Quote:
Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
From Yahoo news:
Un, did Teddy just sober up or something? A column from 3 years ago?
Santorum should ask Teddy to reapologize to the Kopechne family.
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I can sympathize with Teddy. They went after me to. This was written in a Catholic Magazine
Pure Baloney
Pro-Life No Detriment to Republican Party
By George Neumayr
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Spanky, state president of the California Republican League, argues that the pro-life plank is "hurting the Republican party and its candidates." Change the plank to a pro-abortion one, he argued in a December 8 San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece, and California Republicans will rack up victories.
How does Spanky's theory explain last November's election results? Pro-abortion Republicans lost badly in statewide races. Not a single one came close to victory, though several, such as lieutenant governor candidate Bruce McPherson, had boasted loudly of their socially liberal credentials. If supporting abortion is key to victory in California, why didn't these candidates do better? And why didn't the most visible and principled pro-lifer in a statewide race, state sentator Tom McClintock, who ran for controller, do worse?
McClintock, political observers agree, was the one bright spot in a dismal election year for California Republicans in statewide races. Despite an underfunded campaign -- his multimillionaire opponent Steve Westley outspent him six to one, according to the press -- McClintock only lost to Westley by three-tenths of a percentage point.
And how does Spanky's theory explain past elections? "Is there any evidence that pro-choice Republicans candidates are doing better in elections? I don't see any evidence," said Ron Unz, a former Republican candidate in races for U.S. Senate and California governor. Unz noted, for example, that Tom Campbell, former Bay Area Republican congressman, ran to the left of Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein in the 1998 senate race. Campbell cast himself as "militantly in favor of abortion rights." But it didn't help him in the least. "He got slaughtered," said Unz.
Spanky says Governor Gray Davis reaped benefits from his opponent Bill Simon's pro-life stance. "Gray Davis proudly proclaims in all his commercials and up and down the state that he is pro-choice. Do you really think that Davis would do this if his handlers had not definitely determined that the overwhelming majority of Californians were pro-choice? Davis announces to the world that he is pro-choice because the majority of California voters are pro-choice," writes Spanky.
This is nonsense, said California pollster and political consultant, Arnold Steinberg. "If Davis really had made abortion an issue, there might have been a voter backlash against him," according to Steinberg. "Voters would have concluded properly that Davis was trying to deflect attention from his miserable record. Since the Davis campaign emphasizes poll and focus groups, we can conclude that they realized from their research the downside risk of making abortion an issue. Davis rarely spoke about the issue, and it was hardly mentioned in his advertising."
"Abortion was a non-issue in the race," said Steve Frank, deputy political director for the Bill Simon campaign. "It didn't help or hurt Bill Simon's campaign against Davis. In the primary, his pro-life stance was very helpful."
"Davis attributed his victory to his pro-choice position on abortion," but "the fact is that abortion played almost no role in this campaign," argued Steinberg. Abortion wasn't even an issue at the candidates' one debate. The press showed more interest in the issue than Californians. And Simon showed no interest in debating the matter." Simon said that he is pro-life, but said his wife is pro-choice. Simon said he would not work to overturn existing state legislation providing government aid for abortions, according to Steinberg.
"Simon might actually have done better had he labeled Davis the extremist on abortion," said a Republican Party insider. "Davis is way to the left of Californians on abortion. They don't support partial-birth abortion and the other radical elements of the NOW agenda Davis supports. And they certainly don't want to pay for abortions. Spanky's idea that Davis won because he is an abortion zealot is a joke."
A Zogby poll, commissioned and reported by the publisher of the Faith last summer, found Californians deeply ambivalent about abortion. Zogby pollsters asked Californians about potential pro-life ballot initiatives in the state. They reported that Californians, far from being resolutely pro-abortion, strongly support several pro-life measures.
To the question, for instance, "would you vote yes or no on a proposition which would require at least one parent to be notified before an abortion can be performed on their daughter under the age of 16?" 85 percent of California respondents said yes. Eighty-four percent said that they would support a proposition requiring "that before an abortion was performed, a pregnant woman would have to receive accurate information about the options available to her, and the consequences and health risks to herself and future childbearing from an abortion." Should there be a 24-hour waiting period before a woman can get an abortion? Zogby pollsters asked. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said yes. The poll also indicated support for restrictions on taxpayer funding of abortion.
The poll found that ignorance among Californians of "how many abortions the state of California pays for" is astonishingly high. Asked by Zogby, "are you aware or not aware that the state of California pays for approximately 10,000 abortions per month for any reason, including birth control?" only 25 percent of respondents said they were aware of those numbers. Seventy-four percent said that they were not.
"This argument that the party needs to change its position because the state is hopelessly liberal on social issues is pure baloney," said John Kurzweil, editor and publisher of the California Political Review magazine. "This is a state that passed the Defense of Marriage Initiative, English First, and opposed affirmative action."
