I think most people who are not actively pro-life just Do Not Get This. They think that abortion is some kind of boutique issue we choose because it suits our need for moral indignation and scores us moral or religious brownie points with ourselves.

The idea that it really is about believing that we just don’t want unborn children to get killed without any sort of legal sanction, just because they’re people like we are, doesn’t penetrate. They think the whole “dead babies” thing is just extremist rhetoric to try to get people to agree with us on an emotional level.

There are exceptions, but I’ve seen enough of this kind of thing from “moderate pro-lifers” to believe that this is really what is at work.

So “us” doesn’t include fetuses?

-The Republicans need someone who won’t throw social conservatives under the bus before it takes off, or off the bus after it gets to its destination. I don’t see too many politicians like that in evidence.

Can we social conservatives and Christians of the right please stop railing against absences? The least convincing critiques concentrate on “what wasn’t said” rather than the gist of the material at hand. Not every political speech or maneuver is a commentary on every issue, not even the most important issue, which abortion-slaughter indeed is.

The House GOP made a pledge that was not primarily an anti-abortion jeremiad. That is not proof they are soft on abortion. It is proof they are canny. When Mitch Daniels called for a truce on social issues, that doesn’t mean he has sold us down the river to balance the budget. It might mean he has a reasonable understanding of the limits of politics. What could be more conservative than maneuvering within one’s acknowledged limits? Is the polity not limited in its ability to eradicate sin? Is abortion, and our popular acceptance of that evil, not ultimate result of individual acquiescence to sin?

Can we please allow our public servants the latitude to do their very limited job? I look not to princes and men to save me or my country from its many mendacities. I look to them to plow the roads.

We don’t prove our social conservative bona fides by pointing out every time someone doesn’t wave the bloody shirt.

Mitch Daniels is indeed a “spiritual” leader for those of us who understand the exigent need to reestablish political limits after decades of abuse. Maybe he is a raging reprobate who does secret abortions on the weekends. That’s between him and the Lord of Justice. His overspending of taxpayer money? That’s between him and us.

The absurd literalism of the separation of church and state has corrupted us. Yes. The doctrine itself has mutated into positive irreligion. Yes, yes! But empowering politics to save our souls validates the technique of the left and outfits them with new weapons for the next time they gain political control. It is therefore imperative — the absolute number-one goal of politics — to effect restraint, even when achieving happy results is available to our side. The problem isn’t that abortion is legal. The problem is that we have empowered the judiciary to define what is legal above and beyond our protest.

A healthy, Neuhausean public square begins with a respect for the separation of the church and state, one that acknowledges not just clerical encroachment on politics, but more importantly in this imbalanced age, political encroachment on the church. The solution to the imbalance is not to advocate redress by any means, to claw back the public real estate that has been unfairly denied the church. We rebalance by first reestablishing the integrity of the scale. This is not accomplished by asking politicians to do preachers’ work — or for that matter, our work.

Mitch Daniels for president. Chris Christie for president. Rudolph Giuliani for president. Mike Huckabee and GWB might make a sweet speech that changes some citizens’ hearts on abortion, even as the state rots beyond repair, but the trade-off is not worth it. In this world there is most definitely a trade-off. Political capital is not unlimited. Mushy moderates and limp independents are decisive in the grand compromise of electoral leadership. We must concentrate on what we agree on — while working on their indifferent hearts. Alienate them now and we never get to speaking terms.

Let justice be done though the heavens may fall? That is not conservative. That is impatient and faithless. And doomed to failure, albeit a romantic one.

“What are you afraid of, O men of little faith?”

I have heard it works like this: the Republicans who raise large amounts of money and the Republicans who give large amounts of money aren’t all that committed to the social-issues leg of the GOP-Reaganite stool (the other two being defense and fiscal issues), so a lot of establishment GOP types misperceive that it’s not a major issue. Money talks. Many GOP voters, however, who may or may not give $50 to a candidate or the nat’l GOP, are deeply committed to the GOP for the sake of life issues and cultural issues.

@all: Didn’t Jody Bottum write in a recent print issue of FT something like that 4% of voters were single-issue prolife voters, while only 2% of voters were single-issue prochoice/abortion voters, and that the math was therefore simple? Net 2% gain for any national candidate who comes out and says s/he’s prolife?

I’m a big fan of Christie, and I love those videos.

But YouTube hits are not the same thing as general election votes. And that’s a good thing, if you think about it.

If Christie keeps on as he has, and scores some lasting victories over the legislature and the unions, he might deserve the adulation he’s now getting.

But face it — what he’s doing now is primarily sassing The Problem People. He’s still got to turn all this (very enjoyable) in-your-face criticism into legislation, and then get it passed. And then it’s got to work!

None of this will make a good video, but it could conceivably — as you say — make him President.

(But how much easier that would be if he dropped a hundred pounds …)

Sigh.

Heads “moderates” win, tails “extremists” lose again.