Arianna, Huffington has seen the exit polls. She has read the unequivocal quotes. Many women who are avowed Hillary Clinton supporters are declaring they won’t vote for Barack Obama in the fall. But what would a McCain President do to Woman, Gays?
I get the anger and the disappointment. But to quote SNL‘s Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers: Really? You’d rather vote for John McCain, a man who has a 25-year history of voting against a woman’s right to choose? A man who over the last eight years that NARAL has released a pro-choice scorecard has received a 0 percent rating (in his time in office, Obama has received a 100 percent rating)? A man whose campaign website says he believes Roe v. Wade “must be overturned”? A man who has vowed that, as president, he will be “a loyal and unswerving friend of the right to life movement”?
Really?
In Clinton vs. Obama, the policy differences were minor (hence the overriding focus on minutiae like flag pins, Bosnian sniper fire, and the real meaning of “bitter”). In McCain vs. Obama, the differences are enormous. Staying the course in Iraq vs. ending an unnecessary and immoral war. Universal health care vs. less regulation for insurance companies. Rolling back the Bush tax cuts vs. making them permanent.
And nowhere is the difference more profound than with reproductive rights.
For anyone — male or female — who cares about reproductive rights, family planning, and women’s health issues, the choice this fall is not even close.
And yet many voters have no idea how extreme McCain’s position on these issues is.
I was in Seattle last week giving a speech at a fundrasing lunch for Votes! Washington, the political arm of Planned Parenthood in Washington State. At the event, the group’s CEO Elaine Rose told me about a poll that Planned Parenthood had commissioned of women in 16 battleground states [pdf]. The results are startling:
Source: huffingtonpost.com via politisite
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