{"id":2720,"date":"2008-03-25T13:21:21","date_gmt":"2008-03-25T18:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/2008\/03\/25\/positioning\/"},"modified":"2008-03-25T13:21:21","modified_gmt":"2008-03-25T18:21:21","slug":"positioning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2008\/03\/positioning\/","title":{"rendered":"Positioning"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the America blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

… But, it has gone largely unremarked
\nin
\nanalysis of the upcoming Pennsylvania primary that Clinton does have
\none group of political activists to whom she is especially indebted.
\nPro-choice groups like NARAL, NOW and Emily’s List have been the base
\nof her fundraising and organizational support. They have sent emails
\nand placed phone calls to voters in key primary states questioning
\nObama’s commitment to Roe v. Wade. And, the generational cleavage among
\nwomen \ufffd older women tend to support Clinton by significantly large
\nmargins than younger women \ufffd is also related to the abortion issue. For
\nolder women, Roe was part of their emergence on the national political
\nstage, a process that they see coming to fruition in Clinton’s bid for
\nthe White House.\n<\/p>\n

Cleavage among women?<\/p>\n

In heavily Catholic Pennsylvania, it is
\ncurious that so little
\nattention has been paid to Clinton’s dependence on these groups. Her
\ncampaign is built largely upon her experience during her husband’s
\ntenure in office, and few pro-life voters will forget that it was Bill
\nClinton who vetoed the Partial Birth abortion bill. Did she advise him
\nto do so?<\/p>\n

There has been some indication that she
\ndid indeed do so. Regardless though she voted against the partial-birth
\nabortion ban and does have a 100% NARAL voting record.<\/p>\n

Clinton should find an audience in
\nPennsylvania where she can distance
\nherself from some of the more extreme pro-abortion arguments. She could
\nsay that the Democrats need to move beyond simply defending Roe and
\nfind alternatives to abortion or new ways of preventing unwanted
\npregnancies in the first place. She could repeat her husband’s mantra
\nthat abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” and point to ways that
\nmight make it more rare.<\/p>\n

The effort would cost her nothing. The older women who are Clinton’s
\nbase know where she stands on the issue, and they are never going to
\nabandon her. But, she could usefully position herself as a more
\nmoderate candidate for the general election, and strengthen what
\nremains as her most credible claim to the nomination: the ability to
\nattract moderate swing voters, many of whom are Catholic and many of
\nwhom have continued to deliver large majorities for pro-life Democrats
\nin Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

I do find this odd advice from a Jesuit
\nmagazine (well at least I wish this was odd advice from  a
\nJesuit magazine).  That basically Hillary should just
\n“position”
\nherself with no mention of actually wanting to reduce abortion. Just
\nrepeat her husband’s mantra about abortion. It doesn’t matter if she should actually ever do such as thing and of course if she was actually
\nPresident she would veto any pro-life legislation  and her
\ncourt picks would certainly not be the types to restrict abortion.<\/p>\n

I also wonder what the writer considers
\n“extreme pro-abortion arguments?” From a Catholic perspective what
\nwould be a moderate pro-abortion argument.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the America blog: … But, it has gone largely unremarked in analysis of the upcoming Pennsylvania primary that Clinton does have one group of political activists to whom she…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pro-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}