Blue sky at morning
Before Republicans uncork that champagne bottle they’ve been saving for their latest lib-owning schadenfreude party, they may want to take a look at this. In the immediate aftermath of the leak of the draft opinion where SCOTUS repeals Roe v. Wade, Yahoo has finally done a poll relevant to the event — and it is decidedly double-plus-ungood for the Party of Orwellian Dystopias.
It was one of those “if the election was held today” polls and it has the Republicans losing decisively. The survey of 1,577 U.S. adults was conducted from May 3 to May 6 and found that registered voters preferred a generic Democrat (44%) over a generic Republican (39%) by 5 percentage points.
But the results get really brutal when Roe is obliquely mentioned. When the same voters were asked to choose instead between a “pro-choice Democrat” and a “pro-life Republican,” support for the GOP candidate fell breathtakingly to a pathetic 31%, while Democratic support held steady — more than doubling the gap between the two candidates. That’s gotta hurt, Gene.
That is why this latest assault on Roe, even if it ultimately fails, needs to be a major staple of political ads in the run up to the midterms. It’s potent stuff. Clearly Republicans made a serious blunder by mooting a hot-button issue like the repeal of Roe v. Wade this close to the election. Strategically speaking they really should have waited until after the election. This blunder may cost them badly in November. That’s fine with me. As Napoleon put it, never interrupt your enemy while he’s making a mistake — it’s bad manners.
Despite the known fact that 69% of Americans say they would oppose Congress passing a law that bans abortion nationwide, Republicans seem hellbent on their own destruction. The Washington Post reported this week that conservative groups have met with their congressional allies about a possible nationwide ban on abortions if Republicans retake power in Washington in November. Well, it’s blue sky at morning, and I, for one, don’t plan to warn Republicans that, in politics anyway, that means a big, bad storm is coming for them. Let them find out the hard way at the polls in November. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.