If Gore were a serious pro-lifer and pledged to overturn Roe, he'd be president.
I don't necessarily agree with that. If Gore had been a serious pro-lifer and pledged to overturn Roe . . . 1) He would have never received the Democrat nomination, and 2) Even if he did, many of his voters would have gone to Nader, allowing President Bush to win with a bigger margin.
The pro-life position of the GOP is the main reason for their success.
While the pro-life plank is definitely a huge factor for much of our success, I wouldn't call it the "main reason". I think the main reason is that we are the party that advocates individual responsibility.
Jerry Falwell once said something to the effect that the Christian Right needed to use their numbers to force the issue of abortion and then worry about "educating" people on the "why" after the fact. I think that's misguided.
The Catholic Church and all Christian churches that oppose abortion need to win in the "arena of ideas" as Rush calls it. We need to make our case powerfully and convince people that abortion, while legal, is not a moral option. Once we successfully do that, the practice of abortion will fade from existence.
I believe that, if the War Between the States hadn't occurred, slavery would have eventually disappeared in America because the anti-slavery side held the moral high ground. The economic arguments for slavery would have lost to the moral arguments. The same thing will happen with abortion if the churches stay with preaching the gospel and not try to ramrod a legislative agenda.
Because the pro-lifers would vote for him. A socialist, and they would vote for him. An eco-nazi, and they would vote for him. An oxygen theiving waste of skin that would use the Constitution and Bill of Rights to wipe his butt, and they would vote for him.
That is exactly why the pro-lifers don't have any business calling themselves Republicans, and it is exactly why the Republican party cannot trust them. It is also why I have no respect for them, at all.