Abortion: Coming to an Election near you!

This is interesting. Newt Gingrich going hard on abortion. In Canada we tend to think that the abortion wars are over. Personally I think we are wrong. I know of some conservative groups working hard to bring abortion back into play in Canada, especially in Alberta. They have been working behind the scenes for the last couple of years to bring abortion back to the front of the stove. We have started to see it happening with some of the federal Tory MP’s. I think we will see it rise up in the next provincial election to the intense discomfort of Danielle Smith.

In any case, this ad, Gingrich is riding high, Romney is perhaps in trouble with the conservative base who have never warmed to him and so Gingrich wants that base. This ad helped Gingrich win South Carolina and you can see the tactic clearly.

Turning Mitt Romney into John Kerry.

A Massachusetts moderate in the US is code for a BIG liberal. Interestingly enough in Canada it works as well, think of our very own Massachusetts moderate a certain, Harvard Professor. If we look at this kind of class warfare we can see that the Liberals have been on the losing end of this battle for a long time. The battle comes down to Elite versus Common and the right has been very good at playing this kind of war. Liberals are really, really bad at it.

We could spend hours talking about the irony of Gingrich posing as a Reagan conservative given his history of criticizing Reagan and given his own personal history, but that seems a waste of time, is this a good ad?

I think the ad is well done, good PQ (Production Quality), nice messaging. I think it frames Romney in a bad way, no matter your position on abortion. It frames him as someone not true to his roots, not true to who his supporters are, not true to the image he is trying to create. I think it really hurts Romney, not just in the primaries but in the general as well. This stuff will really turn off pro-choice independents in the states, people that Romney will really need if he goes against Obama. Gingrich runs the risk of a scorched earth situation that will damage anyone who wins the nomination. Unless as the anti-abortion people hope, the wheel has turned.

When winners quit because they won and losers never quit how long does it take for those positions to flip?