I Was Pure As The Driven Snow,...
But Then I Drifted
If you have ever wondered why some pro-life organizations seem to consistently support candidates who are-at best-marginally pro-life, I may have an answer. And I'll tell you right now, you're not going to like it.
During the 1996 presidential campaign, I generally dismissed the "Bob Dole is pro-life" claim as just a long-delayed reaction to some bad drugs that got passed around in the sixties. After all one would need a frontal lobotomy to honestly conclude that Dole either cares about the abortion issue or is on our side of it. About the most that can be said is that he is more pro-life than Bill Clinton. (Of course, Vlad the Impaler was more pro-life than Bill Clinton.)
Now it turns out that this "lesser of evils" argument may not have been the complete motivation behind Dole's support from one pro-life group.
As most of you probably know, the Republicans were making a last-ditch effort to win the 1996 election by exposing Clinton's slimy fundraising schemes. They claim-with considerable justification-that Slick Willie illegally diverted "soft-money" given to the Democratic Party (which by law cannot be used for the election of individual candidates) into his reelection campaign. They also charge the Democrats with funneling money to outside groups with known ties to the Democratic party.
Meanwhile, the only defense offered up by the Clintonistas is that Dole and the Republican party did the same thing. To prove the point, Democrats dredged up records showing that the Republican party also funneled money to outside groups that are sympathetic to them. The interesting thing is, one of those groups is The National Right to Life Committee.
You heard right. According to an article in Dallas Morning News (October 23, 1997) NRLC accepted $650,000.00 in soft money from the Republicans.
Whether legal or not, this behavior is utterly indefensible. The problem is not merely that a pro-life organization openly and enthusiastically supported a Republican presidential candidate-in spite of his questionable pro-life credentials. And it's not that this same organization took money from the Republican party. The problem here is that they did both. While either of these actions taken individually may be defensible, taken in concert they certainly are not.
For all its other warts, the pro-life movement- including NRLC-has always been devoid of scandal or corruption. And I believe that's still so. The only thing changed by this sickening revelation is that there do appear to be exceptions.
Apparently, if ol' Vlad was around today and needed pro-life support in a bid to be president, arrangements could be made. Especially if he was running as a Republican and had a little soft money laying around.