There’s nothing particularly new about candidates of both parties adopting strident rhetoric to win over highly partisan primary voters, than softening their tone — and positions — in the general election campaign.
It’s happening again in the 2022 midterm elections. The Guardian reports, “A growing number of Republicans are changing their positions on abortions since the fall of Roe v Wade as midterm elections approach in the US, signaling a softened shift from their previously staunch anti-abortion stances.” (See story here.)
Why? Because polls show a massive backlash, especially among women voters, against the Supreme Court and Republicans.
The Guardian continues, “Since the supreme court overturned the federal right to abortion in June, many Republicans are adopting more compromised positions in attempts to win votes in key states through a slew of changes in messaging on websites, advertisements and public statements.”
Some are doing more than that; they’re scrubbing their websites to hide what they told primary voters. (See, e.g., story here.)
One of these flip-floppers is Tiffany Smiley, who hopes to unseat Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), but has little chance of doing so in a reliably blue state. During the primary campaign, she described herself as “100% pro-life,” but now her tune is, “I respect the voters of Washington state. They decided where they stand” when they passed an abortion rights law in 1991. Don’t believe her. If Washington voters sent her to the Senate, she’d vote for a federal abortion ban that would override the state law.
Voters across the country shouldn’t buy it, either, for three reasons. One, Republicans have a history of deception, which shows they can’t be trusted. Two, there’s no evidence their positions have changed; only their rhetoric has. Three, judge them by what they do, not what they say, and what GOP legislatures are doing is passing draconian laws that threaten to imprison doctors, prohibit abortions even in cases of rape and incest, and risk women’s lives.
All of which proves they’re shackled to an inflexible ideology that makes no allowance for real-life dilemmas like deformed fetuses that are certain to be born dead and may take their mothers with them. God gave people brains to exercise judgment with, and there’s no evidence of judgment in these laws. If women elect these candidates, these laws are what they’ll get.