Clear evidence of how well post-Ian power restoration and cleanup is going in Florida: The major-party candidates in the race for U.S. Senate are back up with commercials raking their opponents.
Marco Rubio, the two-term Republican incumbent, has chosen the tried-and-true path, portraying U.S. Rep. Val Demings, the former Orlando police chief, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Mini-Me, a compliant lefty soldier who marches to the beat of Washington’s Democrat leadership.
By startling contrast, given the issues chief on voters’ minds (inflation, inflation, inflation, crime, election integrity, porous borders), Demings — whose ads often are tagged onto the conclusion of Rubio’s — is all-in on abortion (No. 7 on the Monmouth University scale if you’re keeping score at home).
Demings charges Rubio with advocating an absolute abortion ban, including in (exceedingly rare) cases of rape or incest.
Well. File this under Important if True.
After a 50-year interruption, the American public is being asked again about what limitations, if any, should be placed on medical pregnancy terminations. Much sorting remains, and, plainly, science will continue to burrow into the mystery of life (much to the discomfort of “prochoice” factions).
Sidebar: As harshly as Team Woke judges 18th-century slaveholders for their galloping lack of humanity, so future generations will condemn today’s advocates of abortion on similar grounds.
In the here and now, attacking SCOTUS’ lopsided decision in Dobbs v. Jackson (overturning Roe v. Wade) and those who seek to protect life in the womb isn’t showing up as the blue tsunami-maker radical advocates had hoped.
Demings’ all-abortion-all-the-time gambit seems not to be moving the Sunshine State needle. Respected pollsters see Rubio maintaining a comfortable lead. A Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy survey published Tuesday shows Rubio maintaining a six-point advantage, appreciably outside the 3.5% margin of error. Sampling by 538 shows Rubio up 4.6 points, and softness in Demings’ support.
But what about Demings’ claim? Does Rubio, in fact, call for an absolute ban on abortions? If so, he would be absolutely on the wrong side of current public opinion, which favors at least some allowances.
You will be astonished to learn that the same fact-checking suspects who have exhausted themselves more or less rebuking the claims in Rubio’s ad have done precisely zero investigation of Demings’ charges. (Just kidding.)
What Rubio has done, in fact, is sign on to Sen. Lindsay Graham’s bill that would ban abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. Considering the overwhelmingly vast number of abortions in the United States occur by the 13th week — still awful, but acceptable by Cider House Rules strictures (before the baby is “quick”) — the bill does a couple of useful things. First, it stands as a reasonable and potentially popular alternative to Democrats’ threats to legislate pre-Dodds anything-goes mayhem. Second, it provides Republicans in battleground states a place to demonstrate a willingness to listen.
Naturally, progressive media outlets leapt on Rubio’s shift as a spineless wobble. Wasn’t he the one championing states’ rights on abortion laws? Why, yes, he was. And that remains the best course in post-Dobbs America.
But when the other side talks about legislation throwing re-open the doors of Planned Parenthood to its Project Veritas gory glory, you need a better idea than just-say-no. Graham proposed that better idea, and Rubio joined the small chorus.
What’s in Rubio’s heart remains under construction, as his recent remarks, delivered in an interview with CBS Miami’s Jim DeFede, indicate:
“I am in favor of laws that protect human life. I do not believe that the dignity and the worth of human life is tied to the circumstances of their conception, but I recognize that’s not a majority position,” Rubio told DeFede. “This is not an easy issue. I never said this is an easy issue. It puts two fundamental rights in conflict — the right to choose of a woman and the right to live of an unborn human being.”
Which way Rubio’s conscience leans also is irrelevant, as those who claim Joe Biden can support policies that snuff out life in the womb and still be a communion-worthy Catholic readily remind us. Whenever policy positions and personal preferences go to war, we’ve been trained to respect the policymaker who chooses head over heart.
Masterful work, Marco.
As for your worthy challenger: All available evidence indicates Val Demings is utterly, entirely, totally, and flatly wrong. She should terminate that commercial.
