Preliminaries Over, the Nation Begins to Look to November

Editor’s note. The following is the lead editorial from the June issue of National Right to Life News. I would greatly appreciate if you share it with family, friends, and colleagues. If you are not a subscriber to the “pro-life newspaper of record,” please call 202-626-8828.
Pro-abortion Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) quasi-exited from the presidential contest with all the lack of grace that we’ve come to expect from the Clintons. (Technically, she “suspended” her campaign.)

There will be more books written about the amazing presidential contests in the Republican and Democratic primaries than the last four competitions put together. Already some of the biggest names in journalism have inked contracts. I firmly believe the one thing they’ll have in common is the conviction that the Clintons poisoned their own well. Only self-importance/self-delusion on a Clintonesque scale can explain how someone with her gigantic initial advantages could lose to a man so inexperienced his resume could easily fit on the back of a postage stamp.

But while the Clintons are no doubt still spinning out scenarios that have Hillary Clinton securing the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, the rest of us have come to grips with reality. I’ve been an observer of presidential politics since 1960 and for sheer unpredictability, no contest comes within a country mile of the battle royale we can anticipate between pro-abortion par excellence Sen. Barack Obama and pro-life Sen. John McCain.

If I may let me suggest there are three fundamental realities that will shape the contours of this fascinating fight. Bear in mind first and foremost that both the Abortion Establishment and its legion of sympathizers in the “mainstream media” know that Obama is their gallant champion and McCain their mortal enemy.

#1. Obama limped across the finish line. At the same time he was enthralling his supporters in St. Paul, Minnesota (which will be the site of the Republican national convention), Obama was winning in Montana but losing in South Dakota. This was not anticipated.

As ABC’s Jake Tapper observed at the time, “Not only did she stomp on Sen. Barack Obama with more than 30-point victories in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico, last night she won a state that Obama was predicted to win by double digits: South Dakota. There he’d been endorsed by practically every state political icon, minus Mount Rushmore—Daschle, McGovern, Johnson, Herseth Sandlin.”

Real Clear Politics put this headline to Washington Post columnist David Broder’s June 5 story: “Obama: A Victor on His Heels.” It was different summary from what accompanied Broder’s story in the Post but far more accurate. It’s hard to miss that the Democratic presidential nominee stumbled his way over the goal line

#2. Senator McCain is the Republican best positioned to compete with a man whose content-free mantra is “change.”

Obama may have feet of clay, but I know from talking to some people I love and respect that they are mesmerized by what they perceive as Obama’s capacity to transcend ... well, fill in the blank. Their brains are in neutral but their hearts are fully engaged. They are persuaded that Obama represents a kind of contemporary Hercules who can clean out today’s Augean Stables—Washington, D.C.—ushering in a “post-partisanship” era.

The irony is there is nothing, absolutely nothing that sets Obama apart from an ordinary run-of-the-mill partisan campaigner. That “nothing new here” is nothing so simple as being rated by National Journal as the number one most liberal senator based on his voting record in 2007. It’s rather that Obama has shown no interest or capacity to “reach across the aisle.”

It is precisely pro-life Senator McCain’s willingness to work with Democrats that so often gets him in hot water with his fellow Republicans. If the goal is to purge poison out of Washington, D.C., it is not Obama, who is the physician, but McCain.

#3. In that vein, the usual rhetorical formula is to cite Obama as the first African-American to be the presidential nominee of a major political party. Yet nearly as remarkable is that a freshman senator, who began running for President one year into his first term, will carry the Democrats’ banner in November. Obama has left virtually no legislative footprint.

Which is, paradoxically, a major reason he’s been so successful. His admirers see this legislative invisibility as proof he has not been corrupted by “the process.” It is the principle of “less is more” taken to the 10th power.

The Obama candidacy will be a stern test for all pro-lifers over the next five months. Sen. Obama is a formidable opponent for many reasons. At the top of that list is that most people have no clue who he is or what he believes. Uncluttered by little things like facts, they fill this empty vessel with their hopes for a brighter day, But we can and we do know one thing for sure. Obama is as staunchly anti-life as any candidate ever to run for President. He is the Abortion Establishment’s dream candidate, and he is at their beck and call night and day. Yet his record on abortion is treated by the mainstream press as if it is the embodiment of moderate, mainstream America.

It’s our job to get the truth out about who these two very different candidates are and the enormity of what is at stake.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@hotmail.com