USA - Political Conservatives Hone Script to Put Abortion as Central Issue in Midterm Elections

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

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.

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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