Posted on 08/15/2008 2:43:50 PM PDT by wagglebee
LifeNews.com Note: Austin Ruse is president of the New York and Washington DC-based Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. These views are his alone and do not reflect the position of C-FAM. Ruse is also a member of the McCain Catholic Steering Committee and one of the first pro-life advocates to endorse McCain.
If John McCain picks a pro-abortion running mate, he's likely to lose. If he picks a pro-abortion Catholic as his running mate, he will definitely lose.
Right now McCain is skating on the thinnest of ice. At best, the election is tied. In many polls, he is 4-5 points down. He has yet to crack 45 percent in any national poll and is behind in key states. At worst, he is facing a blowout. Now is not the time to mess around with a guy like Tom Ridge.
The calculation is clear.
McCain figures Ridge could deliver the key state of Pennsylvania. Let's look at the record.
Ridge won statewide office in 1994 with only 45 percent of the vote. Why so low? Because he faced a third party pro-life challenger named Peg Lustig who polled a whopping 12 percent of the vote. Ridge ran again in 1998 and won with the much greater margin of 57 percent, but he did so against a very weak Democratic opponent and he forfeited 10 percent to pro-life Lustig, who ran again.
That Ridge, now, ten years later, could help McCain win Pennsylvania is far from certain. And then there is what McCain loses elsewhere for picking Ridge.
McCain is already suspect among social conservatives. And picking a pro-choicer will have the further effect of cooling whatever ardor he has been able to gin up among them mostly because of the fear of Obama. Social conservatives are largely not for McCain, they are against Obama. A lack of enthusiasm among McCain supporters could spell disaster for him come Election Day.
There is already a major effort underway to lure pro-lifers into the Democratic column.
The Democratic platform makes nice noises about motherhood and adoption. And evangelicals are getting restless to get involved in other issues. The McCain camp should not give them yet one more reason to drift.
And then there is the Catholic thing.
At the moment, McCain can expect at least tepid support among faithful Catholics, those who go to Mass at least once a week and who support the teachings of the Church on core issues like abortion. He needs this group to win the election.
He is putting them in an untenable position if he decides to pick Ridge - or any pro-choicer, but especially a pro-choice Catholic.
Tom Ridge is a public dissenter from one of the core teachings of the Catholic Church, that innocent human life must always be protected and may never be deliberately taken. McCain is asking faithful Catholics to pull the lever for someone whose position on abortion makes them sick to their stomachs.
A prediction: if McCain goes ahead with Ridge, it will lead to a public spectacle.
Wasn't McCain paying attention four years ago when another publicly dissenting Catholic ran for president? John Kerry lost the generic Catholic vote, that is, any person who claims to be a Catholic, whether he or she has not been to Mass in thirty years or even marginally agrees with the teachings of the Church.
This is an easy get for the Democrats, yet Kerry lost them. With the exception of his home state of Massachusetts, he even lost them in the states he won.
Kerry and Communion became a staple of the public debate. For the first time ever, the Eucharist was front and center in a national political campaign. There is no doubt this would happen again, perhaps this time with even greater controversy.
McCain would face the dead certainty that his vice-presidential running mate could not speak in front of official Catholic audiences or at Catholic institutions because this is forbidden by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
In 1998, Ridge was told by his hometown bishop, Donald Trautman of the Diocese of Erie, that he could not speak on church property. In this year's presidential race, Ridge would be told by bishops around the country not to present himself for Communion.
This would become a recurrent nightmare for the McCain campaign week after week after week. Is that a winning message for McCain?
Finally, McCain is asking Republicans to accept a man who, if he wins, would likely be the presumptive presidential nominee sometime in the future.
This would effectively turn the Republicans away from being the pro-life party and would spell electoral disaster for Republicans for years to come. Pro-lifers certainly would have a very hard time voting for a pro-choicer at the top of the national ticket. Look at what happened to Rudy Giuliani in the primaries.
And they certainly would never support a publicly dissenting Catholic. The way of Ridge is the way of both defeat and disaster.
What percentage is that and will it make a difference in the election?
Man, I just don’t know what to do. If he picks a Dem or some loser Repubekan I will not be there in November. As much as I’d hate to have Obamalamadingdong in there for 4 years, a message must be sent to the RNC.
Pick a Conservative, or die.
********************
Can you support this statement?
God forgive me but I swear I hope something happens to McCain that won't allow him to run.
