Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie’s position on abortion is…murky(?) to say the least. He ran as a pro-lifer in the primary against opponent Steve Lonegan. But truthfully, Christie’s been all over the map on this issue.
Christie was pro-choice. But recently he says he’s been pro-life since he first heard his daughter’s heartbeat. Problem is his daughter was born in 1995 and in 1996 he’s quoted by the Bergen Press calling himself pro-choice concerning a question not just about abortion but partial birth abortion.
Christie said he may have been misquoted.
Many people, including Christie’s GOP opponent Steve Lonegan, warned that soon after the primary Christie would tack leftward and become pro-choice once again. Well it’s not there yet but this is certainly a troubling sign. Just two weeks after his primary win, Philly.com reports:
The “Shared Values” section on GOP candidate Chris Christie’s campaign Web site has been removed.
The section contained anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage declarations from Christie, the Republican nominee for governor.
In the section, Christie explained that the sound of his unborn daughter’s heartbeat 14 years ago made him an abortion foe.
Campaign spokesman Bill Stepien said Thursday the section was taken down for technical reasons.
He said the campaign is planning to relaunch the Web site in coming days and was taking down things added to the original site.
Oddly enough, Christie’s contribution page is working just perfectly. Weird, huh?
Who’d a thunk it? A Republican that chats up pro-lifers during the primary and then forgets them in the general election? We’ve never heard of that before.
Look, I don’t think Christie is such a big deal. The problem is that when guys like Christie succeed in the Republican Party it sends a message to the rest of the party that pro-lifers are rubes that can be fooled. And in politics, if something is successful everyone else is going to copy it until it doesn’t work anymore.
June 19, 2009 at 7:07 am
Chris Christie Whitman has been a phony since he started this campaign. Republicans are now supposed to vote for a phony because Corzine will be worse. Many are just choosing to move reducing the Republican ranks even further.
June 19, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I spent far too long as a GOP voter. I'm a semi-regular commentor
Here in Wisconsin, there was a budget amendment that would have blocked funding from going to institutions that perform late-term abortions. There were Republicans that actually kept it from coming to a vote because they didn't want pro-life Dems to get a chance to bolster their credentials with conservative voters.
On top of that, the right to life org spent their week lobbying legislators to INCLUDE a so-called life of the mother exception because it was more politically palatable.
With friends like these…
June 19, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Quite right! Which is why we need more pro-lifers running for office.
June 19, 2009 at 5:16 pm
I'd cut him some slack. Beggers can't be choosers. Bush-Huckabee-Santorum-style social conservatives are just not going to win outside of places like Alabama and South Dakota.
So I really don't care whether a candidate talks a lot about social issues.
With Obama and Pelosi in charge, I know that the Republican candidate (even if he is not an outspoken social conservative) is NOT going to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions; is NOT going to allow churches to lose their tax-exempt status for failing to marry same-sex couples; and is NOT going to appoint the kind of judges that Obama and friends will. Republicans have to find candidates that are principled but also know how to speak to a population that is largely apathetic toward religion and can win in "blue states." Sorry,
June 19, 2009 at 5:21 pm
It also strikes me that Obama did the same thing with the far left when he entered the general election phase. I don't think it's unprincipled, it's just beging shrewd. This is how you win.
Would you prefer him to hold a "family values" rally in Newark and get trounced on election day? I don't see any moral obligation to trumpet your social positions.
In the end, he's on our side, and that's what matters. Cut the man some slack.
June 19, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Omaha Greg,
You might be right.
If so, that's why real change and reform will never come from government but from the well-catechized laity.
June 19, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Well, the biggest pro-life champion in Congress, Chris Smith, endorsed Christie in the primary which makes me think that we have a good reason to believe that Christie is truly pro-life.
June 21, 2009 at 3:17 am
Pro-lifers are rubes. Look at the facts. Republicans controlled Congress and the Presidency for 6 years and you got absolutely nothing to show for it. So, keep doing the same thing and you'll keep getting the same results. The arguments for voting Republican amount to – "Vote for me because this other guy will force you to hold the knife while we cut the arms off this baby, but we will still cut the arms off this baby no matter who you elect." The Republican Party is not pro-life and never has been. Let me say that again in case you didn't get it – the Republican Party is not pro-life.
June 21, 2009 at 3:35 am
Anthony Carmen – "Well, the biggest pro-life champion in Congress, Chris Smith, endorsed Christie in the primary which makes me think that we have a good reason to believe that Christie is truly pro-life."
Yeah, well, Rick Santorum, (the pro-life god of the Senate) endorsed Arlen Specter. A lot of good that did the pro-life movement.
Think, people, think.
June 21, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Geronimo, pro-lifers aren't rubes; they understand that when they vote Republican, they have to watch Republicans like a hawk.
It's not like a pro-lifer could, in conscience, vote Democratic.
The answer is for more real pro-lifers to seek elective office. A daunting prospect for the individual, to be sure, but it's the only way.
June 21, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Paul,
How about voting for neither?
