– posted by thehim
It’s absolutely amazing how the abortion issue – and the wingnut inability to understand how extreme and outside of the mainstream the anti-choice position really is – has completely fucked with people’s heads. Angie Vogt at the Red County blog does her best to demonstrate:
It’s been almost a month since the November election, but the recent attention and treatment given to Sarah Palin is shedding some light for me on why Susan Hutchison’s pre-election lead in the polls took a nose-dive just a week or two before election day.
I have to admit that I was as surprised as I was delighted to see that transformation as well. Simply pointing out that Susan Hutchison was a Republican trying desperately to hide her extremism completely doomed her. She got demolished.
Yes, if ever there was a case of connecting the local with the national scene, these two candidates are it.
No shit, that’s how she lost.
This is not to say that Hutchison’s fate is an omen for a Sarah Palin Senate or Presidential run, rather it is an opportunity to understand the rabid religion of the left and, more importantly, to understand the devil behind their religion: abortion.
I can’t think of a more perfect illustration of the wingnut mentality than right there. People voted in droves against our guy, so instead of looking in a mirror and figuring out why they’re so against us, we’re going to dive deeper into the delusions that got us here in the first place.
Polling suggests that most Americans lean right-of-center on the big issues, such as preferring a strong national defense, limited or smaller government, as well as preferring some limitations on abortion, particularly against public funding.
So little wrong in just one sentence. Whatever “right-of-center” means, the extent to which nearly all Republicans prefer a “strong national defense” has made the ideal of limited or smaller government impossible. We have our military all over the world, and refuse to let go of our belief that policing the entire world is the only way to keep ourselves safe. To say that that’s right-of-center would have Jefferson spinning in his grave. Small government philosophy is rooted in isolationist principles. When you’re as non-isolationist as Sarah Palin, you’re not a believer in small government any more. You’re something else. Second, demanding that women should not be able to have abortions could not be in more direct opposition to the ideals of smaller government. Believing that the government has the right to make people’s moral choices for them is the definition of big government. How big of a fucking moron does one have to be not to understand that?
Most Americans have moderate positions on the environment, as well, showing strong skepticism for the man-made global warming hysteria and most do not support same sex marriage.
The link for the climate change poll is 404, so I have no idea what she’s basing that horseshit on, but if she thinks the Republican Party is going to march into the future by opposing same sex marriage, she’s sorely mistaken.
Of course, Seattle-ites are not “most” Americans and probably share more in common with the citizens of Amsterdam, San Francisco and Manhattan than the average American citizen, raising a family, volunteering at their public schools and church and paying a mortgage.
What?!? Then who are all those people with children I run into when I take my son to the playground? And why am I woken up every Sunday morning by the music from the church across the street from my house? And who are all those people whose cars are parked at Roosevelt High School on parent-teacher night? And why do I have to pay money to the bank every month in order to keep living in my house?
The issues of concern for urban, upper income Seattle city slickers are quite different than those for rural and suburban middle income family voters.
That’s certainly true to some extent, but voters everywhere are rightfully suspicious of politicians who’ve decided that the government has the right to make your decisions for you.
In the King County Executive race, Susan Hutchison was by far the superior candidate and the polls reflected that early in the campaign, giving her a nearly ten point lead.
No, Susan Hutchison was ahead in the beginning because she was a TV anchorwoman who everyone knew.
She was the better debater, communicating confidently and with the style of a problem-solver.
Again, she was a TV anchorwoman.
Dow Constantine, on the other hand, has served on the council long enough to be clearly identified as having a hand in the current financial mismanagement of King County resources.
I bet that if you asked King County residents to give a specific example of how the County Council has mismanaged county resources, less than 1% could provide a real example.
The early polls reflected this.
No, the early polls reflected that “the pretty lady from the tee-vee”* had better name recognition.
When Constantine seemed to steer every debate question, be it regarding transportation or flood control, in such a way as to include “abortion rights,” I was certain that even liberal Seattle-ites would see through the naked pandering to his biggest contributors, the pro-abortion lobby.
The pro-abortion lobby is known by another name – voters.
Instead….it seemed to work.
Wow! Pointing out that Susan Hutchison believes that government should deny women a vital and potentially life-saving medical procedure because a 2000-year-old book says so made people not want to vote for her? You don’t say!
The ads began airing about two weeks prior to the election.
Shocking.
Hutchison’s decline in the polls just happened to begin at the same time as NARAL Pro-Choice ads began running for Dow and against Susan.
So here we have a case where a campaign starts running ads. Those ads resonate with people. The candidate running the ads wins. It’s magic, I guess.
Once again, I thought, surely with all of our fiscal problems, transportation problems and infrastructure issues in King County….surely the voters know that Susan Hutchison has no power over taking away a “woman’s right to choose” as King County Executive!
It’s not true that Hutchison couldn’t have undermined abortion rights in King County, but that’s still beside the point. A person who believes that government has that much power to intervene in people’s personal medical and moral choices is not qualified for public office. It’s that fucking simple. And Seattle voters are too involved and engaged with the issues and the candidates for someone like Hutchison to pull it out. Looking back, I really shouldn’t have been so concerned about it. She was doomed.
I hang my head in shame for my naivete.
I guess I’ll join her.
We get it, Seattle, you love abortion and even the suggestion that a candidate has occasional conservative thoughts or has dared to support a conservative candidate is enough to make you flee in disaster film-like droves, hampered only by the loose straps on your Birkenstocks and Crocs.
No, asshole. We don’t love abortion. We hate moral nannies who try to use government to force morality down our throats. You want to come out on the winning end of elections in this part of the state? Stop saying that you believe in “small government” when you don’t. And stop trying to convince yourself that Seattle residents are some odd species of human that are different from everyone else.
The rest of the post is about Sarah Palin and I’ve got to get ready to hang out with family today. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
* h/t to Will Kelley-Kamp for that moniker
