Even Democrats who care deeply about the reversal of Roe v. Wade, will go to vote soon with the economy top of mind. Nevertheless, President Joe Biden makes another abortion speech. Meanwhile, polling shows Republicans gaining ground with a focus on inflation. Which party makes the better bet?
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25 replies on “Place Your Bets: Democrats Cling to Abortion to Win Mid-Terms, but Few Voters See It as Top Issue”
Republicans appear stodgy because they have more respect for Chesterton’s Fence.
Bill’s point (which he’s made before) about “crowd sourcing” the truth (whether its guessing the number of marbles in a jar or whatever) even applies here. The wisdom of the ages is a kind of “crowd sourcing” that’s been subject to lots of learning by mankind over they millennia.
Today’s self-proclaimed “progressives”, steered by Critical Theory, see all fences as “hate” and want to burn them down immediately.
Mizzou’s football program DID get better (much better) for several years under Gary Pinkel … then BLM basically forced him out.
I started at Mizzou 5 years before Steve … actually what mediocre program Mizzou had fell apart in the early ’80’s. It hadn’t been great since the late 1960’s maybe early 70’s. It teetered on the edge of mediocrity for a long time.
So our college careers overlapped by a few years. I graduated in 87, and again in ’88 with a second degree. Did grad school until 1991… so we were here at the same time.
My “brush with greatness”, I suppose, but I don’t think I ever met him unless he called the Computing Help Desk and I happened to answer the phone …..
Yesterday, I got a text soliciting my vote for Demonrats. My response:
“I am an AMERICAN. As such, I’d NEVER vote for Demonrats (at least not before I’m dead; after that I’m sure I’ll be voting for them left and lefter).”
Superlative summary, Scott!!
I haven’t listened to this yet but I am reminded of how Obama said we “cling to our guns and religion”.
When you decide to ask another human to help you destroy what YOU created in YOUR choice to have unprotected sex- it is no longer YOUR decision. The same as I would not agree to helping you kill your four year old child, I will not help you kill that same child earlier in its gestation.
Of course, mom always stated that she brought me into this world and she could surely take me out.
As for the percentage of people who consider abortion to be their number one issue this voting season- has the left ever considered that there are likely just as many who rate it highly because they are pro-life in that percentage?
As for whether the dims have a chance- that all depends on the size and talent of their fraud organization (as pointed to by Biden last time),
Surely, you jest. The left doesn’t think anyone is entitled to any other opinion but their opinion.
The fact is that most reasonable, responsible women in the US not only will never have an abortion, they will never face that problem because it’s 2022 and we know what causes pregnancy.
The rest fall into three categories.
Abortion as a plank in the Democrat platform makes some sense as long as it’s an option because it hasn’t been wholly outlawed, yet. Abortion as the whole platform is political suicide. Because it only appeals to single issue voters who do not have the numbers to sway the American political climate.
An equivalent would be if the Republicans whole platform was 2nd Amendment rights. The 2nd Amendment is vital and I suspect that there are more 2nd Amendment advocates and supporters then there are abortion advocates. But it’s a single issue platform that appeals to single issue voters so it’s not completely an apples & oranges comparison.
Foolishly, for decades Republicans have been running on a single issue platform, which is tax reduction. Oh, they’ve included other smaller planks but that was the old guard Republicans’ biggest bugbear.
It took a long time for the inertia of the Republican old guard to be overcome. Donald Trump was a primary driver in moving the Republican party on to other issues at least as if not more important that tax cuts. He didn’t throw tax reduction out the window, he just understood that the tax plank in the Republican platform was one among many other important issues. It’s not unreasonable to say that Trump was the first prominent Republican who understood that the culture war is an extreme threat to the Republic and tried to do something about it.
People noticed this change.
Glenn Youngkin rode that wave to win the Governor’s seat in a traditionally Blue State. Even so, Youngkin was late to realize the power of taking a strong position in the culture war. Previous to that devastating tactical move Youngkin was primarily running on tax reduction promises.
The question then is — “Have the Republicans learned the lesson that the culture war is at least if not more important to American voters as tax reductions?”
If they have, we are going to see a marked and rapid ascendency of the Republican Party. If the Democrats continue to focus on the single issue of abortion that is going to help not hinder Republican ascendency.
Time will tell. I have little confidence that the Republican Party will actually learn this lesson, apply it and then wield political power in a manner that will bring about a major sea change in American politics. Looking at the history of Republican political will it’s hard to have much confidence in the party. I hope I’m wrong.
You missed their other big ticket issue. January 6- they ride that horse just as much as abortion.
I didn’t miss it, that horse is dead and has been for quite a while.
