With this whole new controversy about the Indiana Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock and his comment about rape and a child being born being God's will I just have to wonder why these guys even both giving answers to these questions.

That is now the second Senate race, along with Akin in Missouri, that may very well tip because of the way they answered a question about rape. Even if you don't believe in being PC, just give an answer that is tolerable to the masses and move on.

If Republicans don't take back the senate and it is because of these 2 states then the religious right needs to have a serious pow wow with future candidates about how to answer these questions in a way that doesn't offend their base but also deals with the political realities that you can't inject God into anything involving rape. Period.

The Senate deals with approving Supreme Court Justices, and Ginsberg will never make it through a Romney administration. He will have the opportunity to replace her and solidify a 6-3 court for a generation, but the Akins and Mourdock's of the world are trying to see to it that Pat Leahy continues to be the chairman of the judiciary committee that deals with this stuff. It is just mind boggling.

I have never seen politicians be as tone deaf as some of them have been this cycle. It is stunning.

for the life of me I can't understand why one of the parties just doesn't say, "ya know what, fuck you fringe. We're going to take the best of both parties (see: socially liberal / fiscally conservative) and we're going to clown-stomp in elections. deal with it"

Well the war on women is back.

Willard apparently just cut a commercial for Mourdock yesterday (of all days) and the calls are ramping up for him to cut ties with him.

That was a close Senate race, and this could tip it.

The bigger picture though is women are many of the swing voters that both BHO and Willard are going after, and liberals are already foaming at the mouth to drive a wedge between Romney and them over this.

Memo to all Republican candidates, there is zero upside in talking about rape, so don't.

THis is an un-needed distraction with only 2 weeks left in the race.

The problem with talking abortion is this, I would say the vast majority of women are against abortion, however, they want it to be THEIR choice to be against it, so even though they believe the same way Republicans do, they'll vote for the person that is giving them the choice to be against it.

se-alum;1303497 wrote:The problem with talking abortion is this, I would say the vast majority of women are against abortion, however, they want it to be THEIR choice to be against it, so even though they believe the same way Republicans do, they'll vote for the person that is giving them the choice to be against it.

xactly

Elected officials don't have the power to give people the choice or not. Do they?

Con_Alma;1303508 wrote:Elected officials don't have the power to give people the choice or not. Do they?

Theoretically a senate candidate does in the sense that they will be voting on the next supreme court justice. If a pro-life judge in the mold of Scalia/Alito is appointed in place of Ginsburg it would give the court 5 votes to do away with Roe should it choose to revisit the case. Considering Roberts has shown he has no problem with doing away with cases many consider to be settled law (Citizens United overturned 100+ years of precedent) it is not unreasonable to think they would find a way to revisit Roe if they had the votes.

Epic dumbassery on Mourdock's part. It's like the Pubs are trying to take a dive in the Senate this year on purpose or something. :rolleyes:

fish82;1303519 wrote:Epic dumbassery on Mourdock's part. It's like the Pubs are trying to take a dive in the Senate this year on purpose or something. :rolleyes:

I know.

Missouri was a sure win to take a seat back as Akin had been polling way ahead of Mccaskill up until his foray into "forcible rape". Now she is going to keep her seat most likely.

Indiana actually has been close, but there is no way I see a Democrat having won that seat up until now. Whether this puts Donnelly up or not I don't know, but the fact it is all the sudden a possible lost seat is a sign of how big a dumb ass Mourdock was by making a comment like that even if it is being twisted in the media. You can't say anything this close to an election that can be so easily twisted if you are a politician. He should have known better.

With all these and Scott Brown taking a dive in Massachusettes it is looking like the Democrats will keep the Senate most likely in a year I thought that would be impossible given the math of how many seats they had to defend.

Even if Romney wins the presidency his administration is dead on arrival if they can't get control of the Senate because Harry Reid is a mortal enemy of Romney and has already vowed to obstruct any and everything he wants to do.

