With a 5-4 split on the United States Supreme Court regarding issues of "choice", many believe this is a critical election. The new president could make several Supreme Court appointments, and those appointments could determine whether Roe v. Wade survives or is overturned. With the two chosen nominees, voters have a clear choice on the matter. McCain is anti-choice and Obama is pro-choice.A new Greenberg-Quinlan-Rosner poll, commissioned by NARAL Pro-Choice America, shows that while the war and the economy will be important issues in the 2008 election, the issue that decides the election could well be the issue of a woman's "choice".
The G-Q-R poll conducted a survey of 1,788 likely voters -- 1,000 likely voters plus oversamples of 424 Republican women and 364 Independent women. The voters surveyed were in the swing states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
The poll shows that choice could be important in these swing states in helping Obama to build a winning coalition. Here are the key findings of the poll:
Once balanced information about Obama and McCain’s respective positions on choice is introduced, Obama gains 6 points overall, with his lead in battleground states expanding from a net 2 points (47-45 percent) to a net 13 points (53-40 percent).
The issue of choice moves the swing vote and generates crossover support. Obama gains 13 points among pro-choice Independent women (who make up 9 percent of this electorate) and 9 points among pro-choice Republican women (who account for 5 percent of this electorate). When these groups are combined, this movement equates to a gain of 1.6 points overall in the general election race against McCain.
Choice can also help Obama consolidate his base—Obama gains 6 points among Democratic women after balanced descriptions of the candidates’ positions on choice is introduced.
Despite the fact that the national focus seems to be on the economy, among pro-choice Independent women, pro-choice Republican women, and liberal to moderate Republican women, the issue of abortion produces a larger advantage for Democrats than the economy, the war in Iraq, or health care. Moreover, among these three groups critiques on McCain’s anti-choice position are the strongest attacks against him, trumping attacks on the economy, the war, and special interests.
This is the most important election for women's rights in years. If McCain wins, women's rights could be set back 50 years. It is up to all of us to see that doesn't happen. For women's rights, civil rights and the benefit of all Americans, we must elect Barack Obama as our next president.
Great, the right to kill babies is the driving force behind who gets elected. Then you want all kinds rights for terroist. U libs have everything so backward.
ReplyDeleteUh, celtictexan, "the right to kill babies"? Pardon me, but George Bush's adventure in Iraq has killed far more babies than any abortion doctor in this country ever has. And parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, etc.
ReplyDeleteAnd to clarify, we want rights for people who have been accused of being terrorists. This is an important distinction, because as you know, the people doing the accusing are the same keystone kops who told us that Iraq was swimming in WMDs, that Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons, that the war would be over quickly and be paid for with Iraqi oil revenue, that we would be greeted as liberators, that we could casually disregard centuries of sectarian strife because the Iraqis' desire for freedom would trump everything else, and that we would catch Bin Laden "dead or alive." Off the top of my head. And it's already been reported that several of the detainees we swept up in Afghanistan were people who were fighting for our allies, who got fingered by people who were looking to settle grudges. Here's an excerpt from a McClatchy article on the subject:
[Mohammed] Akhtiar was among the more than 770 terrorism suspects imprisoned at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. They are the men the Bush administration described as “the worst of the worst.”
But Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. The Islamic radicals in Guantanamo’s Camp Four who hissed “infidel” and spat at Akhtiar, however, knew something his captors didn’t: The U.S. government had the wrong guy.
“He was not an enemy of the government, he was a friend of the government,” a senior Afghan intelligence officer told McClatchy. Akhtiar was imprisoned at Guantanamo on the basis of false information that local anti-government insurgents fed to U.S. troops, he said.
An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men — and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds — whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.
McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials — primarily in Afghanistan — and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.
This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.
So, yeah, we're going to insist that Bush uphold our constitution and the basic human rights of these detainees. If you have a problem with that, you're more than welcome to emigrate to a country that doesn't have habeas corpus, like China.