It’s so dead that virtually no midterm Democrat candidates are flogging it as a major campaign issue. Unlike abortion, which they seem to think will somehow magically give them some sort of miraculous boost.
That horse is dead and as soon as people on either side stop paying attention to the ridiculous idea that a Q-Anon witch doctor posed any serious threat to the government of the United States of America the sooner the corpse will rot away completely. The whole concept is absurd.
January 6th is a non-issue. Stop treating it like it’s anything but a non-issue. If you tell a puppy quivering in fear during a thunderstorm ‘It’s OK, puppy, there’s nothing to fear’ the puppy thinks you’re making a big deal out the thunderstorm. Ignore the storm and the puppy will learn that it’s nothing and ignore it too.
Thank you for stating this so simply. Even with the population increase the number of abortions is reducing. So as a % of female population, it is a relatively small number. Still way too high, especially considering the other options. Though, it seems like both CDC and the other institute that tracks include the use of Plan B in their abortion numbers. That is an interesting way to count, since the use of that particular drug, at that time (literally the morning after) prevents pregnancy, while not contraception. My point being you neither know if conception happened nor if pregnancy would occur.
Folks trying to conceive or using the “rhythm” method have a better understanding of when they can actually get pregnant.
As to this:
My answer would be the while some have finally figured it out, like Youngkin and a few others, most are still fully into “It’s the Economy” and will pound that and only that.
I do not expect that even if the R take the Senate (Finish Strong Hershel and Oz) any real impact with Mitch as SML. IMO he needs to retire. Unfortunately, KY elected a D governor who would very likely do the dance and be the Junior Senator from KY if Mitch were to retire. Mitch was reelected in 2020 so he is not up again until 2026, at which time he’d be 84.
KY really needs to take back the Governorship in 2023.
One of many problems out there.
A big part of the problem of the vote concerning abortion is the sympathy vote I mentioned. A lot of that is nothing more than obvious pandering virtue signalling. But not all of it. Some of it is genuine but misplaced concerned by relatively well off white suburban females who think they’re ‘helping’ their less fortunate ‘sisters’ by advocating for abortion.
A good percentage, maybe even a majority of those women wouldn’t even think of having an abortion themselves. Some of the more crocodilian ones might think it’s a good fall back plan in case their contraceptive regimen fails but that’s about it.
When you point out to them that abortions kill more black people every year in America than any other cause … They’re forced to look at it in a different light. This turns the Left’s accusations of racism back on them, the racist murdering black population suppressing bastards are shown in a more true aspect. It’s a good, effective argument against that particular subset of American voters.
Follow that up by pointing out that these wealthy suburban white woman can only speak for themselves and in all honesty if they wouldn’t consider an abortion then they should not be assuming they know what someone else wants either.
Vote for abortion but only if it’s something you would consider for yourself — And all of a sudden things become a lot clearer.
There are roughly a million abortions in the US per year. That’s a lot of abortions but that’s not a lot of voters by comparison spread across 50 states. It is 1/332nd of our total population and 1/153rd of registered voters in the US.
There’s no sense breaking it down to male or female voters because whether the Left likes it or not, this is a political issue. It may also be a medical issue or a privacy issue but those sorts of things are only dim reflections of the political issue in question. Men have every bit as much right as women to vote their choice in a political issue. Besides, if anything gave the lie to “my body, my choice” it was COVID vax mandates forced on us by the Left.
The political numbers serve to highlight the immensity of the crime. Abortion is not something that serves the population as a majority. Murdering babies is not something that serves the majority of our population. Murdering more black babies than any other sort is not something that serves the majority of the population. You damn right men have a stake and a legitimate grounds for opinion in this arena.
As for the Republicans … The economy is a serious issue and deserves to be a plank in the platform but … I was talking about tax cuts and tax cuts alone are not the driver of the entire economy. Tax cuts can have an influence, sometimes a large influence but they are not the last word in economic growth and stability.
You’d never know that if you listen to the old guard Republicans because they’re like frogs sitting around a pond all croaking “taaAAAxxx cuUUtts”.
A popular saying has become “a rising tide lifts all boats”. The better the economy is, the better for both parties and equally advantageous in different ways to the party in power.
Because a healthy, growing economy boosts and sustains tax revenue streams. If Republicans want to trim some of that off cutting taxes while beginning to pay down the debt, they are in a position to do that. If Democrats want social programs to buy votes with, there’s money to do that without going on a cash printing spree and feeding the inflation monster. But, this is a narrow road with a cliff on either side.
Stray but a little and off the cliff you go.
Mitch knows this. Lindsey Graham knows this. Dan Crenshaw knows this. A lot of prominent Republicans of both the old and new variety know this.
