By Dave Andrusko
As we often do in the last post of the day, I’m going to touch on two topics and see what they cumulative might say to us.
The first is from POLITICO which titled Darren Samuelsohn’s story, “Veterans retreating from President Obama.” The first sentence gets it all down in 20 words: “President Barack Obama is trying hard to win veterans, but it looks like they’d prefer a new commander in chief.”
Samuelsohn tells us that Mitt Romney has a resounding 20-percentage lead “and has even overtaken the president with younger veterans.” More specifically in four battleground states–Colorado, Florida, Ohio and Virginia Romney is up by double digits.
Even the lead Obama enjoyed among Afghanistan and Iraq veterans in May has “evaporated, with Romney now up 48 percent to 34 percent,” Samuelsohn writes.”
The other article appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, titled “My vote doesn’t matter.” It is a partisan essay (with just enough throwaway lines so the three authors can pretend it’s not), the purpose of which is to reenergize students for Obama.
The authors dutifully note the fall off in voting among college students from 2008 to 2010, worrying that the 2012 numbers will be up but not sufficiently. They consider the typical reasons students might not vote—everything from the all-purpose all politicians are “corrupt” excuse, to a lack of information, to a sense that the candidates are all the same, to an unease that politics is too “complicated,” to “dashed hopes.”
For our purposes, there are two truths. Every vote DOES matter. They offer a couple of examples of elections won by a whisker to drive home the point that your vote can and does matter!
They also attempt to convince students that they are stronger together than operating separately. They cite as an example (but not a model, I would suspect) the Tea Party whose members “organized through friends, colleagues and online networks. They aggressively recruited candidates and volunteered to get out the vote, sweeping state and federal offices in 2010.” After a partisan shot, the authors conclude, “But without ordinary citizens acting in a way that combined electoral and non-electoral involvement, they would never have made an impact. And they’ve clearly succeeded in changing contemporary American politics.”
That’s what pro-lifers have been about for 40+ years—making an enormous impact and “changing contemporary American politics.” And you will continue to alter the political landscape.
And then there is their eloquent conclusion, which begins by elaborating on an earlier theme: that there are no “perfect” candidates. (This is clearly an attempt to gin up Obama supporters who lived on a diet of hope and change and now, four years later, feel malnourished.) They write,
“If students are politically disappointed, and many are, we might do well to stress the words of Czech dissident (and eventual president) Vaclav Havel, ‘Hope is not a prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart.’ Or as Jim Wallis of Sojourners puts it, ‘Hope is believing despite the evidence and then watching the evidence change.’”
Fortunately, pro-lifers already have evidence to sustain our hope—that in spite of nearly four years of a President whose agenda is synonymous with that of Planned Parenthood’s and NARAL’s, more Americans than ever self-identify as pro-life. That young people are flocking to our cause. That we have passed a passel of pro-life measures in the states and many in the House of Representatives waiting upon the arrival of a pro-life Senate and the election of a President who actually believes all human life—born and unborn—deserves legal protection, not just the planned and the perfect.
Be sure to take a minute to read “Where do the candidates stand on life?” (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2012/09/where-do-the-candidates-stand-on-life-2) and to pass it along to all your pro-life candidates.
There is a difference between the candidates. It is up to you and I to make sure every America knows what those differences are!
Your feedback is very important to improving National Right to Life News Today. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha