It seems every time the Republicans lose a presidential election, white board-toting architects and backroom strategists descend on the Sunday talk shows. Republicans must dump the social issues. Defending the right to life of unborn children and upholding the civil right of marriage is just costing too much support with the voters. We have to moderate our positions, they say.
It’s as if the second officer on the Titanic were to run down six flights of stairs and yell at the grimy, coal dust-covered, sweating stokers shoveling coal in the engine rooms: This is all your fault!
What we saw on Election Day was a strong turnout among Evangelicals and Catholics for Mitt Romney. Evangelicals backed the former governor even more strongly than his fellow Mormons did. Catholics who attend Mass regularly were also strong backers of the GOP nominee.
What the so-called strategists — those architects of defeat — are proposing is an abandonment of a 36-year commitment of the Republican Party. Since 1976, the Republican platforms have rejected the infamous Roe v. Wade ruling. They have applauded those in Congress and the states who are trying to restore the protections for mothers and their unborn children. This is what the Supreme Court stripped away when it unconscionably overturned the abortion laws of all 50 states. Those laws were all a part of state homicide codes. And this long-term commitment is what the consultant class wants Republicans to throw overboard.
Compare this reaction with that of the Democrats over Israel. A recent CNN-ORC poll shows that 59% of Americans support Israel’s position in today’s crisis in Gaza. Israel is responding with deadly force to the almost daily rocket attacks by the terrorist group, Hamas on Israeli towns and schools. Only 13% of Americans back Hamas in this clash. This is a 4-1 commanding majority of Americans at the grassroots level.
Would anyone like to guess where Democratic Party activists are on this clash? You have only to consider the behavior of credentialed delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte last summer. The Democratic Party platform — as reported out by its platform committee — dropped all reference to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This was no oversight. When pro-Israel Democrats pointed this out and urged the delegates on the convention floor to restore the Jerusalem-is-Israel’s-capital plank to the party’s platform, there were shouted noes that clearly outnumbered the yeses. Realizing they could not mount a national election campaign as an avowedly anti-Israel party, the powers-that-be quickly gaveled the Jerusalem plank back into the platform. Then we heard loud boos.
Regardless of what the Democratic Party Platform now says, with the Jerusalem post-it note plastered over it, the stance of this administration is quite clear. State Department weasel-worder Victoria Nuland has repeatedly refused to state that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. And the Obama administration has gone into court to evade congressional requirements for “Jerusalem, Israel” to be stamped on passports and birth certificates for Americans abroad.
The public opinion is four-to-one against the administration and the Democratic Party’s sentiment on a vitally important foreign policy issue.
Did the GOP ticket press this point during the televised debates? Not at all. Did the nominees raise this issue on the campaign trail? If they did, it was not in big way.
Did the Republican Party take out ads to drive home the point that the Democrats’ liberal activists are hostile to Israel. No.
But the Democrats did take out ads to press for more abortions. Fifty-five million unborn children killed since Roe are not enough. Now, we must have abortion-on-demand and you must pay.
It was a small pro-life group that produced this powerful ad for the Internet. Eduardo Verástegui in this video says President Obama wants your 13-year-old to have access to a free abortion — with you paying and without you ever knowing. No Republican strategist has dared to say something that strong, that true in 40 years.
Instead of abandoning convictions and a party’s commitment to tens of millions of voters, perhaps it would be better for the Republicans to throw their strategists overboard. Then, they just might start winning again.
Ken Blackwell on faculty of the Liberty University School of Law. Bob Morrison is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard.
