[whiskeytown]

This is the most interesting story in politics to me right, even more so then the Democratic nomination, simply because for many years, I voted Republican basically out of Religious convictions and being told it was the Christian thing to do, as opposed to understanding the issues as they affect real Americans.

I saw Dobson's interview this week on Hannity and Colmes - the Focus on the Family guru was telling Hannity what a difficult decision it would be to vote for Guilani, Romney, or any frontrunner who hasn't been up to snuf in the pro-life category.

Bear in mind, the only way this has any bearing is in the appointment of judges as strict constructionists - Neither a Republican President nor controlled Congress did a thing to staunch the flow except the partial birth ban which really, was a ban in name only as the procedure was almost never done out of convenience but necessity.

Hannity spent basically 3-5 minutes going back to the same point - insisting if Dobson didn't support the Republican candidate, you'd have president Hillary and more Ruth Bader Ginsburgs, with Dobson consistantly coming back and stating that he couldn't compromise his values by voting for a candidate that he thought wouldn't do the task of dealing with the Abortion and Gay Marriage issues.

I am of the personal opinion that Republicans will never do anything about Abortion because if it were to suddenly become illegal again out of the blue due to their influence that the population all over the country would take about 20 percentage point jump towards the Democrats. It's not really a majority held view anymore among voters, and can only be influenced/changed thru court decisions. So it's fairly clear to me you'll continue to have Pro-life in name only, while not changing abortion in any fundmental way on the Federal level - most of the changes/restrictions are being pounded thru at the state level.

Interesting enough, I too am Pro-Life - but I consider that to be a much broader definition then what Dobson and the Religious Right define it as [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] - but the question is, given that many of the Religious Right's leaders are voicing concern on the likely candidates, what do you think will be the likely outcome. I forsee a number of options

1. - They hate the candidate (Guiliani) and choose to stay home on election day, resulting in depressed Republican turnout - this is what I think will be the most likely option, BTW and I think Hillary has the same effect on many progressives in the Democratic Party.

2. - Repub's hate the candidate and turn to a 3rd party candidate - some might do this, but I think most will stay home to send a message - possible, though.

3. - Repub's hate the candidate but he pays enough lipservice to prolife values or the Dem's nominate a really hated candidate (Hillary) and it rallies the base to turn out and hold their nose - least likely option, IMHO.

4. - Either thru influence, primary luck, or whatever, someone with a staunch prolife record gets the nomination - at which point I predict decent turnout, maybe a new supreme court appointee, but no real progress

thoughts?