WUNRN
Social conservatives are moving to put
abortion at the center of the midterm elections, despite warnings from other
Republicans to tread lightly on social issues.
USA -
POLITICAL CONSERVATIVES HONE SCRIPT TO PUT ABORTION AS CENTRAL ISSUE IN
MIDTERM ELECTIONS
It
was not on the public schedule for the Republican National Committee’s spring
meeting at the stately Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis. But inside a
conference room, a group of conservative women held a boot camp to strengthen
an unlikely set of skills: how to talk about abortion.
They have conducted a half-dozen of
these sessions around the country this year, from Richmond, Va., to Madison,
Wis. Coaches point video cameras at the participants and ask them to talk about
why they believe abortion is wrong.
It was not on the public schedule for the
Republican National Committee’s spring meeting at the stately Peabody Hotel in
downtown Memphis. But inside a conference room, a group of conservative women
held a boot camp to strengthen an unlikely set of skills: how to talk about
abortion.
They have conducted a half-dozen of
these sessions around the country this year, from Richmond, Va., to Madison,
Wis. Coaches point video cameras at the participants and ask them to talk about
why they believe abortion is wrong.
They review the video, and critiques
are rendered. “ ‘Rape’ is a four-letter word,” one of the consultants
often advises. “Purge it from your lexicon.”
Another tip: Keep remarks as short as
possible. “Two sentences is really the goal,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the
president of the Susan B. Anthony List, the anti-abortion group that hosts the
boot camps. “Then stop talking.”
Social
issues have taken on added urgency since the Supreme Court’s ruling
in the Hobby Lobby case last month, which held that family-run corporations
could not be required to pay for insurance coverage for contraception. While
Democrats hope the decision will help them draw Republicans back into an
uncomfortable debate over women’s rights, many conservatives relish the fight
and welcome putting abortion at the center of the midterm elections.
That fighting notion cuts against the
counsel of others in the Republican Party who have warned candidates to tread
gingerly around divisive social issues, a lesson from the intemperate comments
like the one about “legitimate rape” that cost the party dearly in 2012. The Republican
National Committee’s own assessment of the party’s losses in 2012 hit this
theme repeatedly, saying that “we must change our tone.”
But a vocal group of social
conservatives, dismayed both by their party’s apparent dismissiveness of their
passion and by the Democrats’ success at portraying Republicans as prosecuting
a “war on women,” are rewriting the anti-abortion movement’s script. The
problem, they argue, is not that conservatives talk too much about social
issues, but that they say too little, and do it in the wrong way.
They
are urging greater compassion for women with unplanned pregnancies and
aggressive confrontation whenever Democrats accuse them of opposing women’s
best interests.
“Don’t let them corner you,” said
Marilyn Musgrave, a Republican former congresswoman from Colorado who is a
longtime anti-abortion activist. She advises candidates to shift to the more
complicated question of terminating pregnancies after the 20th week, which is
now illegal in nine states. Polling also shows that large majorities think
second-trimester abortions should be illegal. “Put them on their heels,” Ms. Musgrave
added. “Ask them: ‘Exactly when in a pregnancy do you think abortion should be
banned?’ ”
In response to the post-2012
assessment by the Republican National Committee, some prominent conservatives
accused Republican leaders in Washington of timidity. While liberals punch on
social issues, “the Republican and conservative elites retreat and change the
subject,” said a report issued by the group American Principles in
Action. “Our self-mute strategy permits the Democrats to frame the issue on
their own terms.”
Some
Republicans say that making abortion a larger part of the party’s message this
year will increase the turnout of their base, which could be decisive in the
three Southern states — Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina — that are
crucial to Democrats’ hopes of holding on to their majority in the Senate. And
they are beginning to experiment with making their message on later-term
abortions appeal beyond just the base.
The Republican Party and its
chairman, Reince Priebus, have been working to reassure social conservatives.
In addition to giving groups like the Susan B. Anthony List a seat at the table
during the spring meeting, Mr. Priebus delayed the Republican National
Committee’s January meeting in Washington so it could coincide with the annual
March for Life. Mr. Priebus attended the march, and even arranged for buses to
transport the marchers.
The
national committee has hired some of the same pollsters who are advising
anti-abortion groups as they look for lines of attack to put Democrats on the
defensive. At the same time, Republicans in the Senate have introduced a
measure that would ban abortion after 20 weeks, a priority of the movement. It
has the backing of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader,
who endorsed the measure as he stood with anti-abortion leaders in the Capitol
in May. Democrats have blocked it from coming to a vote.
There is little question that
Republicans need to improve their numbers among female voters. Mitt Romney lost
the female vote to President Obama by 11 percentage points in 2012. An ABC
News/Washington Post poll in April found Democrats with a 30-point
advantage when respondents were asked which party they trusted to handle issues
that are especially important to women.
Republicans acknowledge that their
communication on women’s issues has been inadequate, especially considering
that Democrats have skillfully co-opted words like “choice,” “freedom” and
“health.”
“That was one of the top five public
relations coups of all time: making their movement pro-choice and purging the
ugly word ‘abortion’ from the lexicon for decades,” said Kellyanne Conway, a
Republican pollster who has conducted research on women’s issues for
anti-abortion groups and the Republican National Committee. In the boot camps,
Ms. Conway is the one warning candidates to treat “rape” like a four-letter
word.
And she urges them to challenge
Democrats when they use the term “women’s health.” “Women’s health issues are
osteoporosis or breast cancer or seniors living alone who don’t have enough
money for health care,” she said.
The question anti-abortion activists are trying to answer in this year’s congressional elections is whether they can broaden their issue beyond the conservative base. To that end, the Susan B. Anthony List has said its political action committee will commit $3 million in Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina — a relatively small splash in a sea of “super PAC” money, but enough to buy a respectable amount of airtime, if it meets its fund-raising goals. (The group spent about $1 million in 2012.) It will advertise on television and radio, and it has already opened 13 field offices in those three states to coordinate get-out-the-vote operations in conservative and rural areas.
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reading the main story The group recently hired a polling firm to test
messages. It found that when it told Florida voters that a Democratic candidate
for an open House seat there, Alex Sink, did not support limiting abortion
after five months, women in Democratic households shifted their support toward
the Republican in the race, David Jolly.
Last month, the super PAC affiliated
with the Susan B. Anthony List began testing this message in North Carolina
against Senator Kay Hagan, a Democrat, its first move in a Senate race this
year. In a TV ad, a young couple talk
about their daughter, who was born prematurely at 24 weeks. “These are babies,”
the
mother says. “This is human life. And we are their only voice.”
A major political challenge for the
anti-abortion movement has been finding enough conservative women to lead a
debate that is usually dominated by men. Ms. Hagan’s opponent is Thom Tillis,
the Republican speaker of the General Assembly.
“The best way to talk about the life
issue is to have female candidates talk about it,” said Elise Stefanik, who won
a Republican congressional primary in upstate New York last month and
campaigned as an opponent of abortion. “And it’s very important that we have
candidates who are respectful when they talk about this issue and that they
talk about it in a humane way. And I think that’s where the Republican Party
has failed in a certain way.”
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