PP doesn't just do abortions; they provide women's health services outside abortion as well. Defunding them means robbing a valuable asset for women's health.
...You really should read the last few pages in the thread, because we've discussed this. 1) Defunding PP is
incredibly popular among conservatives, 2) defunding PP can be reasonably tied to 'no federal funding of abortions', and 3) defunding PP shores up Pataki's massive vulnerability on social issues. If we can ensure that those same federal funds go to other organizations that provide STD testing, etc., then that should alleviate the 'women's health' concern. Nothing's going to persuade the pro-choice hardliners, just as nothing's going to persuade the pro-life hardliners, but there's plenty of room in the middle.
In fact, per this
Gallop longitudinal survey of polls, 50% of America believes that abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances. Parsing it further, three-quarters of that group (37% of Americans) believe that abortion should be legal "only in a few circumstances" (rather than "most circumstances").
Per those May 2016 numbers:
29% of respondents say abortion should be legal under
any circumstances. These are pro-choice hardliners.
12% of respondents say abortion should be legal under
most circumstances.
37% of respondents say abortion should be legal under
few circumstances. This is the group we're appealing to.
19% of respondents say abortion should be legal under
no circumstances. These are the pro-life hardliners.
Politically, targeting that under-represented 37% seems like a pretty decent strategy on social issues. We have a pro-choice reputation coming in, so we know that we're not going to be pro-life hardliners, but our quasi-hardline stance of "no post-viability abortions" should match the 'few circumstances' condition pretty well.
Frankly, we could probably take it further. Further down on the same Gallop poll page, there's a survey that asks "should abortion be generally legal or illegal in a given trimester:
First Trimester (months 1-3 of pregnancy): 61% say 'legal', 31% say these abortions should be illegal
Second Trimester (months 4-6): 27% say 'legal', 64% say abortions should be illegal
Third Trimester (months 7-9): 14% say 'legal', and a whopping 80% say these abortions should be illegal.
And all of these numbers are for the general electorate, not just for the Republican Party. In other words, we could probably extend our hardline stance to say "no abortions after the first trimester" (roughly ~14 weeks?) and still receive the support of the majority for our position even after we get out of the primaries. The trick is to survive the primaries, with a Republican base that wants more stringent abortion restrictions than we're willing to provide.
On the other hand, assuming that most of the 37-percenters vote Republican, we'd actually have a broader base of support than Cruz or the other pro-life hardliners on this issue. I'm not at all convinced our position would be calamitous. The trick would be in outmaneuvering the media, both the mainstream and the talk-radio contingent, by presenting our case to the people in our own words and on our own terms. Twitter should help. Using the plank to ambush the other candidates at the debate would also work. Lots of options generally.
Okay. I'm finally in the right spot to work on this quest again. Can someone recap me the plan and everything? I'm feeling kind of sick (So I'll be working on this instead of sleeping).
Yeah, we don't have a plan. You hadn't yet called the vote on decided what 3-4 planks we'd be focusing on and the timing of when we release them. I believe most votes were for my plan (staggered release, focus on the three Major Planks + 'Defending Life' minor plank), but I haven't counted.
I'm going to be afk for a bit, but when I get back I can probably put some work in to figuring out more of the details of those planks.
