(updated)
Another Republican religious rightist has doffed the sheep's clothing and said what a large percentage of them believe:
... tea party-backed Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock ... who's been locked in one of the country's most expensive and closely watched Senate races, was asked during the final minutes of a debate Tuesday night whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest.This is mainstream thinking on among religious rightists -- don't let them tell you otherwise. Here's Rick Santorum in January being asked by Piers Morgan to justify wanting to ban abortion in cases of rape or incest:
"I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen," Mourdock said....
... I've always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created -- in the sense of rape -- but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you.Here's Sharron Angle in a 2010 interview with radio talk show host Bill Manders:
MANDERS: Is there any reason at all for an abortion?(In a separate interview, of course, Angle lauded pregnant rape victims who "made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade.")
ANGLE: Not in my book.
MANDERS: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something?
ANGLE: You know, I'm a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.
And National Review's Katrinko Trinko says that Mourdock was impolitic but not wrong.
Mitt Romney has distanced himself from Mourdock's remarks. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has called on Romney to remove his recently released Mourdock endorsement ad from the airwaves.
But what Democrats rarely do is make a sweeping case that the election of any Republican empowers the most repellent Republicans -- Mourdock, Todd Akin, and so on.
Whereas Republicans routinely nationalize campaigns -- every Democrat is the equivalent of some hated Democrat (Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid now, Ted Kennedy a while back). In the right-wing media, Democrats in and out of campaign season are expected to be responsible for the words and deeds of ACORN, the New Black Panthers, Sean Penn, Code Pink, PETA, and Rosie O'Donnell.
Why not say that if you elect Romney, you risk empowering Akin and Mourdock, and you certainly empower dozens of Republicans who think just like them (like, say, Romney's running mate)?
It won't happen. Democrats occasionally say that voting for one mild-seeming Republican empowers scarier others (Elizabeth Warren has a good ad to this effect), but it's the exception, not the rule. For Republicans, it's the rule.
Yes, Democrats made a lot of noise about Todd Akin a few months ago -- but not since. How many ads outside of Missouri has he shown up in? There's the problem.
****
UPDATE: Well, good -- as Dark Avenger notes in comments, the Obama campaign is trying to link Romney to Mourdock. Go here for details.
5 comments:
Newt Gingrich, who hasn't been Speaker of the House for over a decade, is still invited on MTP, FTN, Sunday's with Vowel-a-lotalous, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC.
Nancy Pelosi, who was Speaker les than 2 years ago, is rarely on any of those shows.
Republicans can get away with anything - IOKIYAR.
Democrats can't get away with anything.
Vitter can have diaper sex in at least two states - and get reelected.
NY's Governor Spitzer, had to resign his office after it was discovered that he had frequented a prostitute.
Republicans can get away with demonization on a national level, and still be be invited to news gab-fests.
Let a Democrat do that, and he or she can sit by the phone for the rest of their lives, and no call from a news gab-fest will ever come.
IOKIYAR.
YATFIYDTAAD - You Are Totally Fucked If You Do That As A Democrat.
The MSM in this country has done more damage to this nation, than any "Fifth Column," no matter how large, ever could have.
Sounds like the Obama campaign is taking your advice, from TPM:
Jen Psaki, traveling press secretary for the Obama campaign, linked GOP Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock to Mitt Romney in comments about Mourdock's rape and pregnancy remarks during a press gaggle Wednesday morning, according to a White House pool report.
"The President felt those comments were outrageous and demeaning to women," Psaki said. "This is a reminder that a Republican Congress working with a Republican President Mitt Romney would [feel] that women should not be able to make choices about their own health care."
Psaki also pointed to the fact that Romney is featured in an ad supporting Mourdock in Indiana: "This is an issue where Mitt Romney is starring in an ad for this senator (sic) and it is perplexing that he wouldn't demand to have that ad taken down," she said.
Psaki continued: "I think it is clear that Mitt Romney, that many Republicans who are running for office including him, including Mr Murdock have very extreme positions on [an] issue that women care deeply about in this country. That if they have the opportunity to be partners, in the White House and the Senate, then that is something that women should have, and I think will have, concern about as they are going to the voting booth."
I noticed that too, Dark. A hopeful sign, especially if there's some follow-through.
Thanks. Noted in an update. More like that, please.
But our elections have been privatized.
The corporations-people or not-that record, collect and count the ballots are owned by republicans.
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