By DEXTER DUGGAN
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a liberal Democrat representing high-rolling Nevada and low-balling Obama, is a downcast sort of politician who gives the image of undertakers a bad name.
Funeral directors may speak softly and do the best they can to comfort the unavoidably bereaved. But the sometimes lifeless-seeming, murmuring Sen. Reid takes custody of legislation and either passes it with prettified, rouged-up lies — think of “cost-cutting” Obamacare — or smothers Republican bills in the crib. On occasion, just about literally so.
Last year the Republican-led U.S. House passed and sent to Reid’s Senate a bill to restrict horrifying late abortions, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The hollow Reid just set the measure aside, gasping for breath in Reid’s closet, as he often does when legislation would embarrass or trouble the left-wing radical Senate Democrats he leads and their grievance-filled commander, Barack Obama.
Rather than spend his White House years healing divisions and inspiring cooperation, the hard-left ideologue Obama has excelled at ripping open wounds and taunting the nation to just try to stop him. Hardly a way to win voters’ favor.
Much current political commentary speculates about the Republican Party’s possibility of capturing a Senate majority in this November’s elections, upsetting the current composition of 53 Democrats, 45 Republicans, and two Independents who caucus with the Democrats.
Speaking with The Wanderer about some pro-life efforts to help GOP candidates win control of the Senate, a national pro-life spokeswoman said, “This is all part of our plan to ensure that Harry Reid is not the Senate majority leader next year.”
During an August 1 telephone interview, Mallory Quigley, communications director of the national pro-life, Washington-based Susan B. Anthony List, agreed that electoral prospects look poor for the Democratic Party this fall, although it’s too soon to make a definitive prediction.
“It really is [the Democrats’] election to lose, and pro-lifers have a lot of opportunities this election cycle to win. . . . We are putting these pro-abortion candidates” on the defensive because of their extreme positions, Quigley said.
“They are certainly on the defense on a lot of issues” by having to “explain their radical positions to their constituents,” she added.
Current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) pledged that if the GOP takes control of the upper chamber next year, the pain-capable abortion bill will be voted on there, Quigley said.
Although numerous political offices are on the ballot around the nation this November, from city and county to national, Quigley said, “What’s probably most important to your readers. . . . It’s definitely the Senate. . . . That’s the most newsworthy.”
She added later in the interview that momentum has been building for the pain-capable abortion restriction, with 13 states already having passed their own bills on the issue.
“If we can flip the Senate . . . they could vote on it in the next session,” Quigley said. However, the measure presumably still would have to wait for radically pro-abortion Obama to depart the White House before it could be signed into law.
The Susan B. Anthony List website (sba-list.org) says: “The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (S. 1670) would protect unborn babies beginning at 20 weeks — more than halfway through pregnancy — and is the Susan B. Anthony List’s top legislative priority.
“This landmark legislation, passed by a wide margin in the House in a historic June 2013 vote, would save roughly 18,000 lives each year. Strong scientific evidence reveals that an unborn child can feel excruciating pain by at least 20 weeks,” the site says.
The Wanderer asked Arizona conservative political strategist Constantin Querard to comment on how races nationally have been going during this year’s primary-election season, and what to expect in November. His reply noted that Democrats pretty much have made themselves into the pro-abortion party while Republicans are pro-life.
“I wish I had more specifics,” Querard said, “but, frankly, most of the high-profile [primary] contests you read about are Chamber [of Commerce] vs. Tea Party types and feature pro-lifers on both sides. There have probably been a couple of races where someone was pro-abortion, but I can’t think of any.
“So I’d say we’re doing pretty well,” he said. “It’s the general election where we’ll have to battle. Most of those high-profile U.S. Senate races are us versus them.”
Quigley said there’s an opportunity to double the number of pro-life women in the Senate “in one fell swoop, in one day” this November, if GOP candidates Terri Lynn Land in Michigan and Joni Ernst in Iowa win their races and join current Senators Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.) and Deb Fischer (R., Neb.).
In addition, pro-life canvassers are putting pressure on incumbent Senate Democrats Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and Kay Hagan of North Carolina, she said.
Hagan’s pro-abortion stand is “wildly out of step with her constituents in North Carolina,” Quigley said.
“We see that all the time, that these . . . candidates strategically withhold their position…because they know it’s unpopular,” she added later in the interview.
A Wall Street Journal article posted July 13 noted that the strongly pro-abortion “EMILY’s List” political-funding group “is backing more Senate candidates in the South than ever in its three-decade history,” and “is the largest single contributor to four Southern candidates, including North Carolina’s Sen. Hagan. Yet none of them are talking much about abortion.”
Quigley told The Wanderer, “We see these as strategic opportunities to defeat senators who are not representing their constituents.”
Increasing recognition of the facts about preborn babies moves public awareness, Quigley said.
Citing a July 31 segment on the Today national television program, “New clues reveal the secret life of the baby in your belly,” Quigley said this was a powerful message about prenatal development. It showed a Columbia University expert on fetal and newborn learning, Dr. Bill Fifer, saying, “Everything that a newborn baby does, a fetus has pretty much done already.”
The program is “watched by millions of people across the country,” she said.
A Wave?
Asked if she thought November will deliver a “wave” election sweeping Republicans into greater power, as the 2010 elections did, Quigley said, “I certainly hope so,” but “It’s too soon to tell, I couldn’t make a prediction. . . . But we really do have an opportunity to make a major, major” gain.
“We’ve really got an unprecedented effort right now to reach individual voters,” she said. “. . . That’s where our focus is.”
If pro-life GOP candidate Elise Stefanik, 29, wins in New York’s 21st congressional district this November, Quigley said, she’d be the youngest woman serving in the House. Neither of the two main candidates she defeated in the primary election was pro-life, Quigley said.
“We’ve been involved up there” in that district in the last few election cycles, she said.
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