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Reflections on the second presidential debate

Oct 17, 2012

By Dave Andrusko

Pro-Life Mitt Romney and Pro-abortion President Barack Obama

The two clichés coming out of last night’s second presidential debates are that it was a “draw” (some instant polls gave President Obama a narrow advantage) and that the President, virtually asleep in the first debate, gave as good as he got. (The debate WAS intense.)

Fair enough.

Perhaps the most interesting results, however, were that “focus groups”  of undecided voters on Fox News and on MSNBC were much more favorably disposed toward Mitt Romney after the debate than toward Mr. Obama. In addition, on the all-important issue of the economy, Romney lapped Obama, 65% to 34%, according to a CBS News Instant Poll.

What about our issues? Unlike the vice presidential debate, abortion was not among the questions moderator Candy Crowley chose to ask from those submitted by members of the audience.

President Obama threw kisses several times to his friends at Planned Parenthood. NRLC Director of Education Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon makes short work of Obama’s insistence yet again that PPFA performs mammograms. The largest abortion provider in the United States—more than 329,000 abortions per year—does not.

Obama also mocked Romney, saying “We haven’t heard from the governor any specifics beyond Big Bird and eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood in terms of how he pays for that” [Romney’s programs for stimulating the economy].

Later, referring to debates Republican presidential candidates were a part of during the primaries, Obama said, “When they said, ‘We’re going to cut Planned Parenthood funding,’ he [Romney] said, ‘Me too.’ When he said, ‘We’re going to repeal Obamacare. First thing I’m going to do.’”

But Romney did not back off of his criticism of ObamaCare, a massive and unwieldy measure that not only commandeered control of one-sixth of the American economy but is rife with multiple provisions authorizing federal subsidies for abortion, and additional provisions on which future abortion-expanding regulatory mandates may be based.  And that doesn’t even address that ObamaCare authorizes federal bureaucrats to impose limits on what life-saving medical treatments Americans are allowed to get (see http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2012/10/is-there-rationing-in-obamacare-2/#more-18535). In plain English, rationing.

As NRL News has reported numerous times, Mr. Romney also has not backed off his opposition to federal funding of Planned Parenthood. He reiterated as much in a recent interview with the editorial board of the Columbus [Ohio] Dispatch.

Those 329,445 abortions performed in 2010, according to its most recent annual report, is more than a quarter of the 1.2 million abortions performed in the United States every year. Planned Parenthood takes in more than a billion dollars a year in revenues, making it a rich and powerful corporation.  And a whopping 46% of that money–$487.4 million–is in the form of “Government Health Services Grants and Reimbursements” coming from all levels of government.

We won’t know whether the debate changes the election dynamics for a couple of days. Most recent national polls show Mr. Romney ahead by four points and closing the gap in “swing states.”

Keep working. There are only 20 days until the November 6 elections.

Categories: Politics