Democrats and their allies think they can win next year on the message that the House Republican caucus has spent time trying to restrict abortion rather than pass economic legislation the public wants like President Obama’s jobs act.
And so, as the House GOP voted to send HR 358 — which critics say would allow hospitals to let a woman die rather than receive an abortion that could save her life — to the Senate Thursday night, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was already targeting the Republicans who supported it.
Here’s what that sounds like, from a version of a DCCC letter sent to vulnerable Republican districts Thursday targeting Rep. Allen West (R-FL):
Instead of working to create jobs and help small businesses, Representative Allen West (FL-22) voted for House Republicans’ radical social agenda that would allow hospitals to deny lifesaving healthcare to women and even restrict a woman’s ability to use her own private insurance for her healthcare.
West “joined John Boehner and Eric Cantor to demagogue women’s healthcare and their right to make their own reproductive decisions instead of working to create jobs and grow small businesses,” the DCCC’s Jesse Ferguson writes.
The thought here is this: even among voters unmoved by the idea of new restrictions on abortion, pointing out that the GOP is pushing social legislation when the public wants economic legislation could stir frustration.
And with recent polls showing the public growing more interested in returning Congress to Democratic hands, a focus on what the House GOP hasn’t done (i.e. passed Obama’s popular jobs bill) could be just as effective as a focus on what it has (i.e. tried time and time again to limit abortion rights.)
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