Perhaps the most disappointing thing to me about the recent budget deal was the fact PP remains funded.  While DC abortions will no longer be funded, which is a major plus, I had high hopes that we would be able to hold fast on this point.  In the end, the defections of Brown and Murkowski meant we needed to peel off 5 Democrats to make it happen, at which point Obama had promised to veto it anyways (though I doubt he would have).  I would have preferred they pressed harder, even if it meant a shutdown, but here are a couple of points on the silver lining:

1.  We have a good talking point that Obama and Senate Democrats found funding PP more important than funding the government, and Senate Democrats will be put on record on this.  Since they have 24 of 34 seats up for reelection next year, this hurts them far more than it could hurt us.

2.  There is still the debt limit.  We can focus on peeling off Nelson and Casey for starters, who campaigned as Pro-Life.  If they support PP anyways, they’re completely done.  Next, Manchin is in a position where he must take positions against Obama, and he knows WV voters would reward him for doing so, so I think he could easily be peeled off as well, even though he takes PP’s money.  VA Senators Warner and Webb are going to be highly accountable in a government shutdown as they have large constituencies in a purplish-red state.  True Webb is retiring, but he too is not terribly close to the administration or PP.  Peel off the 5, force Obama into electoral suicide of a shutdown or to sign it into law.

3.  This has become a platform issue.  If we gain the White House and can win the Senate in 2012, then PP funding is gone by 2013.  These are goals within our reach.

4.  Highlighting PP’s abuses will increasingly become an indefensible point Democrats will be held to account for.  The issue finally has public attention, and perhaps Democrats (and liberal RINOs) should be forced to explain why they are taking money from such an organization.

5.  Social and fiscal conservatives have a campaign issue they are united on.  It is also an issue where our base’s strength is significantly stronger than theirs.

Ending abortion is going to take swinging public opinion in this country as well as changing the law.  Changing the law takes changing the Court.  Changing the Court takes changing the White House and the Senate.  Changing those elected bodies and others at state and local levels in large measure takes defanging PP by defunding them.  They give millions of dollars every year, all to liberals.

Shutting down PP’s funding, and not just at the federal level, but at every level of government, must be our objective. By doing so, we rid ourselves of liberal politicians, of abortion clinics, decrease the percentage of the population who will have abortions, we achieve a greater measure of fiscal responsibility, we get rid of a corrupting influence on our youth, and we get rid of a corrupting influence on our elected officials.

The way forward demands that we continue our focus and passion on this issue, that we continue to highlight the constant abuses of this organization, that we promote competitors who can take the social service and family funds PP leeches where governments insist on providing some funding for such issues, and challenge every abortion clinic’s presence in any of our communities.