House Republicans believe they don’t have a problem with their policy on abortion, they have a “branding” problem, and now, they say, they’re ready to face it head-on.
Taking the advice of former top Trump White House advisor and campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, House Republicans will be told, by a Republican U.S. Congressman, they must go on offense, and talk more about abortion.
The majority of Americans support varying degrees of abortion rights, with only 8%, about one in 12 Americans, saying abortion should be banned entirely, according to an Economist/YouGov poll conducted February 18 – 20. Three out of four Americans (76%) say the issue of abortion is important to them. It ranks number nine on the list of issues important to Americans.
The official platform of the Republican Party, which appears as a link on the RNC’s “About” page, states: “the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.”
Simply stated, that would appear to support, if not require, a complete and total ban on any and all abortion. (Archived here.)
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But now, The Wall Street Journal reports, “Republicans leading the party’s effort to defend the House in this fall’s elections are pushing GOP colleagues to openly discuss their positions on abortion, rather than try to sidestep the issue.”
“A memo prepared by House Republicans’ campaign arm and viewed by The Wall Street Journal says Republicans have a ‘brand problem, not a policy problem,’ as their reluctance to discuss the issue left it to Democrats to define where the GOP stood,” The Journal reports.
Congressman Richard Hudson (photo), a pro-Trump “America First” Republican from North Carolina, is the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). He plans to share the memo, “with his colleagues on Wednesday night at one of the kickoff events for the party’s three-day retreat in West Virginia.”
That memo “recommend[s] that members express empathy for women, discuss ‘common sense’ solutions and push back on what it calls Democrats’ extremism on the issue.”
(The GOP retreat is expected to be attended by less than half of the House Republican conference, with one member telling a reporter, “I’d rather sit down with Hannibal Lecter and eat my own liver,” than attend the House GOP retreat.)
Local North Carolina newspaper the Sandhills Sentinel in 2018 reported Congressman Hudson “staunchly opposes abortion and voted for repealing the Affordable Care Act.”
“His wife, Renee, serves as Chief of Staff for Kellyanne Conway; a high-profile counselor to President Donald Trump.”
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Meanwhile, The Journal adds, “More than half of the GOP conference had signed on to a bill defining a ‘human being’ as beginning at ‘the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.’ That had raised questions about where the party stood on in vitro fertilization, used by many American couples who struggled to conceive children.”
Responding to The Journal’s report, Democratic communications consultant Jared Leopold writes: “The ‘new’ 2024 House GOP strategy on abortion is: 1. go on offense 2. discuss “common-sense” solutions.”
He adds, “That was Gov. Youngkin’s 2023 strategy. Republicans lost the Virginia House.”
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