Even as recently as six months ago, I could not imagine a presidential election that is more offensively opposed to life as the Obama v. McCain drama. Could you? As if it were not enough to see the Democrats push a candidate whose pro-choice record is unmatched in presidential politics, the Republicans fail to forward a candidate who would bring that record into high relief. This failure will ultimately be the reason that Obama wins the Catholic vote (though I will not be a part of that particular bloc).
Well, things have become even more squalid. MSNBC and CNN have both run stories on McCain’s apparent indifference on the abortion question with respect to his vice presidential selection. With each passing day, Tom Ridge, the former Security of Homeland Security, is looking more and more like McCain’s choice for the second highest office in American politics. When the Weekly Standard asked the presumptive Republican nominee generally about choosing a pro-choice running mate and specifically about selecting Ridge, McCain had the following to say:
I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party…I also feel that–and I’m not trying to equivocate here–that Americans want us to work together. You know, Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders and he happens to be pro-choice. And I don’t think that that would necessarily rule Tom Ridge out.
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I think it’s a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice.
The selection of Ridge would do more than merely display the alleged inclusiveness of the Republican Party, but would effectively exhibit the party’s willingness to put a pro-choice leader in the second highest and, by implication, the highest political office in the U.S. This trend has been swelling in the Republican Party, so this comes as little surprise. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani highlight the emergent prominence of pro-choice figureheads of the Republican Party, which ultimately will lead to the reality (if it is not already a reality now) that there really is no longer a major pro-life party in the U.S.
McCain is not pro-life, not even close. And here I’m actually talking about “pro-life” in the reductionist, minimalistic manner that we see touted in many conservative circles, i.e., as only concerned with abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia. Well, McCain fully supports federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. McCain’s position on abortion is ambivalent at best — he voted against it a few times in the Senate, he boasted to Democrats that he supported the appointment of pro-choice Supreme Court justices, he opposed George W. Bush’s campaign promise to keep the unequivocal anti-abortion plank in the party platform, and he told the media that, hypothetically, he would like his daughter to make the choice of whether or not to have an abortion.
There’s no pretending with Obama. Catholics know that he is not going to change on the abortion issue. But those Catholics who prop McCain up as a pro-life champ or claim to possess the prescience to know that he will not do as much harm as Obama to the pro-life cause are living a fantasy. McCain (among others) is erasing the pro-life traits of the party, which will have far ranging implications beyond a one or two term presidency. If McCain chooses Ridge, what will his Catholic supporters do then? Obstinately cling to their “hero” or have the courage to reject a candidate who does not care for their real interests beyond a campaign bid?
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