POLITICS FEBRUARY 11, 2012
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The furor over the Obama administration’s contraception coverage decision has generated a spate of articles proclaiming the return of the social issues in the 2012 campaign. But while they’re being discussed more, I doubt that they’ll prove decisive. Unless something drastic happens between now and November, trends in employment and real income will determine the result.
Now comes the traditional “to be sure” paragraph.
To be sure, it’s possible to sketch a scenario in which the social issues matter a lot. Imagine a very close election the outcome of which hangs on a handful of large states in the mid-Atlantic and Midwest. These states have high percentages of Catholics who favor government programs when they help the middle class, lean toward cultural traditionalism, and maintain a visceral loyalty to the Church even when they disagree with it on specific policies. It’s no accident that Pennsylvania’s Democratic senator is pro-life and served in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps after college.
Still, countless surveys have placed the social issues far down on the list of public concerns in an election cycle dominated by worries over growth, jobs, deficits, and debt. They are highly salient in the base of the Republican Party, but no one should confuse those voters with the national electorate. If the economy improves fast enough to allow abortion, gay marriage, and religious freedom to emerge from the shadows, Obama will win anyway.
That said, the contraception episode was what the tennis commentators call an unforced error. If recent reports are accurate, the president knew that his decision would create a firestorm. During the extensive deliberations that preceded it, Vice President Biden and many others counseled compromise. (Months ago, the White House was aware of the compromise the president eventually accepted.) Surely Obama knew that Catholics are a large and strategically located swing vote. And yet, despite well-received campaign speeches in favor of religious liberty (and against tone-deaf secularism), as president Obama chose to treat mandatory contraceptive coverage purely as a public health issue. That may indeed be his considered view.
It may also reflect election-year imperatives of base mobilization, especially women and pro-choice groups. And apparently it was bolstered by a political cost/benefit analysis. Politico reports that the president was encouraged by David Plouffe, who reviewed private polling data and concluded that “the vast majority of Catholic voters, who don’t adhere to the church’s dictates on birth control anyway, wouldn’t punish Obama for his decision.”
But when the backlash from supporters as well as adversaries escalated (even loyalist Tim Kaine, now running for Virginia’s open Senate seat, pleaded for a shift), Obama unceremoniously abandoned the position he had staked out just days earlier. I can imagine the advice he got before this reversal: “Mr. President, we have to get this behind us so we can get back to the issues that are working for us. It’s better to take the hit now than to let this controversy linger.” Whatever the motivation for the initial decision, the latest shift can only be interpreted as a response to intense political pressure.
I’m sure Obama meant what he was saying about religion’s role in public life during the years preceding his presidency. But when the crunch came, it took a back seat to other considerations. We reveal ourselves most clearly, not when we declare the things we deem worthy, but when we are compelled to choose among them. All things considered, this has been an instructive episode.
William Galston is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor at The New Republic.
13 comments
I'm sure most Catholic women agree with Obama on this, as do, perhaps, most Catholic nuns (at least secretly). By election day Republicans could find themselves on an island with Catholic bishops, howling at the moon, because there won't be any people there to listen to them.
- magboy47.
February 13, 2012 at 12:26am
I find it interesting that Galston relies on assumptions and broad characterizations rather than actual data, thinking that Catholics would respond negatively to this decision. However, these surveys shows otherwise: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/02/our-polling-on-the-birth-control-issue.html http://lakeresearch.com/news/Catholics%20and%20birth%20control.Lake%20Research%20Partners.pdf
- darklayers
February 13, 2012 at 12:47am
The reason why the Catholic bishops don’t believe in contraception is that the kind of sex they have doesn’t require it.
- NateG
February 13, 2012 at 1:15am
Galston served as one of the founding board members for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, so he has special expertise in the subject where it's most needed: what works to prevent pregnancies among teens and young adults. The National Campaign is non-ideological, seeking to avoid the kind of stridency that we see here, and, instead, focusing on what works. That is the backdrop for Galston's views on this subject. My objection to Obama's decision is that it weakens the adminitration's hand in the coming battles over minimum standards for health insurance, as the issue of the standards has now been made political. Obama will regret his decision, and so will we when the standards are diluted as a result.
- rayward
February 13, 2012 at 7:56am
what horseshit. Obama head faked Republicans, got them all up in arms about this issue, offered a compromise that completely takes the issue away from them and then gets to watch them now say that the Church has to right to dictate policy to non Catholics EVERYWHERE. What has been most instructive is the lengths Republicans will go to make us slaves to corporate masters. What of the rights of the individual consumer? To Republicans the boss has exclusive rights to determine the extent and manner of your health care coverage. This is a slam dunk winner for Democrats. If insurance companies have to cover pregnancies, how the hell could contraception not be an option for those CONSUMERS (you know, the individual) who want it? If my premiums have to cover pregnancies, something I as a man can't ever be, then let it cover contraception. Rayward, if we reframe the issue how can Republicans argue that pregnancies must be covered by insurance companies but contraception doesn't have to be? How the hell is that a winning issue for Republicans. No man nor woman has any control over their reproductive choices, it is make someone or get pregnant and that is it.
