If Republicans want to make Todd Akin their poster boy on abortion, they should go right ahead.
Here's something to watch for at the Republican National Committee meetings: A group of RNC members is introducing a "Resolution on Republican Pro-Life Strategy." In essence, it says the Republican Party should encourage candidates to
talk more, not less or more sensitively, about their extreme anti-abortion positions:
"The Republican National Committee urges all Republican pro-life candidates, consultants, and other national Republican Political Action Committees to reject a strategy of silence on the abortion issue when candidates are attacked with 'war on women' rhetoric," the resolution reads.
Somewhere, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock are probably pumping their fists and cheering. Then again, so are their 2012 opponents, Sens. Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly.
According to the RNC resolution's sponsor:
"Not talking about it has not worked well for us," Barrosse told CNN in an interview. "Not responding has not worked well for us. It's a conversation the party has to have."
She considers the past several years of Republican campaigning and lawmaking to have been "not talking about it"? Akin and Mourdock, forced-ultrasound and clinic-closing laws from Texas to Wisconsin to North Carolina? The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act in the House, which could lead to the IRS auditing rape victims? That's "not talking about it"? Dear heaven, what are these people hoping for? Republican candidates who campaign exclusively outside women's clinics, harassing everyone who goes in?
But please! Bring it. Be honest—tell us how you feel about exclusions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother. Take it the next step and talk about contraception. Keeping showing voters just where the Republican Party stands on this one. I don't think Democrats will have any problem with that at all.
