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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ish who wrote (21105)	12/22/2003 7:22:29 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793843

Poison Pills Michelle Cottle is a senior editor at TNR. Post date: 12.19.03 Potentially huge news for women this week: On Tuesday, an FDA advisory panel voted 23 to 4 to recommend permitting over-the-counter sales of the emergency contraceptive commonly known as the morning-after pill. Available by prescription since 1999, Plan B, as the pill is also known, delays ovulation and/or prevents fertilization of an egg if taken up to 72 hours after sexual intercourse. The earlier the pill is taken, the greater its efficacy. If the FDA follows the panel's recommendation--which it typically does--soon women will be able, for about $30 a pop, to obtain Plan B without the delay of procuring a doctor's approval. News of this step toward greater reproductive freedom was splashed boldly across the pages of major dailies around the nation. Reading the headlines, I couldn't help but think that each story should have featured an equally bold subhead declaring: Democrats now totally screwed. Without doubt, finding a scraggly Saddam lounging in a dirt hole behind some rundown mud hut just east of nowhere is the greatest Christmas present Karl Rove could have hoped for. But it is far from the only gift the porcine political strategist has received of late. Even completely disregarding events in Iraq--which Dems desperately wish everyone would do this week--news on the domestic front has overwhelmingly played favored Republicans, particularly in regard to social issues. Many moons ago, when the Dems still dreamed of turning the election discussion from foreign to domestic matters, they were hoping to focus on populist economic favorites like free trade, rising unemployment, and the sad plight of the uninsured. What the Dems absolutely do not need to be chatting about this season (as Howard Dean recently noted) are hot button topics involving God, guns, gays, sex, or abortion. These are dangerous, divisive areas for a party facing yet another identity crisis in its primary, not to mention a general election battle with a popular president who most Americans still seem to regard as a moderate. Unfortunately, events of late have conspired to push such delicate domestic issues to the fore. First the Supreme Court rules that sodomy is legal. Then the Massachusetts high court declares gay marriage to be an inalienable right--at least under that state's constitution. Now, the FDA is pondering making the prevention of a pregnancy as quick and easy as buying nasal spray. Now, you may think all these developments are cause for celebration--time to break out the bubbly and invite your pals over to watch "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." I myself think gay marriage is a smashing idea. And while I get queasy at the idea of some 13-year-old popping into the local Piggly Wiggly to buy a six-pack of morning-after pills, in general, I think anything that reduces the number of surgical abortions performed in this country has merit. And, hey, who doesn't like sodomy? But you know who doesn't regard these developments as good news? Religious conservatives. In fact, they tend to view such social developments as another step down that long road to hell. The Christian Coalition has already issued an "Action Alert" over the gay marriage ruling. A quick trip to AOL chat rooms can give you a sense of how outraged many religious folk are about the possibility of easing access to this "pill to kill." The problem is that these people vote when they get nervous--and not for Democrats. This could prove disastrous for the party come November. It bears remembering that the 2000 election was as close as it was in part because the Republican base didn't bother to turn out. As Karl Rove groused in December 2001, "We probably failed to marshal support of the base as well as we should have. ... There should have been 19 million of them, and instead there were 15 million of them." At the time, Rove fretted that religious conservatives might be returning to the notion that politics is too corrupt to participate in, and he vowed to reach out to white evangelicals in the future. But Rove may not need to reach out to anyone if social conservatives get the sense that the only way to save their God-fearing republic is to make sure that God-fearing Republicans are steering the ship. This could be the final nail in the Democrats' political coffin, not only in the presidential race--where it increasingly looks as though the nominee will be the disastrously secular Howard Dean (see Frank Foer's cover story in this week's issue)--but also in all those nasty little congressional, state, and local battles now raging. It's like the Dems are trapped in the middle of a bad political joke: What do you get when you cross a court ruling on sodomy and a court ruling on gay marriage with over-the-counter sales of emergency contraception? A Repubilcan majority for the next 50 years. tnr.com