The real mystery to me is why when right now we have the initiative and the opportunity all of those people aren’t hammering hard on cultural issues. CRT, BLM, poisoning kids glands and chopping off healthy body parts, etc. are huge augments to the economic disaster that the Democrats have dropped like a cow pat on our heads.
This is a chance to flip the narrative on the Left. This is a perfect opportunity to show them for the evil they actually are …
“Hungry? Having trouble making ends meet? Poor enough that this is really having a bad impact on your life? Rich enough to realize your retirement savings have lost a third in value in the last two years? As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Democrats are trying to trans your kids and turn them all into racists and trying to hide all that from you. After burning down half the country. While bringing us to the brink of nuclear war. Why vote for them?”
… should be the tune every single Republican is singing his heart out on the campaign trail.
It really is amazing that the D’s can keep all of their minions, including the MSM, on message and the R’s can’t even agree on a consistent message to present.
Oh, and thanks for the old Ad reference. It was one of my favorites.
The problem is twofold and the path to success is a double edged blade.
It’s all fine and dandy to talk about how horrible the Democrats are, and they are pretty damned horrible.
If the Republicans can’t get their shit together and start providing wonderful in answer to horrible then …
We’re going to keep getting horrible Democrats as long as the Republicans can’t get their ducks in a row and apply political power when they have it.
How the hell are people going to see the difference if existence under either party is virtually identical? That makes it ridiculously easy for the Democrats to “boil the frog” as the old explanatory but technically incorrect saying goes.
If we keep going as we are, well the frog is pretty much dead and then it’s just a matter of cooking it to taste.
By which I mean there comes a point where the incremental slide to the left hits enough slippery slopes that the Left takes us straight to the bottom. Personally I think the Left believes we’ve reached that point with the current Potato in Chief.
They’re saying the quiet bits out loud and not bothering to hide the despicable things they really want for us as a nation and humanity as a whole. That means they don’t feel they have to hide their turpitude anymore, they feel they’ve reached the tipping point of having convinced enough people that they’re the future.
Because they vainly believe their own press. Which they use to lie to people. So they cannot but end up believing their own lies too. Same goes for slanted and skewed polls telling them what they want to hear about trends that don’t really exist. Which leads them to political suicide while they blithely skip down the Primrose Lane seeded with landmines.
So where are the Warriors for the Republic when the enemy exposes this fatal flaw? Where is the Republican Voice of Reason blasting out the message that the majority of Americans want to hear?
Arguing about who’s the better Republican and Conservative, cancelling our own fighters over minor disagreements and refusing to face reality over needed changes to our tactics and strategies. Nitpicking about minor points that would better be left addressed post victory. Wallowing in ignorance and confirmation bias thinking they’re ‘getting it right’ while losing steadily. That’s where you find way too many Conservatives.
That’s why I flame some people even here on BWC. Because …
I’m so sick of smug, self-congratulating, morally virtuous bubble culture Republicans that refuse to get their hands dirty I could just puke. If you don’t fight you’re not morally virtuous. If you don’t fight effectively then whatever fight you manage to put up is ineffective. Your enemy will use that against you so while you’re congratulating yourself what a good Christian and fine upstanding right thinking traditional defender of Liberty you are … You set yourself up to lose.
(None of that or the rest of this criticism is personal to you, Ron SAE. You’re not included in that bunch and I’m speaking in generalities here so please take that in the spirit I meant it.)
We need to win this battle and we need to win this war. If we don’t, humanity will be lost planet wide for many generations if not permanently. The whole purpose of Orwell’s 1984 was to warn us how such a disaster could permanently enslave humanity.
If that’s what ostensible Conservatives really want, the way they’re going about things is the way to get it.
Those are stakes too big and too vital to waste our strength pissing and moaning about people on our side that might not see things the way one of these puffed up cranky curmudgeons thinks they ought to. If Ted Cruz, Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, Scott Ott or any other spokesman for our side isn’t quite the spotless Messiah clad in radiant white robes those people think he ought to be then either keep it to yourself or offer CONSTRUCTIVE criticism in lieu of DESTRUCTIVE condemnation.
We can sort out the finer points of conservative ideology when we come out on top. Even then, we will never agree but that’s OK. The goal right now is to come out on top, not hate on every Conservative in the world who doesn’t meet some impossible standard of Conservative Perfection. Because if we don’t come out on top, no amount of perfection is going to matter anyway.
Scott – that last line was pure gold!
Someone should make a meme out of that.
We need to make it go viral!
Abortion is what the Dems are publicly counting on.
Privately they’re counting on drop boxes and broken pipes at 10:00 PM on election night
Putting all of your (fertile) eggs in one basket, with the rallying cry being killing babies, shouldn’t even be a contest. Yet it is.
