To a certain extent, yes, there’s no question about it. Charles Krauthammer says it would be wiser to run against late-term abortions and say nothing much about the early ones. As if that would do anything except alienate the right-to-lifers in the GOP base who want to ban all abortions. And won’t quit just because they haven’t achieved their aim in forty years.
(They like to say that it took more than forty years to abolish slavery, too.)
Likewise the Dumbos can’t run against late-term abortions because it might cause some of their base—who couldn’t care less about murdering a viable infant if it inconveniences some halfwit woman who waited five months to decide she didn’t want the baby—to sit out an election.
Or as James Taranto puts it: “…a political party is not a unitary organism; it is an unruly coalition of individuals and interest groups. Neither party can win elections without the support of its abortion extremists, which means neither party can will or wish them away.”
Seems to me the main problem the GOP has is not its philosophical disagreement with abortion and same-sex marriage—both of which it must run against to keep its base—but that it’s mostly Democrat-Lite RINOs and its conservative base is fed up with them. To the point where it’s willing to sit out an election rather than vote for another Boehner, Ryan, McCain or Romney. Four million of them apparently did in Willard, the country-club RINO from Utah, by simply staying home.
These conservatives seem to figure that there’s nothing much worse the Dumbos can do to the country. They’ve already crippled the economy with thousands of new regulations on business, demonized the rich who alone can invest in new businesses, whacked people who already had health insurance with higher prices for it while failing to attract the uninsured, and used the IRS and the “justice” department to punish their enemies.
What’s left (so to speak)? Downsizing the military? Check. Rewarding foreign enemies and punishing friends? Check. The RINOs could have stopped some of it if they chose. They haven’t yet and there’s no reason to think they ever will. Shoot, they’re getting ready to please their crony-capitalist buddies and reward a few million low-wage illegal aliens with work permits when millions of American citizens can’t find jobs. Illegals who almost certainly will never vote Republican.
To my mind, neither party is worth a damn and both are hopelessly corrupt. I am just about at the point where I won’t vote for another one of either brand, unless s/he comes with a Tea Party label like Paul or Cruz. Why bother?
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 