McCain's lack of candor on reproductive rights
On issues like abortion and sex education, the candidate is neither as moderate nor as principled as some might think.
By Joe Conason
Salon.com
Apr. 11, 2008 | "He's not who you think he is" is likely to serve as the Republican rap against Barack Obama, if and when the inspiring orator from Illinois secures his party's presidential nomination. Yet precisely the same complaint can and should be made against John McCain, who is neither as moderate nor as principled as his publicists in the press corps tell us.
Nowhere is the gap between "straight talker" and pandering faker more obvious than on questions of reproductive freedom and sex education. Usually obscured by his image as a "maverick" Republican and (former) critic of the religious right, his actual record infuriates many women when they learn what he believes -- and how he has voted.
Late last month, the Democratic National Committee released a memo based on focus group interviews with undecided voters in Minnesota and West Virginia concerning McCain. The female voters in the groups were surprised, dismayed and angered to learn that the Arizona Republican not only favors overturning the Roe v. Wade decision and curtailing abortion rights but is also opposed to requiring contraceptive coverage by health plans and favors abstinence-only sex education.
Even women who described themselves as "pro-life" said that the latter positions cast McCain as a man who is "unrealistic," "out of touch" and "stuck in the past," according to the memo. And those same women were especially disappointed because they had expected him to hold the moderate views that the media has so often ascribed to its favorite.
(Continued here.)
By Joe Conason
Salon.com
Apr. 11, 2008 | "He's not who you think he is" is likely to serve as the Republican rap against Barack Obama, if and when the inspiring orator from Illinois secures his party's presidential nomination. Yet precisely the same complaint can and should be made against John McCain, who is neither as moderate nor as principled as his publicists in the press corps tell us.
Nowhere is the gap between "straight talker" and pandering faker more obvious than on questions of reproductive freedom and sex education. Usually obscured by his image as a "maverick" Republican and (former) critic of the religious right, his actual record infuriates many women when they learn what he believes -- and how he has voted.
Late last month, the Democratic National Committee released a memo based on focus group interviews with undecided voters in Minnesota and West Virginia concerning McCain. The female voters in the groups were surprised, dismayed and angered to learn that the Arizona Republican not only favors overturning the Roe v. Wade decision and curtailing abortion rights but is also opposed to requiring contraceptive coverage by health plans and favors abstinence-only sex education.
Even women who described themselves as "pro-life" said that the latter positions cast McCain as a man who is "unrealistic," "out of touch" and "stuck in the past," according to the memo. And those same women were especially disappointed because they had expected him to hold the moderate views that the media has so often ascribed to its favorite.
(Continued here.)
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