Both sides are setting up positions for the 2014 election campaign. One placement is clear: national office Republicans have overreached on abortion. Their problem: a majority of self-reported Republican voters want to keep abortion legal.
Extremism in defense of wack-job dogma ??? That could be expensive.
Typical GOPer Madness:
"In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out."
-- State Representative Jodie Laubenberg, Texas
That is an argument for having no exceptions for rape or incest.
"Ban Abortion! Ban Abortion !!! BAN ABORTION !!!" That has been a picket line chant for decades. Not this:
"The Base" has always agreed with the part about reducing unplanned pregnancies. We have always had a point of agreement. Seeing abortion as "a personal right" makes the difference.
The next two or three years will be critical: an emotional counterattack on the abortion issue can move a couple points from the GOP over to Solid Blue. When that happens the GOP will lose the better part of its influence from Florida to Georgia and up to Virginia, plus Kentucky and the mid-latitude Midwest. Texas becomes "Leans Red" but Democrats don't need it.
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