Earlier today, David Freddoso tried to work through Herman Cain’s abortion stance, given his confusing statements on the issue over the past several months, reinforced last night. Cain’s comments could be construed as either him being an ardent pro-lifer who opposes abortion in all cases, or somebody who is personally against abortion, but doesn’t think it should be illegal — an effectively pro-choice position held by many liberal Democrats. Go back and read Dave’s post if you want to catch up the details yourself, but the bottom line is that most political observers who have viewed Cain’s statements have wound up completely befuddled. This is a serious problem for his candidacy and needs to be thoroughly addressed immediately.
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If Cain has any hope of getting anywhere in this race, let alone actually winning the nomination, he’s going to have to consolidate conservative support as the anti-Romney candidate and win the Iowa GOP caucus, which has an extremely socially conservative electorate, as demonstrated by Mike Huckabee’s come from behind win last time. If Iowa voters begin to think of Cain as wobbly on abortion, he’ll no longer be a contender for the nomination.
It’s no surprise that staunch pro-lifer Rick Santorum immediately seized on the controversy and released a statement targeting Cain’s abortion comments. But it goes beyond just social conservatives. The inconsistent statements suggest he hasn’t thought the issue through clearly enough, which is also a criticism of his 9-9-9 plan and his shallow foreign policy statements. Now that he’s viewed as a top tier candidate, he won’t be able to get away with winging it.
“I’m 100% pro-life,” Cain tweeted moments ago. “End of story.” But that is nowhere near the end of the story. The question raised by the interviews is not whether he considers himself personally pro-life, but whether he thinks that women should be able to legally obtain abortions if they choose to do so. I’m not saying Cain cannot get past this, but he’ll have to come up with a much better way of expressing his views that people understand, and stick to it. The only thing worse than being pro-choice in a Republican presidential primary is having unclear or inconsistent views.
Another wrinkle — could a renewed focus on abortion in the GOP race come back to haunt Mitt Romney by bringing up his inconsistency on the issue? Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s spokesman seems to think so, if you read between the lines of his statement to Life News in the wake of Cain’s remarks: ““A number of the Republicans candidates have flip flopped or been tripped up on the abortion issue. Governor Perry has been proudly pro-life for his entire career…”
Gee, “a number of Republicans”? I wonder who else he has in mind.
