Weapons of choice

It’s one thing to talk in anti-gun, anti-violence rhetoric, which somehow winds up being associated with liberals. But some of those same people are sure firing round after round at Sarah Palin and John McCain.

Palin, especially, is the target.

NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood and EMILY’s List have Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) in their crosshairs, calling her a staunch opponent of abortion rights.

Funny how rhetoric works…or not. ‘Opponent’ is supposed to be a negative word, and ‘rights’ a positive one. But then this is the same group that have brought us mass murder of unborn human beings for 35 years under the guise of “choice”.

So, is this heated campaign of rhetoric and massive sums of money for fear and smear ads going to work?

Depends on the question….for whom?

Hoping to drive a wedge between the pro-life GOP base and party centrists who favor abortion rights, NARAL Pro-Choice America plans to raise and spend $10 million to communicate to voters in 34 to 35 congressional districts and battleground states. The group is also targeting independents.

Planned Parenthood, another liberal group, plans to spend $10 million on its One Million Strong campaign, an effort to mobilize “pro-choice voters in battleground states,” said spokesman Tait Sye.

And EMILY’s List, a group that backs female Democratic candidates who support abortion, will spend nearly as much as the other groups on its Women Vote! program.

The McCain campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

To say what? Thanks for all the advertising that we stand for life and women’s health?

The pro-abortion groups have plenty of rhetoric though.

“With the most important decision of his candidacy, Senator McCain managed to appear politically expedient, reverse his advantage on experience, damage his potential for growth among independents and undecided voters, and turn off the women who supported Senator Hillary Clinton,” said EMILY’s List President Ellen Malcolm. “If Senator McCain thought that putting Governor Palin on the ticket would be a game changer, he may have been right, but not in the way he intended.

She may be right about that part. Even McCain may not have foreseen just how much Sarah Palin would change the game.

And look at all these headlines. The Washington Post has “Palin Energizing Women from All Walks of Life.” In particular, white women with children at home give Palin a favorable rating of 80 percent.

Then there’s this lead story in the Wall Street Journal: “Palin Lifts McCain’s Support.” A WSJ/NBC poll now has the presidential race even, and it’s the Palin effect that explains the shift.

One-in-four Hillary Clinton voters now say the Palin pick makes them more likely to vote for McCain.

Even some prominent women in the Obama camp.

Even Camille Paglia, a strong Obama supporter, is waxing rhapsodic over Sarah Palin. Paglia calls her “a new style of muscular American feminism”; a “brash ambassador from America’s pioneer past”; an “optimistic pragmatist like Ronald Reagan.” Following Palin’s GOP convention speech, I compared the governor to a Western pioneer version of Margaret Thatcher. I’m glad to see Ms. Paglia pick up on that.

Call it excitement over the new choice.