June 21, 2009 at 9:02 pm
If just people do not vote, how can they hope for just results from an election?
June 22, 2009 at 3:08 am
Geronimo –
Your suggestion to vote for neither is about as wise as a write-in vote for the dead fly that Obama killed on national TV…
What does refusing to vote gain?
June 22, 2009 at 3:47 am
Paul and TragicallyUnhipMom –
Who said anything about refusing to vote? I said vote for neither. And if you want to vote for the worthless Republican, go ahead, because it will be the same as if you voted for the dead fly.
June 22, 2009 at 3:53 am
I don't vote for "worthless" candidates of any party.
And who do you have, not a Republican or Democrat, who has a real chance of being elected?
June 22, 2009 at 4:38 am
Paul,
I guess it depends on how you define "worthless". I consider Specter (endorsed by pro-life god Santorum with the argument that "we must keep the Senate in Republican hands") to be a worthless candidate. So, we kept the Senate in Republican hands in 2004, what good did it do us?
I also consider McCain a worthless candidate. Funny how the pro-life establishment wanted nothing to do with him until he became the Republican nominee. I guess the pro-life establishment would have gone for Specter for President also, (as long as he was still called a Republican).
How low can we set the bar? Is there any Republican out there that you would not support, that you would finally say, "I will vote for someone else even though he has that dreaded disease – NO CHANCE of WINNING."
Ah, somehow these discussion on elections always end up in what I call the "horserace" argument. This is the argument that the job of you – the voter – is to pick the winner (like I do at the horseraces), and if you vote for someone who "has no chance of winning" you are somehow:
1. wasting your vote
2. voting for the child-killing, homosexual Democrat.
3. an idiot.
Well, my job as a voter is not to pick the winner – it is to vote for the best candidate. If all of you pro-lifers had voted for the best candidate in every election of the last 35 years, we wouldn't be in the situation we are in now.
So, yes, to answer CMR's initial question, the pro-lifers are rubes who foolishly will vote for any corpse the Republicans put up for any election in any year. And the Republican Party knows this – that is why they will continue to speak the minimum pro-life talk necessary to get the rube vote, but then will do absolutely nothing of substance to end abortion once they are in office. And the Democrats know this also. They know that the Republicans would never actually end abortion, because if would mean the end of the Republican Party.
As I've stated before, the Republican Party is not pro-life – never was and never will be.
Please, people, study some recent political history, and then do something unheard of – think.
June 22, 2009 at 5:15 am
Geronimo, I always thought it was a bad idea for Santorum to endorse Specter. It cost Santorum his seat (rightly) and having Specter stay in the Senate did the GOP little if any good.
As for McCain, I endorsed him only after he picked a pro-life running mate — a decision that will have consequences long after McCain has left the scene completely.
The Republican Party has a pro-life platform, but it's true that not all its candidates — or elected officials — are pro-life in a meaningful sense. This is a problem that admits of a solution: more pro-lifers should seek elective office as Republicans.
Unlike the Democrats, a truly pro-life Republican can actually get nominated and elected, and do some good in the world.
By all means, vote for the best candidate of whatever party. But it's foolish to categorically rule out the Republicans.
And pause for a moment, please, to recognize that people who have come to differing conclusions than yourself may have actually done so by thinking.
June 22, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Paul –
For years now, decades actually, the pro-life mantra has been "the answer is for more real pro-lifers to seek elective office". But if the facts are examined, every viable pro-life candidate that has achieved or come close to achieving an office that would do some good has been either sucked into the vortex of the party line or knifed in the back by the powers that be. Examples: Santorum – the vortex; Pat Buchanan – knifed; Ron Paul – knifed; Michael Farris – knifed; Sarah Palin – vilified by her own party members (and still is being vilified even long after the election). And the list will go on and on. Compare the Republican party today to the Democratic party back when they gave up the pro-life platform – the Republican party today is so much worse than the Democratic Party back then. Have the courage to stop holding your nose, leave the stink, and start a new, truly pro-life party where everyone in the party supports the platform.
June 22, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Is that a project you've started, lady, or is it just a task you want someone else to do?
Perhaps as a pro-life Republican candidate myself, I'll fall prey to one of those fates you mentioned, but it won't be for lack of trying.
But one "truly pro-life" presidential candidate won't be sufficient. We need pro-lifers at every level of government. We need pro-lifers on library boards and park districts, and at every level on up.
June 22, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Not voting is also an option, and it speaks just as loudly as voting for a particular candidate. Republicans count on the portion of voters who vote solely on the life issues (I've heard it's as high as 8%). So imagine, if those 8% had all sat out the last election since there was no pro-life candidate, McCain would have lost by about 15%! And imagine further, if those 8% had voted for Obama out of protest – McCain would have lost by around 20%! Imagine the message that would send – that the candidate they nominated is not acceptable. If we ever want real pro-life candidates we need to demand them. As long as we vote for republicans out of fear of the democrats there is no reason for them to support us. It's that simple, and unless we realize that, indeed we are rubes.