wants to send women back to the GOP. No, Richards’ advice has nothing to do with wanting Republicans to back off from defunding or investigating her big abortion biz.
But hey, Republican Party, listen to these pundits and see what you end up with.
Erick Erickson at RedState.com wrote something brilliant, in bold:
The GOP establishment… look at Todd Aiken and Richard Mourdock and conclude that they, not Tommy Thompson, Heather Wilson, George Allen, Scott Brown, etc. are the problem….
They can’t see how what happened actually happened unless it happened because the issues on which they disagree with the base played a role….
Mitt Romney won about a quarter of the hispanic vote and a tenth of the black vote.
Those numbers may not sound like much, but in close elections they matter.
A sizable portion of those black and hispanic voters voted GOP despite disagreeing with the GOP on fiscal issues. But they are strongly social conservative and could not vote for the party of killing kids and gay marriage. So they voted GOP.
You throw out the social conservatives and you throw out those hispanic and black voters. Further, you make it harder to attract new hispanic voters who happen to be the most socially conservative voters in the country.
Next, you’ll also see a reduction of probably half the existing GOP base. You won’t make that up with Democrats who suddenly think that because their uterus is safe they can now vote Republican. Most of those people don’t like fiscal conservatism either – often though claiming that they do….
In fact, if the GOP really wanted to expand with minorities, it’d keep the social conservatism and throw out the fiscal conservatism.
Richard Mourdock was one of two of the poster children for abandoning social conservatives this year. He was beaten by a pro-life Democrat.
The problem is not social conservatism. The problem is social conservatives have gotten so used to thinking of themselves as the majority they’ve forgotten how to speak to those who are not and defend against those who accuse them of being fringe, most particularly the press. Couple that with Mitt Romney’s campaign making a conscious decision to not fight back on the cultural front and you have a bunch of Republicans convinced, despite the facts, that if only the social conservatives would go away all would be fine.
It’s not time to throw out social conservatives. It’s time to accept that without them the GOP would be even a smaller party even less able to reach out to the hispanic demographic all the smart people say they need to embrace. Addition through subtraction never really works well.
I disagree it is social conservatives who are not aptly defending our beliefs. It is the Republican establishment, which has abdicated responsibility. Pro-life organizations exhausted themselves trying to make our case. I know, I went on two bus tours. As I’ve written before, the establishment is either terrified to discuss abortion or support it. Imagine had pro-life leaders been given the same prominence at the RNCC as pro-abortion leaders got at the DNCC. Actually, I can’t.
Matt Lewis at The Week agrees:
If conservatives want to win, we must broaden our appeal. But that doesn’t mean abandoning our core principles….
The notion that you can hurl trite, if patriotic, red meat and expect the red state masses to carry you over the finish line has been proven false. The public is more informed and sophisticated today, and it’s time Republicans realize that. Conservatism is, of course, a serious intellectual philosophy. It’s time we start acting like it….
It is entirely possible to preserve conservative values and ideas while simultaneously making them more appealing to a changing America.
Even feminist Hanna Rosin agrees it wasn’t the abortion/contraception issue that won the day for Obama, writing at CNN:
The women’s vote did not turn out to be historic in the way pundits predicted before the election. Yes, more women voted for President Obama, but not in record numbers. The gender gap was in fact a little smaller in this election than in 2008. Yes, women were important in certain states, but so were young people, African-Americans and Latinos, who, together, make up Obama’s new winning coalition. What’s more, women did not even constitute a unified vote. Married women tended to vote for Romney, while single women went for Obama.
Had only Romney spoken up a bit on social issues, who knows how many more minority voters he might have plied away from Obama.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I think that we need to take abortion off the table. It never wins us any votes and we ALWAYS lose. I know the readers here are aghast at what I am saying but if we do not win, the leftists get to do whatever they want with the abortion issue anyway.
Stop politically trusting pro-lifers-in particular, Catholics. In this election, the majority of Catholics voted for Obama-again. So, supposedly, 60% of Catholics are against abortion but the majority of Catholics will still vote for pro-abortion candidates. We really cannot win with this group and yet we always trust them to be a firewall against abortion. My own Democratic precinct captin is a vocal pro-life Catholic who adopted 2 kids-does that make any sense? Why are we here? John Roberts and 30 supposedly pro-life Catholic Democrats who gave us Obamacare. They really cannot be trusted.
Another reason we are here. Pro-life arrogance named Akin and Mourdock. The nails in the pro-life coffin are being pounded down by these 2 knuckheads and pro-life Catholics.
