GOP pollster: Stop talking about rape

Politico ^ | 01/17/2013 | JAKE SHERMAN and JOHN BRESNAHAN |

[SeekAndFind]

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — It’s way past time: House Republicans need to stop talking about rape.

That’s the message GOP lawmakers got here Wednesday evening from Kellyanne Conway, a top GOP pollster.

Conway dispensed the stern advice as part of a polling presentation she made alongside fellow GOP pollsters David Winston — an adviser to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) — and Dave Sackett. The comment was described by several sources in the room.

Conway said rape is a “four-letter word,” and Republicans simply need to stop talking about it in their races for office.

Several GOP candidates got themselves in hot water during the 2012 campaign by talking about rape. Former Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) said a woman could terminate a pregnancy resulting from a “legitimate rape.” Richard Mourdock, who lost his race for a Senate seat in Indiana, said babies resulting from rape were a “gift from God.”

Last week, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) — an OB-GYN since 1975 and co-chairman of the House GOP Doctors Caucus — commented that Akin was “partly right” in saying that female rape victims have a way of shutting down the body during “legitimate rape” that will prevent pregnancy.

Last Friday, Gingrey’s office provided a statement in which he appeared to distance himself from the remarks, which he said were misconstrued.

[Trailerpark Badass]

We will fulfill the prime directive of our founding documents by protecting the right to life of the weakest among us.

If that has to be reduced to some kind of stupid euphemism, then it's time to start shooting.

[Mr. Lucky]

No, it's not.

It may be a homicide, but murder is defined by statute.

Look, I (and probably several of the other posters with whom you've been corresponding on this thread) don't disagree with you on the moral reprehensibility of abortion. We would merely point out that copping a sanctimonious attitude in an argument and then demanding all or nothing will generally get you nothing.

[EternalVigilance]

Reading down through this thread I'm reminded why the Republican Party is in the mess it's in, frankly, and why the Democrats defeat them so easily.

Here's how a real republican statesman answers questions of this sort:

"These communities [the Fathers of the Republic], by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'

This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to his creatures.

Yes, gentlemen, to all his creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children, and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages.

Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, or none but Anglo-Saxon white men, were entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began, so that truth and justice and mercy and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.

"Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines conflicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence; if you have listened to suggestions which would take away from its grandeur and mutilate the fair symmetry of its proportions; if you have been inclined to believe that all men are not created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated by our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution. Think nothing of me — take no thought for the political fate of any man whomsoever — but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me you choose, if you will but heed these sacred principles. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me to death. While pretending no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated in this contest by something higher than an anxiety for office. I charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any man's success. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy that immortal emblem of Humanity — the Declaration of American Independence."

-- Abraham Lincoln, speech in Lewiston, Illinois, August 17, 1858, four days before his first historic debate with Stephen A. Douglas, Printed in the Chicago Press and Tribune

[AnAmericanAbroad]

And then the headline is:

“A New Direction For Conservatives: Supporting A Woman’s Right To Choose.”

[EternalVigilance]

demanding all or nothing will generally get you nothing.

If you cede inequality towards one innocent person, you've ceded the whole principle of equality. Which means you've got nothing. Especially when the question is one of life and death.

[Mr. Lucky]

Great attitude.

Every day in America 3,700 innocent babies a killed by an abortionist. But it's more important to parade our moral superiority than to develop a rational plan to save as many of those lives as possible?

When I used to play poker, there was no better guy to have sit at the table than someone who would bet the farm on every hand; he was absolutely certain to lose.

[BlackElk]

The pollster Kelly Conway may have a verrrrry Irish name but do not be fooled. She is a long-time GOP-E and pro-abort.

[Uncle Chip]

And yet while all of us have moved on, this GOP Pollster is still talking about rape.

[EternalVigilance]

Your way has held sway for forty years. The results suck.

So, some of us are not playing your game anymore “Mr. Lucky.”

Have a nice evening.

