Palin is a 5th columnist

[MechAg94]

Only one of those is properly a Federal issue.

Any justifications, excuses or exceptions that make a particular act of homicide lawful need to be determined by the citizens of a state for that state.  As I recall polling data is pretty clear that even if Roe didn't exist most states would have some form of legal abortion (rape/incest/first trimester).

That said, Roe isn't going away any time soon (we'll need polling data showing a sufficient majority in a majority of states to amend the Constitution to get rid of it), so it is in fact a "second tier" issue in terms of real politik.

Candidates for Federal office pushing, or being perceived as pushing, absolute abortion bans are not going to win a plurality of the voters in a plurality of districts sufficient to reduce government expansion in a host of other areas, making it a litmus test alienates potential allies on those other issues in the near term.

If we can get rollback of gross Federal intrusions on individual and state's rights on less hot button issues (Raich and the like) we can go after Roe with some momentum and a snowball's chance in hell of success.

Incrementalism is working for anti-abortion efforts already, that's how we're going to win it, not running head-on into a brick wall losing on the other issues all the while.

I do think getting rid of Roe vs Wade is the best solution for the abortion issue.  If this was a state issue, I don't think it would be near the big national issue as it is now.  Some states would be fully pro-life and some pro-choice, but most would end up in between.  Americans would have choices.

[MechAg94]

Mainly the candidate.

I don't think most voters are willing to be fiscally conservative.

I often think this is one of the biggest differences between average liberal voters and average conservative voters.  What do you cut and what exceptions do you make?  I have met some liberals who really want to balance the budget and agreed with me on that, but they want to make exceptions for everything to the point of failure.  Their solution always came back to cutting defense spending.  It often comes down to a disagreement on what govt should be doing or not doing.  If you think govt should do everything, you will always spend too much money.