This does not mean that we do not give up the pro-life fight but we will never, ever win it politically. Fight back with prayer and protest.
I am not trying to be mean-just realistic. All of our energy goes into supporting people who, in the end, give great misery to our cause and promote the cause of pro-abortion evil. Something has to change.
Keep praying.
Akin and Mourdock didn’t lose because they are pro-life. They lost because the media coaxed them into making a very stupid (Akin) and very inartful (Mourdock) comment about rape, and then bludgeoned them to political death with those comments.
One of the candidates who ran for statewide office this year in PA was a Republican woman who opposes ALL direct abortion, without even a life exception. Yet nobody talked about this. This candidate makes her views known in Catholic media every election cycle, but she received the same vote tally as any other Republican running in blue Pennsylvania. She has always had this view on abortion yet in her district she has been consistently reelected.
Their being prolife isn’t the reason why the GOP lost. Even being consistently prolife in the cases of rape and incest isn’t the issue. But if the issue of rape arises – no doubt from a media that wants to see Republicans lose – prolifers need to be extremely careful in what they say about this subject. The correct answer is that two wrongs don’t make a right. The unborn child should not be punished for the crimes of his father. Any answer to the question that appears to blame the woman or otherwise excuse the act of rape is going to rightfully blow up in the candidate’s face.
Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
“It is the strangest of bureaucratic rituals: Every week or so, more than 100 members of the government’s sprawling national security apparatus gather, by secure video teleconference, to pore over terrorist suspects’ biographies and recommend to the president who should be the next to die.
This secret “nominations”process is an invention of the Obama administration, a grim debating society that vets the PowerPoint slides bearing the names, aliases and life stories ofsuspected members of Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen or its allies in Somalia’sShabab militia.
The nominations go to the White House, where by his own insistence and guided by Mr. Brennan, Mr. Obama must approve any name. He signs off on every strike in Yemen and Somalia and also on the more complexand risky strikes in Pakistan — about a third of the total.
But the control he exercises also appears to reflect Mr. Obama’s striking self-confidence: he believes, according to several people who have worked closely with him, that his own judgment should be brought to bear on strikes.”
I guess that explains the obamateur’s decision not to grant the request of american security personel on the ground in the besieged Benghazi embassy for air support.
That’s the kind of leadership you get when you ‘vote with your lady parts’.
National Review had a good article on the mirage of the social conservative Hispanic:
http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/333047/heather-mac-donald-and-matt-yglesias-latino-voters-reihan-salam
Susan D, you picked a funny place to say we need to forget about the babies killed in the abortion clinic. Last time I checked, Gallup has “pro-choice” at their biggest low since the 1990s. We don’t always lose, that’s ridiculous. We have a prolife majority in Congress, and here in “blue state” Michigan prolifers have all three branches of government either solidly or moderately prolife. Would you have advised Garrison to give up on that whole slavery deal back in the 1840s because much of government was then hostile to his goals?
Also, here is a good one from Dr. Jennifer Roeback Morse on why there are so many dumb democrats in office. Basically, the Dems are just better at tending their own back yard than the rest of us. So while we’ve been going after the BIG prizes, we should really turn our focus SMALLER, starting with our county levels. This election was lost by a handful of counties, not states. http://www.nationalreview.com/home-front/331891/why-are-there-so-many-dumb-democrats-office/jennifer-roback-morse
“He was beaten by a pro-life Democrat.”
Funny how the media hardly ever mentions this when covering that story. I’m guessing this opponent is pro-life with some exceptions, though.
John L -> perfectly said. If I were running, I’d have TV ads showing abortion photos and videos, saying ‘look what the democrats think should be legal’ …
Donnelly is nominally pro-life. He voted for Obamacare. He probably got strong armed into it, he’s not that strong a guy. The Libertarian took almost 7% of the vote in Indiana. So more people voted against him than for him. Mourdock’s position on children conceived in rape should be Donnelly’s – he’s a KoC after all. Yet he used Mourdock’s comments to skewer him. Nice, Joe. Keep it classy.
Grace, that is very true. There are many districts in this nation where the people will vote Democrat no matter what. This year, a Democrat was reelected after being thrown out of office for corruption. Another Democrat was reelected despite being completely absent since June as he was being treated for mental illness. Yet another Democrat was reelected even though he died two weeks before the election!
When you have districts like these that will elect the Democrat no matter what, the result is that we don’t get quality Democrat representatives because they are never held accountable for anything they do. And that is a problem for the entire nation.