[supremedoctrine]

Exactly====but at this point, sorry to say, the whole GOP position concerning abortion has been “tarnished” by those two, and that was by design from the MSM and the Dems.
Now, anyone who has a pro-life voting background or reputation will look a little too careful and circumspect and basically “dishonest” when the Gotcha Gang from the media asks them pointed questions on the subject.
It’s a no-win situation, and you can be sure the MSM is salivating over the prospect of seeing another Mourdock or Akin appear.
It’s a bit like the damned if you do/don’t dynamic that obtained when Sarah Palin was on the ticket.
Libs, projecting their own inauthenticity, claimed that she was parading her children around onstage,especially the disabled one, exploiting them for political purposes.
Of course if Sarah had resolutely avoided giving her children ANY exposure, especially the disabled one, the Libs would’ve said “WHAT IS SHE HIDING????IS SHE ASHAMED OF HER CHILDREN????THIS LADY IS UNTRUSTWORTHY!!”

[supremedoctrine]

Exactly====but at this point, sorry to say, the whole GOP position concerning abortion has been “tarnished” by those two, and that was by design from the MSM and the Dems.
Now, anyone who has a pro-life voting background or reputation will look a little too careful and circumspect and basically “dishonest” when the Gotcha Gang from the media asks them pointed questions on the subject.
It’s a no-win situation, and you can be sure the MSM is salivating over the prospect of seeing another Mourdock or Akin appear.
It’s a bit like the damned if you do/don’t dynamic that obtained when Sarah Palin was on the ticket.
Libs, projecting their own inauthenticity, claimed that she was parading her children around onstage,especially the disabled one, exploiting them for political purposes.
Of course if Sarah had resolutely avoided giving her children ANY exposure, especially the disabled one, the Libs would’ve said “WHAT IS SHE HIDING????IS SHE ASHAMED OF HER CHILDREN????THIS LADY IS UNTRUSTWORTHY!!”

[supremedoctrine]

Exactly====but at this point, sorry to say, the whole GOP position concerning abortion has been “tarnished” by those two, and that was by design from the MSM and the Dems.
Now, anyone who has a pro-life voting background or reputation will look a little too careful and circumspect and basically “dishonest” when the Gotcha Gang from the media asks them pointed questions on the subject.
It’s a no-win situation, and you can be sure the MSM is salivating over the prospect of seeing another Mourdock or Akin appear.
It’s a bit like the damned if you do/don’t dynamic that obtained when Sarah Palin was on the ticket.
Libs, projecting their own inauthenticity, claimed that she was parading her children around onstage,especially the disabled one, exploiting them for political purposes.
Of course if Sarah had resolutely avoided giving her children ANY exposure, especially the disabled one, the Libs would’ve said “WHAT IS SHE HIDING????IS SHE ASHAMED OF HER CHILDREN????THIS LADY IS UNTRUSTWORTHY!!”

[SaraJohnson]

They have to learn to see the DNC media bait and not bite.

Republicans just ignore the question or laugh at the reporter. Same with their geography (including obscure foreign heads of State) and science (evolution, religion) questions designed to make Republicans look uncomfortable and stupid.

The GOP should keep track of who the political activists, spread their names, and never talk to them again. The answer to abortion questions is that “I’m pro human life.” Details beyond that is none of their business.

[Charles Martel]

Good grief, just have a canned answer and stick to it.

Yes, someone needs to start teaching these idiots some basic PR skills and simple responses to predictable media questions. This stuff used to come naturally to most people with political inclinations, but I guess even that has been dumbed-down.

[Mr. Lucky]

Let’s see. The in your face holier than thou Senate candidate in Indiana, Richard Mourdock, got his ass kicked by a pro-abort Democrat this year in what was an otherwise Republican sweep of the Hoosier state. Our past Governor, who was widly accused by the sanctimonious crowd here of not being sufficiently pro-life, was able to apply his low key style to shepherd the nation’s most restrictive abortion legislation through the state legislature...and you think those results suck.

[Trailerpark Badass]

WTF?

Is that "Winning The Future" or "What The.. .?"

Like we say down south, it's time to get your mind right.

Pussy.