Arizona Ground Zero
Trump-endorsed candidates swept every key race in Arizona’s GOP primary last night. Kari Lake won the governor’s nomination and Blake Masters prevailed easily in the Senate race. Rusty Bowers, the GOP speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, was destroyed by a populist conservative candidate 65% to 35%. Bowers was stupid enough to testify before the January 6th Committee and allowed himself to be exploited by Liz Cheney and the conservative-hating Democrats to hurt Trump. How stupid do you have to be to do that?
Of course, the general election in Arizona and around the country is 98 days away in November. Arizona will be key in determining whether the GOP can win a majority in the U.S. Senate. The GOP will lose in Arizona and many other states unless pro- and anti-Trump Republicans close ranks after these contentious primaries. In a narrowly divided America, a divided Republican Party will not prevail against a united socialist left.
Are there enough adults in the GOP to stop the circular firing squads? I pray there are.
Stand For Life
You may have missed the news that Congressional Republicans trounced their Democratic counterparts 10-0 at this year’s Congressional baseball game. It’s a wonder what the GOP can do when there’s no tall grass around.
But old habits die hard. One month past their most significant legal and cultural victory in the past half century – the overturning of Roe V. Wade – a victory for which Republicans and a handful of Democrats fought a relentless intellectual, legal, and political battle, many of their leaders are acting like it never happened. Imagine being part of the decades-long quest for a reversal of the Supreme Court’s 1896 decision affirming segregation, succeeding in Brown v. Board of Education, and then struggling to mumble something to the effect that it’s up to the states to fix the problem.
Imagine thinking that what it will take to win the people’s support after this historic victory on the human right to life is to ignore it all together and put all your chips on economic issues. Go on the campaign trail and talk about carried interest, semiconductor shortages, and misuse of the strategic petroleum reserve. Follow the lead of presidential nominees Dole, McCain, and Romney, who rode social issue silence all the way to second place finishes in national elections.
Can the GOP avoid repeating this feat? Only if they run out of the tall grass, summon their courage, and resist the voices in their head telling them abortion is the third rail of politics. When their opponents dish out talking points about rape and incest, they should respond, “My Democratic opponent wants to talk about a handful of tragic cases. Can he name any baby at any stage of pregnancy he would protect by law – any one of the 900,000 babies who lose their lives to elective abortion every year in this country?”
During the 2016 campaign debates, Donald Trump showed the extremity of Hillary Clinton by challenging her support, which she did not deny, for late-term abortion. Trump said, “Because based on what she is saying, and based on where she’s going and where she’s been, you can take a baby and rip the baby out of the womb. In the ninth month, on the final day and that’s not acceptable.” Clinton had no answer because this is her party’s position.
A GOP unwilling to affirm the Dobbs ruling and stand tall for life this fall and beyond will snatch even more defeats out of the jaws of victory.
But What Happened In Kansas?
Any GOP temptation to run away from the abortion issue will be magnified by the defeat of a pro-life constitutional amendment yesterday in Kansas. Sadly, it wasn’t even close, even though every poll showed we were narrowly ahead. Of course, our side was heavily outspent, and the media was overwhelmingly hostile.
Today, I and other pro-life leaders will examine the results and see what went wrong. The one thing we will not do is abandon the pro-life cause. Take some solace in this: All over the country, abortion centers are closing and babies are being saved in states that have passed pro-life laws!
