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Strategic Mistake in the Pro-Life Cause

Why elect leftists so you can claim to be pure?

By: Kevin Holtsberry (Diary)  |  November 26th, 2008 at 11:38 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

I wrote about the ongoing battle in the OH-15 race between Steve Stivers and Mary-Jo Kilroy on the front page, but I wanted to add some potentially more contentious comments here.

One reason this race is this close is because a conservative Christian ran as an independent and there was a libertarian candidate on the ballot as well. Both canidates took between four and five percent of the vote.

While I am pro-life and avidly so, I am at a loss for how the candidacy of the pro-life Christian Don Eckhart was strategically anything but self-defeating. I am all in favor of running in a primary and pushing the pro-life message and candidates. I am in favor of the GOP platform remaining staunchly pro-life. The GOP should be the pro-life party.

But it is simply a fact that pro-life candidates are not going to win in every district. If the GOP is to be a majority party there are going to be exceptions and a range of views.

Steve Stivers was the best possible candidate the GOP could get for that seat this cycle. He, like his predecessor, is a moderate on abortion – favors restrictions but not an outright ban – and other issues. But his opponent is an across the board lefty – see Erick for more on this.

Eckhart – nor the libertarian obviously – never had the slightest chance of winning or of even garnering a substantial vote count. Is it worth helping to elect a doctrinaire liberal who is as pro-abortion as it is possible to be just so you can vote “pure.”

I don’t mean to be harsh, but this makes no sense to me. This seat has been held by a pro-choice Republican and if anything Stivers was an upgrade from Pryce. In a terrible election cycle Eckhart decides he has to give voters a pro-life alternative and thus making the likelihood of a pro-abortion extremist much more likely.

Can someone explain how this makes sense? If you can’t vote for someone who is pro-choice in any way, fine. Don’t vote. I can respect that. But running against the best chance Republicans have to win the seat doesn’t accomplish anything. This is not strategic thinking.

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  • aceintx

    While I am pro-life and avidly so, I am at a loss for how the candidacy of the pro-life Christian Don Eckhart was strategically anything but self-defeating. I am all in favor of running in a primary and pushing the pro-life message and candidates. I am in favor of the GOP platform remaining staunchly pro-life. The GOP should be the pro-life party.

    But it is simply a fact that pro-life candidates are not going to win in every district. If the GOP is to be a majority party there are going to be exceptions and a range of views.

    There are two conflicting ideas/issues in this question that are pulling pro life activists in the Republican Party in two different directions at the same time…

    1. The Republican party is known as the pro life party and as such it is against the interests of pro lifers to do anything to hurt Republican victory in local and national races since there is strength in numbers.

    2. There is a push from major elements of the party especially in the leadership to deemphasize the life issue and marginalize the pro life element of the party. Pro lifers are increasingly facing the prospect of being to the Republican Party what Blacks are to the Democrat Party. As such we can either slavishly support any and all Republican candidates shoved down our throats and assist the Party in our own marginalization…or we can stand our ground and refuse to be taken for granted and pushed to the back of the bus.

    By refusing to go along and vote for every pro abortion candidate the party throws at us, of course the Party will lose a couple of elections and yes the Pro Life movement will be hurt in the short term as there are fewer Republicans to move their agenda forward…but at some point the Pro Life movement needs to face the inevitable question of “at what point does the law of diminishing returns force it’s self into the calculus”? At what point do we reach the point when more Republicans in office offers us nothing because the Party refuses to represent us?

    My thing right now…and the last election and the behavior of party bosses after the election has solidified it in my mind…is the fact that we are fast approaching that convergence of self interest with the law of diminishing returns!

    • seattle_ite

      If one is truly “middle of the road” on the abortion issue, one would have trouble with the extreme views of the ‘pro-choice” folks and, just maybe, support the pro-life movement a bit more vigorously. The biggest problem I have with the current RNC leadership view is that they seem more concerned with victory, than principle.

      Let the Principle guide you, and victory will follow. Reagan proved that.

      • aceintx

        largely as a result of their pro abortion stances

        • seattle_ite

          That was my point; trying to figure out how to win, at any cost, and/or whining about the losses without recognizing the why, is exactly the problem with our current group of squishy ‘leaders’. They seem to evoke Reagan often enough for their purposes, but forget the reasons why the Gipper kept winning.

          I don’t have much issue with a differing opinion on abortion, and it’s certainly not my only concern. Where I do have a problem is with the rush to throw conservative principles down the privy, in a feeble attempt to enlarge the ‘big tent’.

  • Diogenes314

    …cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face vote.

    Good job, Don. Now go away.

  • indym

    I think the point the writer of this diary is saying that the independent candidate took votes away from the republican candidate. He had lost in the primary and ran as an independent in the general election. What attracted me to the republican party was the pro-life platform. I think that most of the republican party today is pro-life. I don’t think there are many moderate republicans anymore. I agree that with principle comes victory, but how long before victory. President Reagan was a principled man, but he was elected because his opponent was incompetent.