Posted on 08/14/2008 8:54:39 PM PDT by Alter Kaker
Top social conservative leaders in key battleground states are urging John McCain not to pick a running mate who supports abortion rights, warning of dire consequences from a Republican base already unenthused about their nominee.
McCain’s comments Wednesday to the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes that former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge’s pro-abortion rights views wouldn’t necessarily rule him out quickly found their way into the in-boxes of Christian conservatives. For those who have been anxiously awaiting McCain’s pick as a signal of his ideological intentions, there was deep concern that their worst fears about the Arizona senator may be realized.
“It absolutely floored me,” said Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values. “It would doom him in Ohio.”
Burress emailed about a dozen “pro-family leaders” he knows outside Ohio and forwarded it to three McCain aides tasked with Christian conservative outreach.
“That choice will end his bid for the presidency and spell defeat for other Republican candidates,” Burress wrote in the message.
He and other Ohio conservatives met privately with McCain in June, and while the nominee didn’t promise them an anti-abortion rights running mate, his staff said they could “almost guarantee” that would be the case, Burress recalled.
Now, Burress said, “he’s not even sure [Christian conservatives] would vote for him let alone work for him if he picked a pro-abortion running mate.”
James Muffett, head of Michigan’s Citizens for Traditional Values, met with McCain along with a handful of other Michigan-based social conservatives Wednesday night.
“A good portion of us were urging him to pick a pro-life running mate,” Muffett said, noting that they were doing so before even getting wind of the Standard story. “That choice would go a long way to solidify his credentials.”
Muffett said McCain didn’t offer any promises on the issue, but rather reiterated his anti-abortion record and assured them that he was aware of how critical the base was to the electoral success of Republican presidents dating back to Ronald Reagan.
To select a running mate who supports abortion rights would be “wrong-headed, short-sighted, fracture the Republican Party and not allow us to capitalize on the Democratic Party’s fracture right now,” Muffett argued.
“If he does that, it makes our job 100 times harder. It would dampen enthusiasm at a time when evangelicals are looking for ways to gin up enthusiasm.”
McCain, Muffett said, got that message in their meeting.
“Some people in the movement say it would be the kiss of death. He heard that in the room last night.”
With polls showing McCain and Obama still neck-and-neck in many competitive states, conservatives argue that their candidate must turn out Christian conservatives in large numbers to win.
In Iowa, for example, many in the GOP say Bush won in 2004 after losing there in 2000 because he bolstered turnout among the religious right in the conservative western part of the state and in exurban areas.
“Bush only won by 10,000 votes,” recalled Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Christian Alliance and a Republican committeeman from the state. “You’re going to have to have a huge turnout of that base again for McCain to win.”
And, Scheffler noted, it’s not just a matter of ensuring that social conservatives vote – picking a supporter of abortion rights could erode McCain’s volunteer base.
“Ninety percent of the workforce for Bush in ’04 came out of that constituency,” he said, alluding to the Christian right. “Picking a Ridge or a [Joseph] Lieberman would not be helpful at all.”
Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who represents a conservative, heavily Dutch district in western Michigan where Republicans traditionally pile up huge margins, said a pro-abortion rights running mate “would be problematic.”
“That’s not where they’d want him going,” Hoekstra said of the party base.
McCain’s campaign sought to tamp down the uproar, suggesting the candidate had merely been overly expansive about a sensitive topic and hadn’t intended to float a trial balloon.
“The point that McCain was making is that people can differ on one issue and still be a vital member of our party,” said an aide. “The fact that Governor Ridge is not perfectly in line with the party platform does not make him any less of a Republican.”
In the interview, McCain said “the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party.”
“And I also feel that — and I'm not trying to equivocate here — that Americans want us to work together. You know, Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders and he happens to be pro-choice. And I don't think that that would necessarily rule Tom Ridge out [for vice-president].”
He added: “I think it's a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life, but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice. We just have a — albeit strong — but just it's a disagreement. And I think Ridge is a great example of that.”
The GOP base aside, some observers believe that picking an outside-the-box running mate such as Lieberman could help McCain with the broad middle of the country who are fed up with the political status quo and enable him to pick off even more Clinton backers.
“This move to a pro-choice running mate such as Lieberman could help reshape his message to appeal to swing voters,” said Doug Schoen, a Democratic pollster who worked for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg when he was a Republican and has written a book about moving away from the two-party system. “The right-wing is not going anywhere and choice is a key issue for over-40 women who voted for Hillary in the primaries.”
But to some in the GOP who supported other candidates in the primary and are having trouble mustering much enthusiasm for McCain, the mere mention of a pro-choice running mate is disheartening.
“A lot of the troops here are on the fence or disappointed,” said Elizabeth Sipfle, a Michigan Republican and former leader of Mike Huckabee’s grassroots “Huck’s Army” organization who contacted Politico to register her concern. “Let’s not get our blood boiling.”
“Be smart,” she urged McCain. “There’s a big group here that’s already feeling marginalized.”
Thanks for hanging with us as we all learn to interpret what you have correctly expressed.
Looks like most everybody who commented on this piece (most, not all) started out with a pre-disposed notion based on current social disposition instead of taking the time to assimilate the true meaning of the words.
If we’re to learn anything we’ve got to look for something deeper than a soundbite.
Thank you for challenging the masses and standing for what you believe.
How did you get that Jo doesn’t want to end abortion???
I think you misunderstood the point. I don’t believe it was the writer’s intention to leave abortion legal and kill babies, and I don’t think anyone else got that out of this post.