- blackton
February 13, 2012 at 11:05am
The Republicans make everything political. If Obama said to a summer audience "it's warm today," the GOP would say he's trying to brainwash Americans into believing in global warming. Like Big Brother, they politicize even thoughts.
- magboy47.
February 13, 2012 at 11:08am
The bishops are attempting to frame this as a religious freedom issue: their freedom to impose their religious views on anyone working for Catholic-affiliated hospitals and schools. I think the rights of individuals to make their own decisions should be paramount if we are serious about advancing religious liberty.
- brthompson
February 13, 2012 at 2:37pm
Obama forced Republicans to overreach and come out swinging against contraceptive -- positioning themselves way outside the mainstream (including outside the mainstream of lay Catholics) and energizing women (a constituency he needs to energize to win). Following on the heels of Komen's misstep with Planned Parenthood, a move that, like attacks on coverage for contraceptive, demonstrated that Republicans are prepared to support an extreme anti-abortion agenda even when doing so conflicts with saving women's lives and protecting their health, was politically brilliant.
- esmense
February 13, 2012 at 5:19pm
Sorry, "contraceptive" should be "contraceptives" in the above post. Can't believe I did it twice, and didn't notice it once.
- esmense
February 13, 2012 at 5:21pm
magboy47, You exaggerate pnly slightly. Recall the furor and cries of indoctrination when the President urged students to stay in school and study. This is a winning issue for the President. The GOP, that party of adulterers, two-timers, whore mongers, diaper wearers, hikers of the Appalachian, those rest room Romeos want to challenge this President, a devoted family man with culture battles? To quote his predecessor, bring it on.
- dubyadoubte
February 13, 2012 at 8:03pm
Did I just emerge from a coma? Is it still 1959?
- paskunac
February 14, 2012 at 7:15am
This issue might morph into why PPACA assigns the President/Executive the authority to define very specific "preventive health care" benefits that are mandated on all health insurance carriers. That was a point made by new COS Jack Lew on more than one of his Sunday Feb 12, 2012 talk show appearances. As one example of why Executive authority to specifically define 'covered benefits' can become a generic "too much Federal control/intrusion" issue: Medicare changed benefits starting January 1, 2011 (meaning the change was made when the Dems had control of Congress) that made a blood test Lipids panel (measures cholesterol) available for coverage only once every five years, I am increasingly curious as to why Democrats think all women have a right to contraception, but that all elderly have no right to an annual Lipids blood test (Medicare reimbursement is $5). hmmm, just got an email from my congressman: "This month is American Heart Month, the time where we reaffirm our support in fighting heart disease - the No. 1 killer of men and women. An estimated 82.6 million American adults have cardiovascular disease and one out of every three deaths in 2008 was from heart disease and stroke. As a member of the Congressional Heart and Stroke Coalition, I wanted to take this opportunity to contact you about these important health challenges. The landmark Affordable Care Act places a much-needed focus on chronic diseases such as heart disease. Now, health plans must offer coverage, with no out-of-pocket costs, for services that will help prevent and control heart disease. Some examples include: Screening for obesity, and counseling from your doctor and other health professionals to promote sustained weight loss, including dietary counseling;. Blood pressure screenings; and Counseling on the use of a daily aspirin to help reduce the risk of a stroke. ..." I see. Take one aspirin and stop worrying about your cholesterol. What a relief to understand anyone on Medicare at risk of heart attack or stroke is of zero concern to the Democrats. They decided that there is zero need to assess "dietary counseling" effectiveness on actual controlling cholesterol with an annual $5 lipids blood panel. One less issue to worry about. What a relief for my doctors to no longer have to be concerned about my cholesterol levels, which, until the end of 2010, was of such concern that it was tested twice per year. Which is why this furor over contraception proves to me that Obama politicizes everything - he wants to use the NY2010 playbook "protecting women's reproductive rights" to drive turnout, whilst avoiding anything useful to America, like salvaging the US Postal Service.
- K2K
February 14, 2012 at 8:55am
This latest flip pity floppily shows true desperation to hold onto power. He needs to keep control of the IRS and the printing presses so he can parasitize American tax serfs to bail out European banks and Greek, Spanish and French socialism. And institute complete serfdom in the US. We gays will be able to marry, but will be unemployed, our savings inflated away, our emails downloaded by the NSA, some of us detained without trial, brown people in the middle east hating us even more that he is killing their children in our name with predator drones. Big whoop. I'll be looking to marry someone from a freer country like Canada or New Zealand so I can move there.
- BruceMajor
May 9, 2012 at 3:15pm