Nonpartisan Congressional Expert: 2010 Could be Bad News for Abortion Advocates
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 20, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — One of the most respected nonpartisan Congressional elections analysts says abortion advocates could have a tough time in the 2010 mid-term elections. Charlie Cook, the editor of the Cook Political Report sent out an update today saying the health care debate could hurt pro-abortion Democrats leading Congress now.
After reviewing recent polling data and the 2010 political landscape, Cook says he can see a scenario where Democrats lost as many as 20 seats in the House.
While that would not give Republicans control of the chamber, it would help the pro-life community immensely given that abortion advocates are defeating pro-life amendments to bills by a narrow majority.
"These data confirm anecdotal evidence, and our own view, that the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and Congressional Democrats," he said.
Cook says his election model, "based on individual races, is pointing toward a net Democratic loss of between six and 12 seats. But our sense, factoring in macro-political dynamics is that this is far too low."
The appears to echo comments from pro-life former Sen. Rick Santorum, who says 2010 is shaping up to be a replay of the 1994 elections that saw pro-life advocates win control of Congress for the first time in modern history.
"Many veteran Congressional election watchers, including Democratic ones, report an eerie sense of déjà vu, with a consensus forming that the chances of Democratic losses going higher than 20 seats is just as good as the chances of Democratic losses going lower than 20 seats," Cook writes.
Although he doesn’t say the pro-abortion control of Congress is in jeopardy, he says the breakdown could be very different after the next elections compared with the makeup of Congress now.
"We believe it would be a mistake to underestimate the impact that this mood will have on members of Congress of both parties when they return to Washington in September, if it persists through the end of the Congressional recess," he says.
Santorum, writing in an email to raise money for candidates, is very optimistic.
"I believe that we are facing a very similar opportunity today," Santorum writes. "Across our nation, voters are waking up to the disastrous consequences of Barack Obama’s presidency."
"Americans who were willing to take him at his word when he campaigned as a supposedly ‘reasonable,’ ‘moderate’ candidate are beginning to understand what lies behind the media hype and insincere charm," he added.
He said Americans are recognizing that the pro-abortion advocates in charge of Congress "jeopardize our future, with activist judges who disregard the Constitution, [and] wholesale takeover of health care."
"A new tide of popular grassroots opposition to the Obama Democrats’ senseless policies and insatiable hunger for power is rising across America," Santorum writes. "There is real enthusiasm for a truly conservative alternative to the leftist Democrats."
But the Hotline, another respected Congressional watcher, believes the math doesn’t work out to the Republican side if only because pro-life Republican lawmakers face more challenging re-election races than pro-abortion Democrats.
Hotline says Republicans have improved their chances in 2010 but "the inescapable math is that Republicans now have six open Senate seats, five of which are likely to be competitive, whereas Democrats have only two, only one of which is certain to be contested."
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