Thompson and the NRLC
EmailIt’s worth watching whether the National Right-to-Life Committee’s endorsement of Fred Thompson pays off with any votes. Two things we do know are that Rudy Giuliani, naturally, is more vulnerable among anti-abortion Republicans – and that so far they’ve been mightily fractured on an alternative.
Among Republicans who support legal abortion, Giuliani has 39 percent support in our last ABC/Post poll; among anti-abortion Republicans his support declines to 28 percent, vs. John McCain at 18 percent, Thompson at 15 percent, Mike Huckabee at 14 percent and Mitt Romney at 12 percent. If that all were to coalesce, it certainly could add up to hurt Giuliani.
Overall, as noted in our "social issues" analysis last week, 55 percent of Americans support legal abortion – steady the last five years, and almost exactly the 12-year average in ABC/Post polls. That ranges from a high of 78 percent of liberal Democrats to a low of 31 percent of conservative Republicans.
Among all Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 43 percent say abortion should be legal in all or most cases; 56 percent illegal. The "illegal" number includes 38 percent who say it should be illegal in most cases, and 18 percent who say it should be illegal in all cases.
In a general election match-up, Giuliani leads Clinton by about 2-1 among Americans who say abortion should be illegal in most cases; but, interestingly, he and Clinton roughly split those who say it should be illegal in all cases. Presumably that's because, seeing no meaningful difference between the two on abortion, they're discounting it in their preference.
Equally interestingly, though, is that among these especially strong abortion opponents, Thompson and Clinton (and Romney and Clinton) also are about even. In our poll it’s McCain, not the Right-to-Life Committee’s choice of Fred Thompson, who does best against Clinton among the strongest abortion opponents.
See also Jake Tapper's piece on our politics page.
USS Gabrielle Giffords Honors Courage 
Mitt Romney's Full Speech at CPAC 2012
when are the republican candidates, especially that brain dead, guilinai going to understand that your scare tactics about terrorism will no longer impress the citizens of this country. do you really think that everyone except yourselves are stupid. bush ruined that tactic for all of you. please remember, mr bush and mr chaney along with that idiot rumsfeld, are totally responsible for this fabricated war, and for the escalation in terrorism. there was ABSOLUTELY NO terrorist in iraq before we went there and created the atmosphere for them. we were, then, and are still under no threat of them following us here to cause us further problems. if it would be so easy for them to come here without us knowing it, just what does that say about our homeland security dept. why in GOD”S name would they even try to follow us here? they want one thing and one thing only,,, for us to get out of iraq. please get off of this bullsh– and campaign on things other than those worn out scare tactics. but then ,of course, mr bush has been programmed to do this by his training in the skull and bones society he has been initiated into. he has ruined it for all republicans. his father couldn’t overthrow the UNITED STATES govt and recall the constitution and neither will his son or anyone else that belong to these secret societies. you should campaign on what’s important to the american people, not what’s important to a select group.
Posted by: philly in pa | November 14, 2007, 10:35 pm 10:35 pm
I loathe idiots who make statements like their were no terrorists in Iraq, really philly? Were you there? Do you know that for a fact there wasn’t a single terrorist in all of Iraq? Diversity! philly, 300 to 400 thousand Kurds in a mass grave bigger then any of Hitlers because of what terrorist.. I mean dictator? No harboring or moving of weapons of any kind for any type of terrorist operations? Shouldn’t you be waiting for CNN to tell you how to think. Its not ok to be against a war because it satisfies your cultural urning for your very own Vietnam to protest. Bet you’d love to stick flowers into guns philly. Look at history, know your facts. Compare America’s actions to the rest of the worlds governments as a whole, percentage wise. You sick liberals are comparing Stalin or Hitler to Bush! They are simply not in the same category. Maybe Clinton if you feel every human has the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness & there’s no official way to determine when human life really begins…Think Terri Shivo brain activity boys & girls! (ding! Partial birth & federally funded Abortion) AKA A womens right to murder her unborn child by having a doctor suck its brains out & slice it into tiny pieces & not forgetting to send those precious stem cells to Michael Jay Fox all because its convenient to her in a…(In the matrix Agent Smiths voice) economical, personal, social, career option kind of way. ! Yeah that procedure! & you sick twisted self obsessed responsibility avoiding idiots rally against the death in war…pathetic. A war waged amongst a culture that tolerates mass suicide under any circumstances. That harbors large groups of militant muslims carrying out literal militant conversion aspects praised in the actions of the prophet himself, in the Koran. The US historically does not & hopefully will continue to not tolerate that kind of terrorism even if it makes you angry. The US has more power then anyone & has abused it far less then countries like China or Russia or Germany or Italy or France or England or etc,etc,etc & they don’t burn there own flags as much as we do. After all, you could always listen to Green Day’s American Idiot, or find guns to put flowers in.
Posted by: Mark Voita | November 15, 2007, 5:09 am 5:09 am