Most of the budget stuff Romney wants to do they will just ram through with reconciliation to avoid the filibuster, but if they can't get the Senate that goes out the window along with his 1st 2 years in office before the 2014 mid terms.

IggyPride00;1303543 wrote:I know.

Missouri was a sure win to take a seat back as Akin had been polling way ahead of Mccaskill up until his foray into "forcible rape". Now she is going to keep her seat most likely.

Indiana actually has been close, but there is no way I see a Democrat having won that seat up until now. Whether this puts Donnelly up or not I don't know, but the fact it is all the sudden a possible lost seat is a sign of how big a dumb ass Mourdock was by making a comment like that even if it is being twisted in the media. You can't say anything this close to an election that can be so easily twisted if you are a politician. He should have known better.

With all these and Scott Brown taking a dive in Massachusettes it is looking like the Democrats will keep the Senate most likely in a year I thought that would be impossible given the math of how many seats they had to defend.

Even if Romney wins the presidency his administration is dead on arrival if they can't get control of the Senate because Harry Reid is a mortal enemy of Romney and has already vowed to obstruct any and everything he wants to do.

Most of the budget stuff Romney wants to do they will just ram through with reconciliation to avoid the filibuster, but if they can't get the Senate that goes out the window along with his 1st 2 years in office before the 2014 mid terms.

I'm not sure it will carry as much weight as you think it will. Stupid, yes, election loser, I doubt it. Abortion comes up in every single election, but it typically only holds water with extremist on each side.

I think these two cases have less to do about "choice" and more to do about showing how stupid they are.

IggyPride00;1303543 wrote:I know.

Missouri was a sure win to take a seat back as Akin had been polling way ahead of Mccaskill up until his foray into "forcible rape". Now she is going to keep her seat most likely.

Indiana actually has been close, but there is no way I see a Democrat having won that seat up until now. Whether this puts Donnelly up or not I don't know, but the fact it is all the sudden a possible lost seat is a sign of how big a dumb ass Mourdock was by making a comment like that even if it is being twisted in the media. You can't say anything this close to an election that can be so easily twisted if you are a politician. He should have known better.

With all these and Scott Brown taking a dive in Massachusettes it is looking like the Democrats will keep the Senate most likely in a year I thought that would be impossible given the math of how many seats they had to defend.

Even if Romney wins the presidency his administration is dead on arrival if they can't get control of the Senate because Harry Reid is a mortal enemy of Romney and has already vowed to obstruct any and everything he wants to do.

Most of the budget stuff Romney wants to do they will just ram through with reconciliation to avoid the filibuster, but if they can't get the Senate that goes out the window along with his 1st 2 years in office before the 2014 mid terms.

Agreed on all counts. The GOP should have been able to get to 52-53 seats in their sleep this cycle.

se-alum;1303553 wrote:I'm not sure it will carry as much weight as you think it will. Stupid, yes, election loser, I doubt it. Abortion comes up in every single election, but it typically only holds water with extremist on each side.

In a close race (as that was) it is the kind of thing that can tip it one way or the other. Particularly in the last 13 days when you are sprinting to the finish. Something like this sucks the oxygen out of the room for a few days when it is hard to get that time back.

se-alum;1303553 wrote:I'm not sure it will carry as much weight as you think it will. Stupid, yes, election loser, I doubt it. Abortion comes up in every single election, but it typically only holds water with extremist on each side.

I'd say it depends on if voters take this line of thought: "If someone is this stupid on this issue, how stupid will he be on this, this and this?" That's where, to me, the game-changing moment happens.

Heretic;1303605 wrote:I'd say it depends on if voters take this line of thought: "If someone is this stupid on this issue, how stupid will he be on this, this and this?" That's where, to me, the game-changing moment happens.

Yea, I see what you're saying, but by this time, he's already layed out his plans on the other issues. I just think there's a small amount of undecideds, and I wouldn't think this would sway them one way or the other. I could be wrong though.

se-alum;1303608 wrote:Yea, I see what you're saying, but by this time, he's already layed out his plans on the other issues. I just think there's a small amount of undecideds, and I wouldn't think this would sway them one way or the other. I could be wrong though.

