Akin puts the Romney campaign in further peril
by David Atkins
Whatever effect Akin’s reinforcement of the real GOP position on women and abortion might have in Missouri, the spillover has already moved far beyond the Show Me State. It is now doing damage to the Romney campaign in two significant ways.
First, the Romney campaign has avowed its support for the right to an abortion in cases of rape or incest. It might be tempting to view this as an advantage for Romney–an opportunity to “Sistah Souljah” the more ardent elements of the social conservative wing to make himself look better by contrast.
But the problem is that as I and others have noted before, the electorate is fairly static, with few undecideds left. Whatever gains Romney might make from people who are uncomfortable with social conservatism but would be placated by a “rape/incest only” provision would be quite small. But the damage from his base would be substantial. Certainly 98% of conservative voters will still vote for Romney over Obama, anyway. But this election will likely be won or lost at the margins in many states, and the True Believer crowd does make a difference at the margins.
The True Believers actually think that we are in a pre-Tribulation period, where demonic forces of darkness operate to corrupt governments worldwide, and only the True Believers will be spared the wrath of God. These are people for whom climate change doesn’t matter because they believe the world won’t be around that much longer, anyway. For them, unless they can be convinced that a person who shares their values will help “purify” the land to save more souls, they don’t care. Policy preferences on taxes are largely irrelevant to these people. If many of these people stay home rather than vote for Romney, that could seriously sway the election in some swing states.
But there’s also a second problem for the Romney camp: the official abortion position also highlights further divides between Romney and Paul Ryan:
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan say they disagree with Missouri Representative Todd Akin’s opposition to abortions for rape victims, but Akin’s reference Sunday to “legitimate rape” recalled the “forcible rape” language contained in a bill Ryan co-sponsored last year…
Last year, Ryan joined Akin as one of 227 co-sponsors of a bill that narrowed an exemption to the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortions. The Hyde Amendment allows federal dollars to be used for abortions in cases of rape and incest, but the proposed bill — authored by New Jersey Representative Christopher H. Smith — would have limited the incest exemption to minors and covered only victims of “forcible rape.”
House Republicans never defined what constituted “forcible rape” and what did not, but critics of the bill suggested the term could exclude women who are drugged and raped, mentally handicapped women who are coerced, and victims of statutory rape.
The “forcible” qualifier was eventually removed before the bill passed in the House last May. The Democrat-controlled Senate did not vote on the measure.
Ultimately, the problem with constantly lying to the public about one’s real views and depending on an out-of-control extremist base is that it’s hard to keep all the lies straight and the extremism under wraps.
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