Ray Haynes, who represents California's 66th assembly district, sees significance in pro-life Republican Bonnie Garcia's victory in the 80th assembly district, which before election day was classified as "safe" for the Democrats "with pre-primary major party registration tipped 47 to 35 percent against Republicans." Garcia faced Joey Acuna, a Democrat determined to cast her as a pro-life extremist. But instead "of waiting to imitate scared rabbits on cue, Garcia fired first, labeling Acuna the extremist," writes Haynes in the January/February California Political Review. Garcia "informed voters, in Spanish and English, that Acuna believes 12-year-old girls should be able to abort their babies without parental consent, or even knowledge, and that he supports 'same-sex' marriage -- positions few Californians, and even fewer Hispanic Californians, support. Local pro-life groups independently distributed flyers telling voters Acuna backs partial-birth abortion. Suddenly, it was Democrats' turn to fluster and panic." Acuna eventually pulled an ad which accused Garcia of seeking to throw women and abortion doctors in jail.
"Can you name a strongly pro-abortion Republican candidate who has recently won in a strong Democratic district?" asks Spanky. Garcia, a pro-life Republican, did. According to Spanky, "California voters may be pro-choice, but they are fiscally conservative." Garcia's victory suggests the reverse: the reemergence of Reagan Democrats who are fiscally liberal but socially conservative.
As the state's Hispanic population grows, the number of Reagan Democrats will also grow. Will Spanky's country club Repubicanism appeal to them? A recent Pew Study concluded that the moral message of Republicans appeals to Hispanics more than the Republicans' economic one. "If there is a downside for Republicans in the Pew Study, it is Hispanics' generally favorable views of government," editorialized the Washington Times. "By an overwhelming margin (60 percent to 34 percent), Hispanics would rather pay higher taxes for increased government services." Yet on "specific, hot-button political issues, Hispanics as a whole hold views strikingly more conservative than blacks and whites. A whopping 78 percent, for example, view abortion as unacceptable, compared to roughly 50 percent for whites and 70 percent for black Americans. Disapproval for divorce and homosexuality also runs higher among Hispanics. None of this means that a Republican-Hispanic coalition is immediate or inevitable; but there are core values that favor Republican candidates and eschew the group politics that Democrats exploit. Which party will direct government's role in the future depends in large measure on cementing the Hispanic vote, and it is the GOP's to lose."
"Does anybody think that the Democrats and the media are harping on the abortion issue, saying the Republicans should support abortion, because they want Republicans to win?" says a GOP operative. "They don't want Republicans to win. They want to sow division in the party which will guarantee Republicans lose."
The California Republican League speaks for neither Californians nor Republicans. Steve Frank describes it as a small group, estimating that "there are less than 200 members of it in the state." It sits on the ideological "fringe of the party," he said. "They don't represent the mainstream of the Republican party anymore than Al Sharpton represents the mainstream of the Democratic party."
Frank says that the pro-life plank of the California Republican Party is safe. Spanky and others can't challenge the platform until the fall, the rank-and-file don't support abortion, and the Republican president of the United States is popular and pro-life. "The California Republican League would be arguing against the president of the United States," says Frank. "The majority of Californians support President Bush."
Kurzweil views the California Republican League's position as "anti-democratic," since it does not reflect what Republicans want but "dictates to Republicans voters what they should want." Yet the media cast Spanky's position as the democratic one. For Kurzweil, it is an elitist imposition on primary voters. "If liberal Republicans want the party to be pro-abortion, fine. Run as what you are in a Republican primary and win. These matters are decided in primaries. And primary voters are choosing pro-lifers."
The California Republican Party's troubles stem, not from its pro-life position, but its lack of "basic political mechanics," said Kurzweil. "The Republicans have to catch up to the Democrats in the nuts and bolts of politics. There has been a total neglect of grassroots politics."
Ron Unz said the party has too many other problems to waste time on a platform dispute. Shawn Steel, the outgoing chairman of the California Republican Party, acknowledged an embarrassing one for liberal Republicans: their leader Gerry Parsky, showing little regard for their oft-stated goal of just "winning," withheld money from Tom McClintock.
McClintock was "a victim of Parsky," Steel wrote in National Review Online. "McClintock, a popular conservative thinker and leader, led in all the polls and had the best chance of any Republican to win a statewide office. The Republican National Committee had sent Parsky $600,000 to help the down-ticket candidates. Even though McClintock was fighting for his life against a multimillionaire Democratic opponent who was pounding him on TV, Parsky passed him a paltry $100,000 and sent the remainder to moderate candidates with much-dimmer prospects of winning. It's worth noting that McClintock -- easily the most-conservative member of the statewide ticket -- received more votes than any other GOP statewide candidate, ultimately losing by only 22,000 votes out of almost 6.5 million cast."
Parsky's stinginess reveals that liberal Republicans don't so much want a winning party as a liberal party. They decry "ideology" even as they impose liberal ideology on primary voters. They declare "victory" their goal even as they undermine the chances of victory for conservative Republicans. Their Big Tent isn't quite big enough for conservatives like McClintock.
Their attitude toward abortion is conveniently unprincipled. They say the party's position should depend not on principle but on polling. Would they apply that same criterion to their cherished positions? If it could be shown demonstrably that Californians are more pro-life than pro-abortion, would they discard their pro-abortion views? Spanky says Californians agree with the Republicans on "strict standards in education, low taxes, minimal regulation and being tough on crime." But what if Californians didn't agree? Would Spanky then say Republicans should be for loose standards in education, high taxes, maximum regulation and leniency toward crime?
"Denial is a scary human trait," writes Spanky. "Human beings can rationalize almost anything to deny reality." Too true, in the case of liberal Republicans.
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