I don't see any scenario in which McCain won't be the nominee. But I do see a scenario where due to age and health he only serves one term (I'm pretty sure that the Clintons have the same scenario in mind and are looking for a way to underhandedly get Obama defeated) and in this case we REALLY need a strong conservative VP who to run in 2012.
************************
I'm afraid of an Obama presidency.
Oh really now. If John Robert Dole McCain does that I’m sure he’ll sweep to victory......LOL!
*******************
Agreed. McCain must understand that if he wants to win, this is it.
Not all Republicans or Conservatives consider this a big issue. I don’t see how the author can state this. For me, it’s Fiscal Conservatism that I’m voting for.
The Catholic vote in the past four elections has been very closely divided and the winner was the one who got the majority.
While FR has a lot of conservative Catholics, the reality is that many (maybe even most) Catholics support the Democrats on EVERYTHING except abortion and other social issues. If this is off the table, they no longer have ANY REASON to vote GOP. So, I think it will make a huge difference. You see, it’s not that having a pro-abortion ticket (and one of each IS pro-abortion) will drive them away from voting GOP, it’s that having a pro-life ticket is the ONLY thing that will make them vote GOP in the first place.
But how many Catholics ARE NOT afraid of an Obama presidency, especially if they don’t see the GOP ticket as pro-life?
However, many Catholics ARE NOT Republicans or conservatives, but they will vote pro-life in presidential elections.
Point taken. In any case we are in a sad state of affairs vis-a-vis this election.
That was obvious when McCain won.
*******************
I don't know, but I do know this:
Barack Obama on Abortion
Ok for state to restrict late-term partial birth abortion. (Apr 2008)
We can find common ground between pro-choice and pro-life. (Apr 2008)
Undecided on whether life begins at conception. (Apr 2008)
Teach teens about abstinence and also about contraception. (Apr 2008)
GovWatch: Obama's "present" votes were a requested strategy. (Feb 2008)
Expand access to contraception; reduce unintended pregnancy. (Feb 2008)
Rated 100% by NARAL on pro-choice votes in 2005, 2006 & 2007. (Jan 2008)
Voted against banning partial birth abortion. (Oct 2007) Stem cells hold promise to cure 70 major diseases. (Aug 2007)
Trust women to make own decisions on partial-birth abortion. (Apr 2007)
Extend presumption of good faith to abortion protesters. (Oct 2006)
Constitution is a living document; no strict constructionism. (Oct 2006)
Moral accusations from pro-lifers are counterproductive. (Oct 2004)
Pass the Stem Cell Research Bill. (Jun 2004)
Protect a woman's right to choose. (May 2004)
Supports Roe v. Wade. (Jul 1998) Voted NO on defining unborn child as eligible for SCHIP. (Mar 2008)
Voted NO on prohibiting minors crossing state lines for abortion. (Mar 2008)
Voted YES on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines. (Apr 2007)
Voted NO on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. (Jul 2006)
Voted YES on $100M to reduce teen pregnancy by education & contraceptives. (Mar 2005)
Sponsored bill providing contraceptives for low-income women. (May 2006)
Rated 0% by the NRLC, indicating a pro-choice stance. (Dec 2006)
Ensure access to and funding for contraception. (Feb 2007)
Fawn: “Not all Republicans or Conservatives consider this a big issue.”
What’s money worth in a society that doesn’t value human life? If a human life can be terminated for being inconvenient, what’s your worth when you become inconvenient?
Bottom line: If it’s not a big issue for you, it should be. Social conservatism goes hand-in-hand with fiscal conservatism. You can’t have one without the other.
Well, it's way too late for me. But, I've been living with the reality of being a NY voter, and Jeremiah Wright would win this state if he were the Rat nominee.
My company is moving my job to PA, and I thought it would be after the first of the year. But now, I hear that if I decide to make the move, it would happen in mid-October, and I might have to make sure I was considered a resident for the requisite period of time before Election Day. Since PA would be a swing state, my decision would take on a different level of importance.
Way to potentially stab a chunk of your base in the eye, Johnny.
And who isn't? But, if Obama wins, the nation will have an upset stomach for the democrats for decades. If McCain wins on the pro-abort platform, we lose the GOP forever, and it is a two-party system. It takes a lot to build a third party up.
The article doesn't claim a Catholic block vote.
The article does say that McCain will lose Catholic votes that he's desperately going to need in a close election if he choose a pro-abort running mate. And he will.
He won't lose any liberal Catholic votes in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Those votes weren't going to help him one bit anyway.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.