Palin hits Obama hard on abortion
By: Jonathan Martin
Sarah Palin goes today where John McCain rarely will, talking in depth and in personal terms about abortion while hammering Barack Obama on the same in an effort to appeal to some of those Reagan Democrats in Western Pennsylvania.
You close political observers will recall that the town where Palin is delivering her remarks, Johnstown, Pa., is where Obama said during the primary earlier this year that he wouldn’t want his two daughters to be "punished with a baby."
Palin alluded to the quote twice.
From remarks excerpted and sent out by her campaign:
In both parties, Americans have many concerns to be weighed in the votes they cast on November fourth. In times like these, with wars and a financial crisis, it’s easy to forget even as deep and abiding a concern as the right to life. And it seems our opponent hopes that you will forget. Like so much else in his agenda, he hopes you won’t notice how radical his ideas and record are until it’s too late.
But let there be no misunderstanding about the stakes.
A vote for Barack Obama is a vote for activist courts that will continue to smother the open and democratic debate we need on this issue, at both the state and federal level. A vote for Barack Obama would give the ultimate power over the issue of life to a politician who has never once done anything to protect the unborn. As Senator Obama told Pastor Rick Warren, it’s above his pay grade.
For a candidate who talks so often about “hope,” he offers no hope at all in meeting this great challenge to the conscience of America. There is a growing consensus in our country that we can overcome narrow partisanship on this issue, and bring all the resources of a generous country to the aid of both women in need and the child waiting to be born. We need more of the compassion and idealism that our opponent’s own party, at its best, once stood for. We need the clarity and conviction of leaders like the late Governor Bob Casey.
He represented a humanity that speaks to all of us – no matter what our party, our background, our faith, or our gender. And no matter your position on this sensitive subject, I hope that spirit will guide you on Election Day. I ask you to vote for McCain-Palin on the November fourth, and help us to bring this country together in the rational discussion of compassion and life.”