Actually, pretty much everybody south of Indy probably has the same view, so he could well slide in for the win in spite of himself.

derek bomar;1303476 wrote:for the life of me I can't understand why one of the parties just doesn't say, "ya know what, fuck you fringe. We're going to take the best of both parties (see: socially liberal / fiscally conservative) and we're going to clown-stomp in elections. deal with it"

Paul tried that. We saw how well the Republican Party took it. If you're not protecting the public from teh gheys and bombing the towel heads, yer not Republican enough.

The only bright spot about the two major parties during election time is that they say and do some really funny things. It's like watching two hilljack dwarves try to hump a doorknob at the same time.

So if you believe a baby is a human and you are against abortion why should you be for abortion during rape..its still a human. Now if you don't believe its a human then its irrelevant.

elitesmithie05;1303930 wrote:So if you believe a baby is a human and you are against abortion why should you be for abortion during rape..its still a human. Now if you don't believe its a human then its irrelevant.

He can believe that all he wants. But he certainly shouldn't say a child conceived out of rape is an act of and/or gift from god.

justincredible;1303931 wrote:He can believe that all he wants. But he certainly shouldn't say a child conceived out of rape is an act of and/or gift from god.

We can agree it was worded...umm off.

elitesmithie05;1303930 wrote:So if you believe a baby is a human and you are against abortion why should you be for abortion during rape..its still a human. Now if you don't believe its a human then its irrelevant.

No one disagrees that a baby is a human. People disagree that various stages of sperm and egg changing are human. A zygote is not a human IMO. But that's a different discussion.

Because even if you believe every sperm is a human life you still shouldn't be calling pregnancies that are the result of rape "gifts from god" like Justin just said.

I Wear Pants;1303935 wrote:No one disagrees that a baby is a human. People disagree that various stages of sperm and egg changing are human.

Actually, I believe the discussion is whether or not they are a person, not a human.

If you test a combination of a sperm and egg at any stage, you're going to get unique, human DNA. It's certainly human.

I Wear Pants;1303935 wrote:A zygote is not a human IMO. But that's a different discussion.

Having its own, unique, human DNA would make it a human, from a scientific standpoint. That fact distinguishes it from skin cells and determines it to be of human descent.

I Wear Pants;1303935 wrote: Because even if you believe every sperm is a human life you still shouldn't be calling pregnancies that are the result of rape "gifts from god" like Justin just said.

This.

I Wear Pants;1303935 wrote:
Because even if you believe every sperm is a human life you still shouldn't be calling pregnancies that are the result of rape "gifts from god" like Justin just said.

OMG! My masturbatorium is a death camp???????

I'd say it depends on if voters take this line of thought: "If someone is this stupid on this issue, how stupid will he be on this, this and this?" That's where, to me, the game-changing moment happens.

I would think this would be the case....and yet it seems that we only seize on verbal gaffes, and split hairs on words and semantics, while either ignoring or obfuscating really important 'gaffes' in actions.

Take Libya.... people on both sides of the aisle are hung up on who said what when....when the president 'called' it an act of terror.
The really important part is the absolute unprepearedness for an attack in a region where we should be prepared and had plenty of warning....the paralysis during the attack, and the failure on multiple layers by multiple people and agencies.

With forces that could have helped being only 500 miles away, the only thing that got scrambled during a seven hour assault was Air Force 1 for the flight to the Las Vegas fundraiser.
Moreover, there is a reluctance to quickly address the problems for political expediency.

This should be one of those incidences where it is a game changer because this is an important primary duty of the office.
Instead, we focus on a debate faux pas by a senatorial candidate, or some sensationalized announcement from an attention seeking rich guy....or some verbal gaffe made by a candidate weeks or months ago.

SMFH....only in America.

the shared belief of two possible us sentors, one possible vice president and ruth bader ginsberg's successor on the supreme court. scarily antediluvian and misogynistic.