I'll give you a hint: it has nothing whatsoever to do with abortion. Nothing, despite all the sound and fury on this subject. NOTHING. Indulge me for a moment.
I've read many fine diaries about Planned Parenthood, defending women's right to reproductive choice. Like most Democrats I support this constitutional right and am disgusted by the hypocritical statist effort of Republicans to have government force women to carry fetuses to term, regardless of the circumstances. I share your consternation over the increasingly rapid state-by-state erosion or outright elimination of this right, your horror over the terrorism perpetrated against medical providers of abortion services, and your exasperation over the remarkable success the Republicans have had in promoting a video which, I'm told (I refuse to watch it), makes Planned Parenthood look like an organization where all the employees gather around a table in the morning and eat perfectly healthy babies for breakfast. All that was left out on the cutting room floor, I guess, was a woman in a black pointed hat cackling and gazing in a crystal ball full of helpless babies and saying "I'll get you my pretties!".
But I think the media, the Democrats, and all diaries I've read on this subject have been deceived about the actual reason the Republicans have gone to airwave-blanketing extremes to destroy the Planned Parenthood brand and have even gone so far as to threaten to shut down government over it.
But why all of this focus on Planned Parenthood? I'm thinking it has little or nothing to do with abortion. Screaming about abortions and fetus parts with price tags is just a means to an end. But what end? Bensdad reveals his theory below the Stylized Intertwined Orange Mobius Strips. And I'll explain what a Dalmatian is doing in a diary about Planned Parenthood.
I won't keep you in suspense. They want to defund and destroy Plannned Parenthood for two reasons: 1) because of its Return On Investment or ROI in the parlance of finance and 2) because of its ability to get out the vote (GOTV). I'll address the ROI first.
You see, Planned Parenthood has a political action committee called Planned Parenthood Action Fund (hereinafter, PP Action Fund). In the 2012 elections, of the $5,141,216 the PP Action Fund spent on either supporting candidates who supported reproductive rights or opposing candidates who were antagonistic to such rights, the Return on Investment in these races was a flabbergasting 98.1%. In short, they got their money's worth and were successful in targeting key races where they could make the most difference and elect pro-choice Democrats and defeat antedeluvian shills of the Republican Crimelords.
For example, PP Action Fund spent $62,787.72 in support of Tammy Baldwin (D) and the same amount to defeat Tommy Thompson (R-idiculous) in the race for representation in the US Senate for the occupied state of ScottWalkerStan. Tammy won, and so, in that race the PP Action Fund's ROI was 100%. That is to say that every dollar they spent was effective in helping to deliver the desired result. Were they solely responsible for that result? Of course not, but they knew where to place their bets and undoubtedly helped Tammy beat Tommy.
PP Action Fund's ROI rate of 98.1% bested all of the outside groups you love to hate, including, but not limited to the following: American Crossroads, a 1.29% ROI on $104,746,715 spent (wow, I think they took the wrong road at the split); National Republican Congressional Committee, a 31.88% ROI on $64,653,292 spent (oh, please keep raining millions like confetti on the wrong people); US Chamber of Commerce, a 6.90% ROI on $32,676,075 (This might explain our trade imbalance).
PP Action Fund even bested some outside groups we probably should love, but are having some relationship difficulties with, such as the Democratic National Campaign Committee which reportedly had a 61.66% ROI on the $60,681,466 Debbie spent.
And, oh yeah -- PP Action Fund achieved a higher return on its investment than those sterling, cigar-chomping, financial wizards at the Club for Growth. Grover spent $16,584,305 and achieved a 41.79% return on his investment. While that is much better than the Chamber of Commerce, the achievement is diminished in inverse proportion to the size of the egos in this organization, which wants Atlas (rich folk) to Shrug (stop trickling down on peasants) and repair to Dubai or to a secret sylvan gated community until all the icky, poor people in the United States go away or agree to work for peanuts and smile about it.
And so the Republicans look at the ROI of Planned Parenthood and understand how efficient and effective it has been in picking its battles. They do not want a repeat of this performance now, do they? [All of the above stats are from The Sunlight Foundation]
The second reason the Republicans tremble when they see Cecile Richards marching toward them in stilettos prepared to walk all over them is that the PP Action Fund is highly effective at getting out the vote, especially the votes of young women who tend to vote Democratic. They did this in the races of Senator Franken and of Mark Dayton (D), Governor of Minnesota. Without their help, Minnesota could have gone to the darkside and Al Franken would be home writing a sequel about the liars he has personally known in Congress.
Republicans know this. Rachel Maddow knows this and she is the one that told me. She didn't actually CALL me but she communicated with me through my flat screen which she does regularly! Despite a diligent search I've been unable to locate this program in which she 'splained it all to me just like a Rhodes Scholar should, but it made an impression on me and I've been exasperated to see liberals take the bait and turn this into a debate over abortion.
If I have not yet convinced you that this is not about abortion I have one word to say: ACORN. Remember them? ACORN was HIGHLY effective at getting out the vote of those who identified with the values of the Democratic Party. Who even remembers the ostensible reason ACORN had to die. It was a lie. It was killed because it knew how to get out the vote and was effective at it. This is all a part of a coordinated, nationwide effort to chip away at Democratic constituencies, to suppress the vote and to eliminate an effective opponent.
We have been misdirected. We looked left when we should have looked right.
Granted, many Republicans are true believers in a woman's duty to give birth when the government tells her to do so. But I'll argue they are merely agents of those who wish to destroy government ---because it is the only power the people have-- and who wish to ensure that all economic power inures to their benefit and that of their orange-haired children.
As we all know, the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOES NOT EVEN FUND ABORTIONS, because the Hyde Amendment prohibits it. You know -- the Amendment named after its author, Henry Hyde who was having an extramarital affair while spearheading the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton.
This is not about exalting higher moral values. Look, David Vitter consorts with harlots and tells us to shut the hell up because God has forgiven him; Kevin McCarthy slobbers over Representative Renee Elmers; and Denny Hastert goes to the mat willingly with teenage boys. Republican religious supporters snort meth out of the butt cracks of boy prostitutes and have babies out of wedlock while judging the legal marriages of same sex couples. That's all fine, unless it makes you a hypocrite, which it does. They could care less about values, religious or otherwise. Republicans have only one value: Power. Planned Parenthood is in the way because its Action Fund is highly effective at targeting and bringing down Republicans and at getting young women to vote.
P.S. I've posted a picture of my dear dog Ben which has nothing to do with the diary topic, but it's not completely gratuitous. I post Ben's picture because often some assume from my pseudonym (Bensdad) that I am the father of a human boy named Ben. In previous primary wars (i.e. my candidate is better than yours) some took to snarling "I feel sorry for your son, Ben, that he would have a horrid father like you!". Just so you know, Ben was a Dalmatian, not a little human boy, and I was a great dad. He had a very happy life and I still miss him. If I tell you I support a certain candidate and you dislike that candidate, comments about my parental skills are out of bounds, don't you think?
And Ben was very smart. He never took his eye off of the (tennis) ball. If you threw a ball right but faked left, he rarely fell for the misdirection. We shouldn't either.
Update: Aloha and thank you so much for putting me on the recommended list!
#NaomiKlein #GOPMisdirection #PlannedParenthood #GOTV