Bye Sam! We Will Not Miss You.

Want to better understand how Sam Brownback never got traction during the campaign?

Brownback had hoped to be the favorite of Republican social conservatives. He says he underwent a spiritual renewal after being diagnosed with skin cancer in 1995. A former Methodist, Brownback converted to Roman Catholicism in 2002 and attends midweek Bible readings and prayer sessions. Fighting for what he calls a “culture of life,” Brownback opposes abortion rights, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and assisted suicide.

Technorati Tags: SamBrownback, Election08

Will There Be A Conservative ‘Ralph Nader’ In 2008?

I know there are those who still live under the fallacy that Ralph Nader did not cost the Democrats the election in 2000.  Lets face it, if you had been a part of the reason George Bush was selected to be President you would try to rationalize and spin the damage that Nader did too.  The fact is that Nader is the reason that Bush was able to start a war in Iraq.  Tough news to swallow for Nader backers.

I say this with only slight amusement as right-wing conservatives are now trying to figure out what to do in 2008 since they are not in agreement with any of the announced candidates running for the GOP nomination.  None of the candidates that are now running are wild-eyed enough!  Imagine what the conservatives desire.

I have tried to figure out where the Republican base was going to head in the nominating process.  For most of the summer I thought the conservatives would try to stop Rudy Giuliani by strongly supporting Fred Thompson once he entered the race.  But given the lackluster performance thus far by the actor turned candidate, and the verbal smack against Thompson by Ayatollah James Dobson last week, I am back to square one.  And so it seems are the conservatives.

So when talk of a possible third party that represents disenchanted conservatives makes news I have to wonder what these folks are thinking.   Influential conservative Christians have vowed to consider backing a third-party candidate if the former New York mayor gets the Republican nominee. Giuliani has a lot of differences with those on the religious right; chief among them is his position on abortion.  But do they really think that by reducing the reliable votes for the GOP nominee by supporting a third party they will increase their chance of winning the White House? 

Politics is all about compromise, and the wing nuts of the GOP need to understand that.  They may have gotten most of what they wanted as the result of President Bush and Karl Rove doing their bidding.  But those days are almost over. 

Pragmatic minds will prevail.  I am sure that no one will really want to ante up the needed money to support the ‘Ralph Nader’ of the GOP.  They will need to bite the bullet and take the nominee that is selected.  After that they can work to find the perfect knuckle-dragger for 2012.

Technorati Tags: RalphNader, RudyGiuliani, JamesDobson, ReligiousRight, FredThompson,

Abortion Ban Showdown In South Dakota

In the spring of 2006 the South Dakota Legislature passed, and Governor Mike Rounds signed, a bill that everyone knew to be unconstitutional.  It was designed to pervert justice to the point that a legal challenge would result from its passage.  The bill outlawed abortion in the entire state. 

The bill did not care if you were a fifteen-year-old girl raped at the mall, or a sixteen-girl-old mentally incapacitated girl raped by her father.  Incest, rape, and the health of the woman are not reasons for an abortion in South Dakota.  There should no longer be any doubt about the callous nature of conservatism after understanding the nature of this bill, and the reason it was hatched.

First, there is only ONE abortion clinic in the state, and the entire population is under 800,000 people.  No one can argue that there were so many abortions that this law was the only way to deal with them.  And I should note for our conservative readers who still do not understand…..ABORTION IS LEGAL.

Second, the anti-abortion agitators hoped that by passing this law a constitutional lawsuit would be created that would force the Supreme Court to tackle this issue.  Since the high court has already ruled on this in 1973 some scholars suggest a lower court would only throw it out, based on existing law.

But it is also true that citizens should not have to fight for rights that were already once won.  With that in mind a coalition of civil rights, reproductive freedom, and women’s groups have forced a referendum onto the November ballot to remove the law.  To prove the extreme nature of the backers of the abortion ban you only need to know that the American Life League, who champions the ban, thinks birth control pills are “chemical abortions.”  This is the type of flapdoodle that the rest of the educated citizenry has to put up with.

There is no doubt that conservatives hope to again reduce, if not remove, the 1973 landmark legislation that legalized abortion.  That is why it is vital a resounding rejection of this ban be heard all across the land on Election Night.  South Dakota may be a small state but can send a loud message November 7th.