rssBarbour: GOP Needs to Make Room for Supporters of Abortion Rights
Friday, June 26, 2009 at 11:24 am
- 12 Comments
The Iowa Independent’s Jason Hancock attended Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s speech at the “Night of the Rising Stars” GOP fundraiser last night in Des Moines, Iowa. Notably, Barbour — who has been mentioned as a possible 2012 presidential candidate — encouraged the party to try to expand its base by making overtures to supporters of abortion rights:
Party building is about addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division, Barbour said at a party fundraiser in Des Moines. The GOP must be inclusive, he argued, and that idea extends to even the most divisive political issues. To make his point, Barbour pointed out that he helped pass several anti-abortion bills as governor, eventually garnering his state the reputation as “the safest place in the nation for an unborn child.” But he said there are good Republicans who don’t agree with him on the issue.
“There are tens of millions of pro-choice Republicans that are just as good Republicans as I am, and we need to support them,” he said, adding: “That’s what party building is about, and don’t think that is giving up your principles.”
Check out Hancock’s full report here.
12 Comments
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Comment posted June 26, 2009 @ 9:19 pm
Good luck with that – it'll never happen. Intollerance runs deep in the gop.
Comment posted June 28, 2009 @ 12:10 am
Who cares what Haley Barbour thinks. The rhetoric does not in any way , shape or form represent the republican party and Barbour knows it. Barbour has done the math and he is in full PANDERING MODE. The republican party is a party in decline both in stature and numbers. Five years ago you could not have paid Barbour to give that speech. When a man wants to be President and the numbers don't look good it is amazing how flexible ones principles become. Unless the republicans can attract those voters who want politicians out of their bedrooms they have no chance of winning a national election. Barbour is a classic example of what the republican party has become. A southern, back woods, intolerant, regional party who cling to the day's of Ronald Regan, as if that will fix the major problems that have crushed their party. The key voting segment of today is not impressed by Reagan or his legacy. I hope Haley runs for President in 2012. He would get CRUSHED.
Comment posted June 28, 2009 @ 2:50 am
You are spot on. He is the clean up man after the party ended. His earlier positions are now adjusted to confront the decline of voter trust in the GOP. His current election mirrow that of Sanford in time, accomplishments and in similar backwater states. The southern governors are marginally qualified to govern, moral scoundrels with a ting of racism/sexism appeal. A new age of voters do not buy the unholy alliance of wedge political issues used by the GOP to build a winning coalition in the past. Now that coalition has totally crumbled, Barbour's appeal is to the progressive males and women who are pro choice. What a hack. Independents and progressive's have long abondened the GOP.
Comment posted June 29, 2009 @ 12:53 am
I love that quote, “the safest place in the nation for an unborn child.” Too bad it's one of the unsafest places in the nation for a living one.
Comment posted June 29, 2009 @ 4:15 am
Safest place in the nation for an unborn child?? As a Mississippian, this is NOT the safest place for a pregnant woman. She stands a very good chance of living in poverty, working multiple jobs in order to eat, will get NO prenatal care, and may suffer either malnutrition or from extreme toxemia which will result in either a stillborn or a low birth weight baby. I wonder what Mr. Barbour categorizes as “safe”? Not being shot? Not being aborted? The man is an ignorant bafoon. God help us all if he ever ran for President and won. We would turn the entire US into Mississippi and trust me, you would not want to be here. It's ugly.
Comment posted June 29, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
I don't care for Barbour, but he's right. Insincere, but right. The GOP has to reach out to and welcome more moderate Republicans if the party expects to survive. I predict though, that should Barbour decide to run in 2012, his more ruthlessly ambitious rivals, Romney and Huckabee e.g., will use this speech against him as they suck up to the “social conservatives” (read religious extremists) while simultaneously alienating the rest of the country.
Comment posted June 29, 2009 @ 4:59 pm
Sorry, I don't think trying to appeal to abortion rights will be the way to save the GOP. This is already an extreme right view and I feel the right is trending to more moderate views as the youth of the party expands. Sucking up to “religious extremists” is not going to help save a dying party because that's a small faction. They will vote Republican regardless. Do you agree with the sentiment that the GOP is becoming obsolete?
http://tinyurl.com/qvsjfv
Comment posted July 8, 2009 @ 4:07 am
What the GOP needs to do is get Obama to show everybody his original longform Birth Certificate, college applications where he might have applied as a foreigner, his passport records to Pakistan, his official name-change back to Obama from Barry Soetoro which was his legal name when a citizen of Indonesia(the MOST Moslem country in the world) and why doesn't Michelle accompany him to countries under shariah-law? Because Obama is viewed by those countries as a Moslem and his wife would have to wear a burkha.
Pingback posted September 21, 2009 @ 8:08 am
[...] and also worked on tort reform in MS. But he is a former lobbyist and head of the RNC. He spoke in Iowa and is the head of the GOP governor’s association must be respected. Senator John [...]
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