If Obama is doing that, then he’s doing something monumentally stupid. First of all:
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 39% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the government should require a church or religious organization to provide contraceptives for women even if it violates their deeply held beliefs. Fifty percent (50%) disagree and oppose such a requirement that runs contrary to strong beliefs, while 10% more are undecided.
So the decision will hurt with more voters than it will help. Presumably more of those all-important swing voters are in oppose camp than in the support camp. If Obama thinks it’s wise to give the middle finger to that many voters merely to manipulate the 'Pub Primary process, it would indicate substantial stupidity on his part.
Second, contrary to what some in this thread are asserting, it’s not the case that only Republicans are upset about this decision. In fact, pretty much all the major voices on the Catholic left, people who can usually be trusted to smile on anything that the Democratic Party does, have expressed outrage at this. Expecting them to simply forget it as the election draws near is not a smart thing to do. As for the idea that Obama can reverse his position later in the year, that would look embarrassing, especially since he already has reversed his position; previously he promised Catholics that he would not attack them in this way.
Third, why would Obama want a bruising primary fight between Romney and Santorum? Obama knows from personal experience that bruising primary fights aren’t necessarily bad for a candidate in the general election.
Fourth, if we’re looking for a reason why Obama did this, it’s not hard to find. Part of Obama’s base consists of people who despise religious conservatives in general and the Catholic Church in particular. Those people will cheer on any attack against the Catholic Church. Obama did this to pander to that part of his base. No more elaborate explanation is needed.
He had a couple guests on at the time and they were going along with him, but I’ve heard nothing from anyone else suggesting that the co-pay is the issue.
You can stop right there. The results are going to be skewed in a way that favors Republicans. Other pollsters asking less loaded questions will get different results.
Particularly, the question asked by Ramussen didn’t distinguish between religiously affiliated groups (which the new policy affects) and actual Churches (which it doesn’t).
The poll I cited does do so, and found that people support the regulation for affiliates and don’t for actual Churches. So the two polls don’t really contradict each other, but the Ramussen poll conflates something thats actually happening and is generally supported with something that isn’t supported by the public and isn’t happening
They didn’t become Catholic within the last couple years. The fact that Catholic Latinos tend towards socially conservative views is something the GOP has failed to connect on for years and years, being more concerned with draconian immigration policies, race-baiting and economic policies that favor the wealthy over the less-so.
While that’s true, I think part of the reason the Bishops are so upset about this is the majority of Catholics don’t agree with the Catholic Church’s position of birth control and do use birth control, and so they’ll end up providing birth control to their members.
There are a lot more religious voters whom Obama needs to court for votes than there are atheistic voters. If Obama is pandering to the god-hatin’ voters, then he’s going to *lose *more voters than he’d get.
Frankly, I just don’t see numbers indicating this is going to hurt him to any substantial degree. The voters for whom this is going to be the ‘tipping point’ is likely pretty small potatos.
It only takes a few in a swing state like Ohio. And if the Church decides to make a big deal about this there might be sermons railing against the rule. That’s perfectly legit as long as they don’t mention Obama by name.
True, but who knows how many liberal/feminist/etc types might be motivated to go to the polls in support? Still not sure it amounts to much more than a wash, but I’m not also not sure it’s been polled very accurately.
Mostly, I’m not sure anyone takes the bishops as significantly as they wish they still were.
Sorry, not buying it. Both Dems and Pubs have people whose job it is to think of exactly this sort of thing, and to put them in play. Do you not remember the Swift Boating campaign? It could possibly have resulted in a groundswell of support for Kerry, seen as an attack on a combat veteran on behalf of a draft-evading National Guard playboy – because that’s what it was. But the Republicans had carefully evaluated the media’s tendency to look “balanced” by stating both sides of an argument as if they were equally valid, even if one side if clearly and obviously NOT valid. So they did it, and it worked beautifully, a twelve dimensional bank shot that landed the king ball in the corner rook pocket.
Bah. Obama has given the extended middle finger to progressives so often I think he does it by reflex now.