The Independent:
The speeding bandwagon of Republican presidential front-runner Fred Thompson has hit its first major bumps in the road, after allegations that he lobbied for abortion rights. Mr Thompson and his supporters were yesterday trying to swat away allegations that he lobbied on behalf of a pro-choice group in the Nineties, something that is anathema to the social conservatives within Republican ranks, who see abortion as a touchstone issue.
The actor-turned politician has emerged as a potential white knight for the party's religious right, the only candidate who can galvanise the party's disillusioned core supporters, and enthuse the mainstream with an easy Southern charm and a Ronald Reagan-style optimism.
If the social conservatives mobilised so effectively by President George Bush sit out the next election, Republican strategists fear, the White House will fall into Democratic hands for the first time in eight years.
According to the report, "[T]he minutes of a 1991 board meeting of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association say that the group hired Mr Thompson that year. He was charged, the group's executives say, with lobbying the administration of the first President Bush to change a 'gagging rule' that prevented federally-funded family planning clinics from discussing abortion."
Right now, it's pretty safe to say that a good chunk of Thompson's support comes from the religious nuts who are turned off by Rudy Giuliani's pro-choice stand on abortion. If the allegations against Thompson stick, then the religious nutwad vote will split among the lower tier candidates and Rudy becomes the likely nominee. And, if that happens, the nutwads stay home on election day.
Can't say I'm against that.
