big tent bogeymen

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jul 04, 2005

An LA Times lapdog shakes a bogey at Republicans in an attempt to spook them away from an anti-Roe Supreme Court nominee. He found some willing shills.

"Smart strategists inside the party don't want the status quo [on legalized abortion] changed," said Tony Fabrizio, chief pollster for the 1996 Republican presidential campaign of Bob Dole. "This may cause Republicans like Arnold Schwarzenegger -- who are strongly committed to being pro-choice -- to flip or to push for a third-party movement," he added. "If they did outlaw it, it would ultimately turn the Republican Party into a theocratic-based party rather than an ideological party, and the party would necessarily start shedding people."

Note the logic. Regardless of the various reasons -- legal, philosophical, political, theological -- for opposing Roe v. Wade, an exodus from the Republican Party on the part of those who find abortion a non-negotiable dogma will leave only theocrats behind. By this reasoning, not to be a pro-abortion absolutist is to be a fanatic. And that's the kind of perspicacity that got Bob Dole to where he is today.