Cecile would just LUUUUURVE for us to take abortion off our table so frankly she could put more abortions on HERS.
Don’t hand the Dems more, seriously. Look at how close the race was, how many votes Romney DID get. Those votes, despite the main stream media promoting Obama like its own lady parts depended on it. I think Romney did quite well, all things considered. What did we do wrong? We didn’t do anything wrong. Obama did, he lied lied lied and the press let him get away with it, let him get away with it, let him get away with it.
Stop blaming yourselves if your doing that, pro-lifers, or you’ll sound like whiney libs crying about their “privilege.”
Politically, we lost a battle. Socially, we ARE winning hearts. Abortion workers are leaving their jobs, the majority of new doctors don’t want anything to do with abortion, and facebook is full of delightful ultrasound photos and captions of PRE-BORN BABIES with names and families. PEOPLE are treating the pre-born more and more like PEOPLE. Don’t let the fake spin in the media fool you. Babies need us more than ever. One abortion is one too many.
BINGO!
With the current RNC, pro-lifers are actually safer with the libertarian party than with the republican party. Were the libertarians running things, abortion and euthanasia would not be illegal, but at least none of us would be forced to pay for it or participate.
The libertarians would at least allow us to exist within our own pockets of civilization.
Neither the intelligentsia of the RNC, nor the leftie statist Dems believe that we should be allowed to keep our own lives free of these kinds of gratuitious killing.
The “intellectuals” of the U.S., in their extreme hubris, pretend that they can engineer a utopian society by culling the human herd. They’re insisting that we all cooperate with their design.
Reminder: even socialist Japan permits hospitals to have a no-abortion policy.
There are a few paths towards regaining our religious freedom, all of which would be arduous. Flushing the RNC of their Ivy league social lefties, beefing up the tea party as a viable third party, adding ourselves to the libertarians. Unfortunately Obama has a good chance of removing the judicial options.
Here in pro-abort Philly, my state senator, who is a prolife Democrat, always wins. Our governor Tom Corbett is also prolife (I don’t like many of his policies, but that’s another story). So I think it’s a stretch to say we always lose.
Mitt Romney had many strikes against him. He could never shake the perception that he was a cold, arrogant one percenter. Also, let’s face it — many white conservative Christians stayed home this time because they didn’t want to vote for a Mormon. The “chick-fil-a” vote never materialized. Personally I didn’t like the guy but I think he would have been a decent president.
Also, the Dems ran a brilliant campaign. I saw them passing out flyers, ringing doorbells,etc. Even in the last election I didn’t see any Republican volunteers. Ever.
The percentage of the black vote going to Romney was supposed to be about 1 percent, so I was surprised and somewhat heartened by the 10 percent figure.
An article released earlier this year revealed that the decades-long gender gap in elections has nothing to do with abortion or any reproduction-related issue.
“An article released earlier this year revealed that the decades-long gender gap in elections has nothing to do with abortion or any reproduction-related issue.”
I don’t suppose you have a link, or remember in what publication this was in. I would love to see this, and I have long suspected this is true.
I would like to see that link too if you can find it bmmg39. I have some ideas on why the gender gap exists, but I would like to see some numbers.
JDC I was gonna ask you, what are your fellow Canadians thinking about the results of the election, if anything? Have you heard anyone talking about it?
I totally disagree with those who may wonder if pro-life is a winning issue. It’s the most winning social issue we have! We need to be better at defining it though. We’ve been using the same archaic language over the last 40 years and we need a coherant message. We should push for politicians not to argue over who is pro-life, except for… we should push our politicians to proclaim they are prolife from “conception until natural death.” That frames the argument in terms of life, our terms. We need to make the other side justify their stances that somehow they think life between conception and natural death is not worth protecting in all circumstances.
I would assume that the gender gap exists because of economic issues. Women are more likely to believe that liberal economic policies are what’s best for the nation. And the GOP has indeed done a very poor job of convincing them otherwise. Republicans were dismayed and shocked by the election outcome because they truly believe that a smaller federal government is the way to improve the economy and thus “raise the water to lift all boats”. The GOP needs more men and women who can and will articulate this message. They need to replace Speaker Boehner with a man like Mike Kelly. Watch this speech from Rep. Kelly. If all the GOP talked like this Romney would have won in a landslide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1YQDjpuY_U
I think you are partially correct, John, with your assessment of the gender gap thing. Married women went to Romney, single women went to Obama. Single women are more likely now to also have children than in the past. So they are more likely to take help from the government where if they were married they probably wouldn’t need it as much. This also points to my posting on the social conservative Hispanic. Hispanics have a 70% out of wedlock birthrate, which doesn’t help the poverty issue in that community, but it does explain why a majority of them will be voting the party that gives them all sorts of assistance. (Obamaphones, anyone?) Social and cultural decay favors the Dems who offer a handout and the path of least resistance, and don’t often require one to take personal responsibility.
