By Dave Andrusko
It’s kind of customary for the party out of power—in this case Democrats who no longer control the Senate and have the smallest number in the House in ages—to be the “party of ideas.” This can, of course, take the form of mere obstructionism but it can also be a time where the party out of power thoughtfully fine-tunes the issues and policy proposals it will campaign on.
So that’s why I simply had to laugh—honestly—when Alex Roarty wrote a piece for the National Journal under the headline “The ‘War on Women’ Isn’t Over Yet: Critics say Democrats’ focus on ‘women’s issues’ failed in 2014, but the party has no plans to abandon the line of attack.”
The writer George Santayana is credited with remarking, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But, jeez, how much can you forget in two months?
So why—even though it is almost universally agreed that the Democrats’ obsession with the “War on Women” reached the point of absurdity in 2014– are Democrats telling Roarty that they will live another day to fight the war on women?
Excuse-mongering would have to play a big role. So, the obsessive-compulsive, ritualistic incantations that resulted in pro-abortion Colorado Senator Democrat Mark Udall being dubbed “Mark Uterus” had nothing to do with his defeat (the first Democratic gubernatorial or Senate candidate to do so in Colorado since 2002)?
Naw, it was an unpopular president, a strong Republican candidate, and the fact that Udall talked to little about contraception but not enough! Seriously, that’s what they believe.
That, of course, is absurd even for pro-abortion Democrats. What else?
According to Roarty, they think Republicans will take a hit for proposing pro-life legislation. Really?
You mean like the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act? The one where a nationwide poll of 1,623 registered voters in November 2014 found that 60% would support a law such as the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act prohibiting abortion after 20 weeks when the unborn child can feel pain, while only 33% opposed such legislation. The one which 61% of the 18-29 year olds supported?
Or the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” which the House passed last week? As the recent poll conducted for the Knight of Columbus found, 68% do not want taxpayer funding of abortion.
Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) alluded to the results of that poll in a post. Smith, the author of HR 7, the No Taxpayers Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act, observed
Americans have consistently demanded—and now in ever-growing numbers—that public funds not pay for abortion. The Marist Poll released this month found that 68 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding for abortions, and that includes 69 percent of women; 71 percent of the millennials. The younger generation knows that we cannot build a better future by paying for the destruction of the most vulnerable among us.
So the two explanations to justify recycling the “War on Women”—the timing wasn’t right in 2014 and the Republicans will propose unpopular legislation—are clearly, embarrassingly bogus.
Pro-abortion Democrats will hold on to the “War on Women” or the same reason passengers of a sunken ship hold on to life rafts. They are out of options.