🚀 go-pugleaf

"The ultrasound controversy was probably very unhelpful to the
calculus that Romney will make at the GOP convention. Together with
the "personhood nonsense, this creates a second object of ridicule.”

Can't help but damage Mormon Mitt's presidential chances, either,
because
regardless of McDonnell's future prospects, Willard now has to deflect
accusations that Virgina politics reflect the nation's.

When in reality, Virginia's "society" or "culture" reflects only that
of Louisiana, Mississippi,
Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and
West Virginia.

Maybe Pat Robertson's loyal servile student Bobby can form a national
PERSONHOOD PARTY!

=====================
"Abortion bill hurt McDonnell’s V.P. prospects"

Op-Ed
By Robert McCartney
February 29,  2012

WHEN VIRGINIA Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) asked antiabortion zealots
in the General Assembly last week to soften the controversial
ultrasound bill, he faced a dilemma in explaining his move: Shall I
appear ill-informed or weak-willed?

McDonnell chose the former. He says he just didn’t realize the measure
he had been broadly supporting would require many women desiring to
end a pregnancy to undergo a particularly invasive ultrasound in which
a probe is inserted in the vagina.

Because of McDonnell’s intervention, the bill soon headed for his
signature would require only an abdominal ultrasound, performed
outside the belly. That’s still an outrageous violation of women’s
rights, for abortion defenders (like me). But abortion opponents view
it as a disappointing compromise.

I’m skeptical that the governor’s explanation is the whole story. I
agree with the hard-core social conservatives who said he had
“suddenly gone squishy,” as one blogger wrote, when faced with an
outpouring of opposition. That included having the law (and by
extension, the state) become a punch line for late-night comedians.

Still, I credit McDonnell with being true to the political profile he
presented to Virginia voters when he won a landslide victory in 2009.
He’s consistently called himself a “pro-life” Republican but one who
didn’t want to emphasize social issues.

By acting to temper the bill, while still promising to sign it,
McDonnell honored both halves of that promise. He also signaled his
dislike of an even more far-reaching antiabortion proposal, to confer
“personhood” rights on a fetus. The bill died in the Virginia Senate.

Unfortunately for McDonnell, the nuances of his position drowned
quickly in the raging ideological whirlpool that is abortion politics,
particularly at the national level.

It doesn’t matter to the Democratic Party — much less MSNBC
commentators or “Saturday Night Live” satirists — that McDonnell
repeatedly urged GOP legislators not to “overreach” on social issues.
They don’t care that he’s been emphasizing, every chance he gets, that
his priorities are economic development and other “kitchen table”
topics.

From the left’s perspective, what matters is that McDonnell is
preparing to sign the second bill in a year designed to restrict and
regulate abortions. The earlier one raised building standards for
clinics that perform abortions.

As a result of the uproar, he has probably sacrificed whatever chance
he had of being picked as the GOP vice presidential nominee this year,
said a wide range of political analysts, including Republicans
sympathetic to the governor.

Assuming that the Republican presidential candidate is Mitt Romney, it
would be much harder for him now to tap McDonnell as a running mate.
The two of them would immediately have to devote time to defending the
ultrasound bill, in addition to McDonnell’s controversial 1989
master’s thesis saying, among other things, that working mothers hurt
families.

“I think the moment in the sun is over,” said a Republican source, who
spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the governor’s
prospects.

The ultrasound controversy “was probably very unhelpful to the
calculus that Romney will make at the convention. Together with the
thesis, this creates a second object of ridicule,” the source said.

The other big risk to McDonnell is that hard-core conservatives in the
General Assembly are hijacking his three-year effort to rebrand the
Virginia Republican Party as one devoted to “results-oriented
conservatism” rather than polarizing social issues.

McDonnell didn’t help his own cause when he signed a bill to repeal a
longtime law limiting firearms buyers to one handgun a month— which he
supported when it originally passed.

“McDonnell has done what he could to try to tamp down the social
issues. But still, the number of bills on so many fronts is so high, I
think it’s going to be a tough sell for him to say, ‘I moderated the
crazy,’ ” Del. Robert H. Brink (D-Arlington) said.

Republicans aren’t the only ones in Richmond who risk overreaching.
The Senate Democrats’ move Wednesday to block approval of the budget
could alienate the public, too.

But the GOP is dominant now, and it’s pushing harder than before on
issues that its own leader wants to de-emphasize.

If Democrats win Virginia in November as a result, with both the White
House and U.S. Senate in play, the Republicans might wish they had
better heeded McDonnell’s counsel.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/abortion-bill-hurt-mcdonnells-vp-prospects/2012/02/29/gIQAN8JEjR_story.html#weighIn