This is the first time I have read Jo Nuvark’s work, and I had to use my brain a minute, but Jo is dead on. The Supreme Court should have never been in the abortion business in the first place. America is about personal responsibility and that stretches to your own kids, too.
If we train our children we will change the world. If we let the government and the supreme court decide the education, direction and fate of our citizens, then we will fail. Unlike other nations, we were supposed to operate at the hands of a God-fearing citizenry.
That’s been hi-jacked. Maybe for good, but I think you are in the same side of the fight as the rest of the “fan club” you were talking about.
Looks like you agree in principle with Jo.
Sometimes we just have to switch the light on to see the path.
[... The Supreme Court should have never been in the abortion business in the first place. America is about personal responsibility and that stretches to your own kids, too. If we train our children we will change the world.
IF WE TRAIN OUR CHILDREN WE WILL CHANGE THE WORLD!!!
If we let the government and the supreme court decide the education, direction and fate of our citizens, then we will fail. Unlike other nations, we were supposed to operate at the hands of a God-fearing citizenry. That’s been hi-jacked. Maybe for good, but I think you are in the same side of the fight as the rest of the “fan club” you were talking about...]
************************************
If that isn’t what I said, that’s exactly what I meant to say. LOL!
NEW TAGLINE FOR SOMEONE:
If we train our children we will change the world!
HGTV is correct. “Change the world. Start at home.”
“That’s why it is just as important to deal with issues on the philosophical merits, to individuals, and not just legal merits.”
True. But there are people who equate law with morality. If it’s legal, they think it’s moral.
“This old ship won’t turn without a moral, Godly rudder. We won’t find that rudder in our courts or in our houses of Government. That moral rudder is in the houses of the people and cannot be legislated from us. So... we are without excuse.”
I agree with that much. At the same time, deceivers hide behind unjust law. Roe v. Wade was judicial legislation. It was incredibly unpopular at the time. 49 states classified abortion as a felony. The courts and the colleges have eroded our nation’s of right and wrong.
Since they got away with that, the courts reached further with Kelo.
More proof of my assertion, posted in various threads on the “Republic” .....
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I believe that McCain was picked by the leftist infested RNC to throw the election and marginalize the American right.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
McCain picking Liberman for Veep will prove this beyond a reasonable doubt.
Thank you for the link. Will read. FRegards ....
McCain is throwing a lot of stuff out there to awaken voter interest and lead various groups to feel more sympathetic toward him. I’m sticking with him unless he actually picks a pro-abort VP.
I remember W going on long walks with Tom Ridge back in 2000. At the end of he day, it was for nothing. Possibly the same this time around.
Comparing MacCain to fighting with "the army you have," would have been as if Rumsfeld had said that we'd hired The Taliban to fight against Al-Qai'da.
MacCain is the consummate Trojan Elephant. If he becomes President, with their having co-opted the conservative movement, the victory of The Left will be close to completion.
Teach the American public about the Judeo-Christian value system. How the Declaration of Independence created by the Founding Fathers summarized the best of these values. That Senator McCain stands for this statement in it’s top level thinking:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...”
Many Americans call talking points assigned to political Representatives as ‘issues’. Political parties put themselves into camps based on issues. Keeping track of each candidates there set of ‘issues’ and if they match our own tastes is convoluting the very basic principles of the Judeo-Christian Value System. Politicians running for office often times prey on such ignorance to win elections. You don’t ignore the issues, you remind the American voter that all your positions on the ‘issues’ are based on the Declaration of Independence powerful and simple statement and you base your policy making on such as well. When a candidates running for office do this, then will leaders emerge and provide the wisdom-led governance Americans crave so desperately. Conservatives, stop acting like liberals being dragged into middle road positions on ‘issues’.
I'm 50 and saw this unfold.
Roe made folks think abortion was really ok and the number of abortions since then prove that.
It's not just a case of collapsed morality which although true is a result of Roe rather than causative.
A nation with at least some modicum of morality would not tolerate laws like Roe.
One day folks will look back and view us the way we view local burghers and the Nazis’s rise...”how did they let that happen?”
I agree Jo wants to end abortion but she prefers to leave government out of it but it's obvious they are already in it. That is what started it.
Roe must be overturned or diminished and hopefully hand in hand with a reestablishment of some basic morality at least about killing unborn babies.
“Comparing MacCain to fighting with “the army you have,” would have been as if Rumsfeld had said that we’d hired The Taliban to fight against Al-Qai’da.”
[Trying to smile.]
It will be impossible to argue with you if McCain makes the wrong choice.
McCain’s just giving this lip service. He already has a big enough problem with the base without creating another. I would be shocked if he went there.
No, I had no “kicked in the belly” allegations.
One 13 y/o did tell me her father threw her out the 2nd story window when she refused to abort. She was a sort of a typical teen, in the sense that she seemed given to exaggeration, so I am not sure whether that was the whole truth or not. However, as required, we reported it to CPS.
PUKE
BARF
GAG
Same here. Romney is the bare minimum that I'd accept for a VP on the liberal-conservative scale, though of course I'm not going to root for his selection. He did reach out to conservatives on abortion and even when he was pro-abortion, he still supported restrictions for it. He would still have to go a little ways to totally convince me, but at this point he's much better than the alternative.
But McCain needs a solid pro-life VP pick here, not only would he lose conservatives but the squishy middle won't vote for him anyway.
Hey, why not just put freakin’ RATs in charge of everything?
I am having real problems believing many people posting here are annything other than Democrats.
You qualify. I hope the boss around here cleans the sludge soon.
Don’t know about you, but....FR needs a good enema.
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.