It would be helpful if you’d refrain from putting a smiling Richards up on your site. Don’t you have a more appropriate picture?
“JDC I was gonna ask you, what are your fellow Canadians thinking about the results of the election, if anything? Have you heard anyone talking about it?”
Great question, Jack. Well the few people who care seem pretty happy with the Obama win, but far fewer people seem to care than in any previous Presidential election. The widespread perception seems to be that the result was not going to affect us much one way or the other.
I think most of you won’t agree with this, but it sounds to me like we need MANY more pro-life politicians in the Democrat party. If some areas are going to vote Democrat no matter what, make it a pro-life Democrat. Just because the party platform is radically pro-abortion, clearly all Democrats don’t agree with that. I say it’s time for a massive infiltration. Or a massive conversion of pro-choice Democrats.
Just like all pro-lifers don’t have to be Christian, all pro-lifers don’t have to be Republican either.
I agree with you Lrning. I honestly would much rather vote for a pro-life Dem than a Republican.
Lrning, we can start with one authentic prolife Democrat. After we have one, maybe we can have more. I live in an area of the country where the Democrats are relatively conservative, yet there is not one among them who didn’t celebrate the pro-abortion, anti-Catholic Obamacare law. They all supported Obama’s reelection as well.
John Lewandowski says:
Lrning, we can start with one authentic prolife Democrat. After we have one, maybe we can have more.
I believe we already have one. Dan Lipinski.
Lipinski is pretty good. I’d totally vote for more Dems like him.
I’d probably vote for Lipinski based on what I read about him. Expect him to be thrown out of the Democratic Party soon.
Lrning wrote, “We need MANY more pro-life politicians in the Democrat party.”
Actually, we need many more pro-life Americans in America. We need many more pro-life people in the world.
However, we really need God. In God we trust. The pro-life God once sent a flood to purge the earth of its people because they were pro-violence (pro-murder, pro-rape, pro-infanticide, pro-abortion, etc.). He will purge and clean it the next time with fire. Death is the natural consequence of sin; God invites people into fellowship with Him through Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life.
After the Flood, to restrain human violence, God told a new Adam (Noah in Genesis 9) that the price of murder was the capital punishment of the murderer. In the New Testament (Romans 13) God made clear that the civil government has the power of the sword and its main responsibility is to punish evil-doers. It is an instrument of God’s vengeance (cf. Rom. 12), to bring about justice. An army and police force are absolutely essential to its mission; a labyrinth of bureaucracy is not.
We do not believe in equality by means of law; we believe in equality before the law. Too many laws actually removes equality before the law because they’re too numerous for any one person avoid falling foul of, and the civil government becomes selective in enforcement. Too many laws result in totalitarian government and poverty.
A law against murder, including abortion, is basic. A law requiring me to buy health insurance, for example, is not. I am committing no evil by not buying health insurance. I don’t believe in paying taxes so that the government can decide upon the proper care of my body.
Matt Lewis wrote, “The public is more informed and sophisticated today, and it’s time Republicans realize that.”
I’m not sure I agree with that. The mainstream media, for example, propagated much misinformation because of its Democrat bias. Misinformation from the media does not result in an informed public.
Also, voting one’s lady parts or skin color is hardly sophisticated.
What I am sure of is that the populace is less educated today. Why do you think President Obama’s personal appeal was so important to his re-election? Does it really matter? How much do people care about his Benghazi cover-up? But maybe they’re not very informed…
Take the long view. It’s like investing in the stock market or raising a child. If you worry about what’s going on at any particular moment and try to adjust to correct course, you end up over-reacting. It’s like a kid learning to drive — they always over-compensate.
Heck with that. The whole point of having some settled convictions — provided they’re carefully selected for their truth value — is that they liberate you from needing to whipsaw all over the place like a weather vane in a desperate bid to stay abreast of the Zeitgeist.
Sticking with convictions that are arbitrary may be foolish, and both parties have plenty of that going on. But arbitrary commitments and profound commitments darned well better not be deemed equally negotiable. If it comes to that, just switch parties. I mean, if you’re going to sell your soul, sell it.
Salt the freakin’ earth.