Department of Stupid Questions I

(Disclaimer: I’m not a political commentator.  I may have completely misunderstood the situation. Still, this question has troubled me for weeks. I’d appreciate your considering it and adding your opinion.)

Are Republican candidates trying not to get themselves nominated this year?  Could the Republican party have said, “There’s no way we can win against Obama.  Even if we won, we don’t want to inherit the economy.  But we have to run somebody.  Who can we throw under the bus?” 

Could all the contenders be saying, “Huh, they want me to run, but I don’t want to be elected.  Let me offend as many people as possible before the convention.”?

If that’s what they’re doing, congratulations to them.  On the campaign trail and on their websites they say over and over again that they abhor various forms of family planning.

How do the voters they’re addressing feel about family planning? 

For up-to-date information, I checked a survey from the Pew Charitable Trusts about the birth control insurance mandate.

I use the birth control insurance mandate as a proxy for opinions on birth control in general. It’s not a perfect match, but the results of the February, 2012, survey below are timely.  The birth control insurance mandate required institutions with religious objections to birth control should be required to provide coverage to their employees. 

According to the Pew Trusts

A narrow majority of men (54%) who have heard at least a little about this issue say religious institutions that object to the use of contraceptives should be given an exemption from the new federal rule. Only about four-in-ten women (42%) agree.  ….Among Catholics who have heard at least a little about the issue, 55% favor …an exemption …, while 39% oppose exempting…. White evangelical Protestants, by an even larger margin (68% to 22%), favor …an exemption. ….By contrast, a majority (55%) of the religiously unaffiliated who have heard about the issue say religious institutions that object to the use of contraceptives should be required to cover them like other institutions…

So more than 50% of men, of Catholics, and of white evangelical protestants believe in limiting reproductive options.  The major Republican candidates are speaking their language.

Here’s who disagrees: women of childbearing age (53%), Democrats (64%), religiously-unaffiliated people (55%), and the health insurance companies.  Insurance companies don’t vote, but women, Democrats and people of less strident religious belief do. 

More Women than Men Vote; Some Women Vote Republican

If I read the numbers right, according to the Census Department, in the 2008 presidential election, women voters overall outnumbered men 

              2008 voters

Women    116,525,000

Men         108,974,000  

Now, not all those 116 million women voted Democratic.  43% of women voted Republican according to the US Statistical Abstract, Table 404: Democratic and Republican Percentages of Two-Party Presidential Vote, by Selected Characteristics of Voters

            Democratic Republican

Women ...57% ..........43%

Men ........52% ..........48%

We know that more women than men vote.  Based on the numbers above, can we assume that to 42% of the 43% of those Republican women voters access to birth control may be an important consideration?  

In that case, all the 2012 Republican platforms (and Ron Paul’s) are destined to offend an awful lot of actual voters.

Republican and Libertarian Anti-Family-Planning Platforms

Here’s what Mitt Romney says:

I vetoed a bill that the Legislature forwarded to my desk. Though described by its sponsors as a measure relating to contraception, there is more to it than that. The bill does not involve only the prevention of conception: The drug it authorizes would also terminate life after conception. … I understand that my views on laws governing abortion set me in the minority in our Commonwealth. I am pro-life.  (7/26/05)

Here’s what Rick Santorum says: 

He cosponsored and strongly supported numerous other bills that defended unborn victims of violence, ensured state laws on parental consent are observed by neighboring states, and championed legislation to protect the conscious rights of individuals and health care providers so they need not choose between their work and their moral principles.  He steadfastly opposed the federal funding of abortion and supported President Reagan’s Mexico City Policy… that kept U.S. taxpayer dollars from going to organizations that perform or promote abortion overseas.  

Here’s what Newt Gingrich says: 

Gingrich pledges to uphold this consistent pro-life standard as president.  …. Gingrich pledges to the American people that if elected President he will (i) only nominate judges to the Supreme Court and federal judiciary who are committed to restraint and applying the original meaning of the Constitution, and not legislating from the bench (ii) select pro-life appointees for relevant executive branch positions, (iii) advance pro-life legislation to permanently end all taxpayer funding of abortion in all domestic and international spending programs, (iv) defund Planned Parenthood; and (v) advance and sign into law a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion.  

Not that what Ron Paul says matters much, but here’s his plan:

* Immediately saving lives by effectively repealing Roe v. Wade and preventing activist judges from interfering with state decisions on life by removing abortion from federal court jurisdiction through legislation modeled after his “We the People Act.”

* Defining life as beginning at conception by passing a “Sanctity of Life Act.”

Because he agrees with Thomas Jefferson that it is “sinful and tyrannical” to “compel a man (sic) to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors,” Ron Paul will also protect the American people’s freedom of conscience by working to prohibit taxpayer funds from being used for abortions, Planned Parenthood, or any other so-called “family planning” program.  

Did someone in their parties tell them, "Okay, fellas.  May the best man lose to Obama?"

Can’t they think of a way to say “If elected, I will not serve?”  Are they desperately saying the most offensive things they can think of in order to lose the nomination?  

Greater minds than mine, at the New York Times, say this

And they hadn’t foreseen that a prolonged exposure to vapid, wacky or outright dangerous ideas would start to repel the swing voters needed by the party in November. The longer this field has talked about birth control, or protected the low tax rates for the rich, the better Democrats have done in the polls.

 Am I missing something, or am I taking the Pew Trust, Census Department and Statistical Abstract numbers to their logical extremes?  More stupid questions to come.