Low Information Voters and the Birth Control Debate

by | Jul 1, 2014 | Carolina Strategic Analysis, Features, Health Care, US Senate, Women's Rights | 11 comments

While a victory for common sense and for the free exercise of religion, the Hobby Lobby case is also a boon for the Hagan campaign, which desperately needs to get women to believe they are being oppressed. It’s a bit of a stretch to call someone else not paying for your birth control ‘oppression’, but liberals have redefined the word in recent years, and the Hagan people need to do everything in their power to whip young, single, professional women into a frenzy.

To do so, they’re going to portray Tillis as a true Neanderthal who not only can’t understand the plight of women in this country, but is actively working to make their lives miserable. Did you know, for instance, that Thom Tillis believes the state has the right to ban contraception? He said so himself! And everyone knows that if someone believes the state has the right to do something, then the state should do it.

This whole birth control debate is a loser for Republicans. It can be made less of a loser if they realize what little the public understands about this issue, and where Republicans stand on it. They need to make it perfectly clear that they want to keep birth control legal and available to anyone who wants it. Over in Colorado, Senate candidate Cory Gardner has gone out of his way to support birth control being available without a prescription even to minors.

That’s probably a no-go in North Carolina because it would offend the Christian conservative base here. Instead, Tillis and Republicans need to make the distinction between having birth control legal and forcing employers to pay for birth control. Then he should talk about personal responsibility, a phrase that gets good reception everywhere. Just don’t overestimate the intelligence of the American voter. The vast majority of political junkies don’t understand the nuances of the Hobby Lobby debate, and neither do I. What hope, then, is there for those who aren’t paying attention? They just assume Republicans hate birth control and want to ban it, which plays right into the hands of the Left. Republicans need to get wise to this little game they’re playing and quit letting themselves be depicted as anti-women. And then they need to pivot to an issue that actually matters.

11 Comments

  1. Ray

    I don’t care whether I’m robbed to pay for some woman’s contraceptive pills or robbed to bail out some reckless corporation. I just want to stop being robbed.

  2. larry

    John, if anyone understands and panders to low information voters its folks like yourself and the GOP. I feel certain, no its obvious, you do not understand the nuances contained in the wrong headed Hobby Lobby ruling. I wonder what John Kennedy would say about the state of separation of church and state in this country today. I wonder what he would say to the 5 Roman Catholics who determined that the Church(any church, Roman or otherwise) dogma takes precedent.

  3. KK

    John, birth control is absolutely an “issue that matters,” as access to affordable and reliable birth control has far-reaching economic consequences for American women and families across the United States. To say otherwise shows how myopic you truly are on this issue.

  4. Mick

    Republicans can’t “quit letting themselves be depicted as anti-women” because they ARE anti-women. Their greeting this SCOTUS decision with glee; their act to limit abortion clinics; their failure ove the last 3 budget years to give teachers raises (the great majority of teachers are female); Tillis’ characterizing a female House reps views as overly “emotional”; even the anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment they pushed vigorously may resonate adversely more with women than with men; and total avoidance in the GOP platform on the equal pay for women issue all demonstrate that the Party really doesn’t give a good GD about woman. Their only strategy lately has been to say they support things (like equal pay or a woman’s right to choose) and then voting against them.

    • Thomas Ricks

      It is the most amusing case of stockholm syndrome isn’t it?

      “Republicans aren’t doing a good job. Democrats would do better. Why, our republican virtuous masters are making so many wrong decisions, but we should be both sided and both sides, both sides bothsides bothsides moderation triangulation bullshit bullshit bigtent together.”

  5. An interested attorney (who does understand the nuances)

    “While a victory for common sense and for the free exercise of religion, the Hobby Lobby case is also . . . It’s a bit of a stretch to call someone else not paying for your birth control ‘oppression’. . .”

    “The vast majority of political junkies don’t understand the nuances of the Hobby Lobby debate, and neither do I . . .”

    No, Mr. Wynne, you do not understand the nuances of the debate, or of the Supreme Court decision; the first quoted passage demonstrates that quite clearly.

    Allowing beliefs to trump scientific fact is not a victory for common sense, nor is allowing a for-profit corporate entity to claim that it has religious beliefs.

    It’s hard to take you seriously when admit you don’t understand the nuances of the topic on which you’re holding forth.

    • Thomas Ricks

      Shh….don’t you understand blue dogs are his target audience and how he’s trying to show how superior they would be if only THEY were in charge of the NC Dem party…

      Well, we see now how that would be, by calling this anti woman insanity,”Common Sense.”

      But don’t spoil the delusion that they’re better.

  6. dennisberwyn

    Well stated John!

  7. geek49203 aka Bad Rubbish

    Too bad none of what will be said by the women’s groups is remotely accurate. But hey, lots of Dem ideas down thru the years were never factually accurate, ie, black people inferior, some people shouldn’t breed, the South will die w/o tobacco subsidies, etc.

    • Troy

      Yes Geek, they once embraced those ideas in decades and centuries past. Then they became REPUBLICANS when they saw those ideas didn’t help anyone and were actually greedy and self centered.

    • Thomas Ricks

      It’s true Geek, some people shouldn’t have bred, but we see the sad results of it every single day.

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