The economy being in the tank should be enough. But the voting block on the Left are the takers, not the makers. You’re counting on the makers being in the majority. They’re not. The takers will (successfully) ask for help, paid for by the makers, at the point of a gun from the Left.
We are becoming very weak in the two areas of defense that would be most necessary if we are drawn into a real war, the Navy and the Air Force. But people don’t see a real threat to our country given our distance from our enemies (our ace-in-the-hole all of our country’s existence). And they don’t want to pay for other people’s (Europe’s, Japan’s, Korea’s, etc.) defense anyway. While they may have a point, they don’t realize how having a world in peace benefits us. So that factor is also a wash.
Tearing down the structural foundations of Western culture is not as important to people as the devices they can’t take their eyes away from. TikTok will be there even if everything crumbles away.
Our main hope is that they stay away from the polls because they don’t really care about that embarrassment of a President.
I for one believe the basic issues in America are the moral issues. Turn the economy around, but don’t stop the killing of babies, the mutilation and corruption of children, the redefinition of evil as being good, and good being evil, then I ear that an awful lot of people will be content to stick their heads back in the sand and allow the long march to destruction to continue.
I am voting for only the third time in my life – and I’ve been voting for over fifty years – for a democrat for state rep because he is pro life.
We need revival, a Christian revival, another great awakening, a national repentance, somewhat along the magnitude of Ninevah would be nice. So Christians, preach the gospel, and pray for revial. The bad economy is just a symptom of a sick, and morally disgusting society.
Despite what your rep says, he/she will vote pro-choice if he/she is a democrat. They are not allowed any other choice. The dims keep their people in line with committee appointments, or lack thereof, and monetary support.
I took Maryanne’s comment to mean that she’s talking about a state representative, in the state itself not Congress.
If so then no, Democrats don’t have that fine degree of control at that level. Not that they wouldn’t like to or haven’t tried, things just don’t work the same at that level because the state party has more input than the DNC does. Most states have their own internal Democrat or Republican parties which are not wholly beholden to the national party. State parties can be notoriously cantankerous about things at the state level.
At that level is exactly where they need to be shown the error of their ways. In subnational elections at the state level on down is where larger changes begin.
The Democrat Party needs to be brought back into orbit around reality. That’s where the process starts.
I don’t know where she lives but it’s sort of strange to hear of a Democrat pro-life candidate where apparently a Republican is not a better choice but that kind of thing does happen at the state level. It used to be more common that it has become in the last few decades.
That’s actually an encouraging development. Despite what some people on the Right think we’re never going to stomp the Democrat Party completely to death, drive them before us in chains and revel in the lamentations of their women.
If the Republic is to be saved, the opposition party has to be coaxed, cajoled and whipped back toward center. The way things stand now, the Democrat Party winning power could destroy the nation. We badly need that party to move back towards something more moderate because they will inevitably win an election once in a while. If they can be shoehorned back into reality then when they do win the policies they implement may be bad they don’t destroy our country.
Yes, as shown by Elon Musk’s tweet from some time back, the D party rushing left is what has pulled the center left and turned center-left into center-right..
So, don’t pull the Ds too far back, we don’t want to lose those CL now CR to being CL again.
Or we need to do a much better job when we do get back in charge and showing that the right of center is where the Republic thrives.
That’s the optimal solution and the one that leads mankind to the best results globally. We could be so much further along and the world so much better off if when the Republican Party has achieved power they actually wield it.
It’s also the one that I’m skeptical the Republican Party has the will to achieve. The party’s record in that regard isn’t anything to brag about in recent history.
You can see examples in here with some of the shameful attitudes portrayed … “XYZ is dead to me”, “I don’t care if you voted for him twice and would vote for him again, you’re an anti-Trumper”, “I’d rather heed some fringe weirdo on the internet because he confirms my bias and justifies my suspicions than look at facts and figures so as to approach the discussion honestly” and of course that leaves out the genuine conspiracy nuts that think 9/11 was a government operation and such like absurdities.
Democrats as a flock may resemble sheep, I don’t really like calling people “sheep” or “sheeple” because it’s the wrong view of humanity but —
Getting Republicans to cooperate with each other is like herding cats. Cats riding turtles. On a treadmill moving the wrong direction.
I can cite the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin when he said —
“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
— and every single one of them will agree with that statement. Then ignore it completely in word and deed.
Yes, a state rep.
The other interesting thing about State Legislatures is the relatively small number of citizens they represent.
Here in VA, there are 40 State Senators and 100 Delegates. This means that each Senator covers about 212,000 people while a delegate is 85,000. The Virginia Tech football stadium holds 67,000 people. So that is not a crazy number.
A congress-critter reps 773,000.
Also, state Sen and Del make about 18.000 per year. Not ten times that.
These folks still have to work “real” jobs in their districts.