Back when Peanuts (the comic strip with the Charlie Brown Christmas Special for all you college students) was still funny, Charlie Brown engaged in an eternal quest for a Joe Shlabotnik baseball card. Joe was not much of a player . . . Charlie Brown was his only fan. Joe couldn’t hit and soon was in the minors, but Chuck did not care.
Poor Chuck would have given a Hank Aaron or Willie Mays card in exchange for the card of his idol . . . but Charlie Brown being Charlie Brown, his quest was never fulfilled.
It is in the nature of a Charlie Brown to want something that wouldn’t be that great if we got it. Charlie Brown people are nice, well intentioned, but have misplaced desires!
All this reminds me of certain pro-lifers who cannot be happy with the present presidential field. These Charlie Browns have three great all stars, but long for someone else.
At the moment there are two plausible pro-life candidates running for President: McCain and Romney. A third major candidate, Rudy, has pledged to appoint judges that would return the issue to the states.
This is good news. The Republican party is the party of life and liberty since the days of Lincoln. It is also for a powerful and secure Union since the days of the Grand Army of the Republican and the War to Free the Slaves. It looks like the Party will continue in that great tradition.
Weirdly a few vocal pro-life activists are engaged in their every-four-years quest to trade their all-stars for the “player-to-be-named-later” of the moment. These lovable losers seem to dislike the stars of the Republican Party just because they are successful and long for an even more pure pro-life Shlabotnik to come from the minors to save us all.
I still remember right-to-lifers in New York State critical of Reagan in 1984 as not pro-life enough. They yearned, I kid you not, for somebody better. That was, to put it mildly, out of touch with reality.
Despite the strength of this field, many voters will begin to yearn after the perfect right to life candidate, let’s call him Joe Shlabotnik, who deliver the nation from the scourge of abortion. Whether an obscure congressman, a governor of a small state with delusions, or a self-funded outsider, the Joe Shlabotnik comes to no ones mind as presidential timber . . . except the Charlie Browns of politics.
The fact that nobody knows Joe . . . nobody is giving Joe money . . . or that Joe has no real qualifications in any other area to be president does not bother this political Charlie Brown. He argues that if only all pro-lifers would vote their conscience that Joe would not be unknown, would have money, and that discussion of other issues is immoral.
In short Joe Shlabotnik represents the Chuck wing of the Republican party. His purity is great, unsullied as it is by having had to make no compromises in a position of responsibility or actual governing. He is also intellectual sterile enough to have never changed his mind or his position on anything so he can never be accused of flip-flopping.
The reaction of the Shlabotnik-wing of the right to life movement to Mitt Romney is instructive.
Instead of taking joy in the fact that a successful governor and business leader like Romney has come around to their point of view . . . the Shlabotnik backers wonder if Romney is just doing it to “win.”
Now winning is a good thing and winning with a person who says he is on our side, gets our votes and then owes pro-life folks politically is better . . . but some folk would rather lose with Shlabotnik than risk getting betrayed by the President.
If Romney wants a second term (and what President doesn’t), he will not betray pro-life folks!
Safe to say when he isn’t president, Joe Shlabotnik will not appoint a bad supreme court justice. When he isn’t president, he will not make any mistakes.
Sensible people might think it better to take a winner at his word (if his word seems good), but it is easier to trust a lovable loser. You are never disappointed in the candidate you never elect.
It is especially odd in Mitt Romney’s case since Romney has loyally maintained his membership in the LDS (Mormon) church throughout his political career. Safe to say this connection has been used by the ill informed and bigots against him all his life. Yet Romney, the family man and traditionalist, stuck to the faith of his fathers.
I don’t share that faith, but you have to admire the man’s nerve. Imagine his political gain if at some point in the last twenty years he had become a Roman Catholic in Massachusetts!
Romney had the common pro-choice abortion views of many men of his age, education, and class. Exposure as governor to better pro-life arguments and to the culture of death in Massachusetts, which never can get enough, changed his mind.
I still don’t know who will get my vote in the Republican primaries. McCain is tired and bad on too many other issues for me. Rudy bothers me for many reasons I have written about in other places. Romney hasn’t quite closed the sale with me yet. A real fourth choice could emerge, though it is unlikely at this late date.
I will not be voting for this years Joe Shlabotnik, the lovable pro-life loser. Losing will not save any lives . . . and will give a ticket that looks to be the most anti-life in American history power.
Sorry Charlie Brown, but I am looking at the all-stars and trying to decide who will get my vote.