Dole Betraying Social Conscience Against Tolerance When It Comes To A Life, There’s No Room For Tolerance.

Fri., June 14, 1996

By D.F. Oliveria daveo@spokesman.com (509) 319-0354

It’s a good thing this country had Abraham Lincoln running it in the 1860s instead of Bob Dole. Or Bill Clinton. Neither modern politician would have had the guts to condemn slavery and face a civil war.

Democrat Clinton would have flip-flopped all over the place trying to get a good read on the polls. Republican Dole would have added a “Declaration of Tolerance” to the Republican Party’s anti-slavery plank to say it’s OK to support slavery, too. And slavery would have flourished.

Neither Clinton nor Dole is worthy of the Great Emancipator’s mantle. Their approach to abortion proves that.

Abortion is to the 20th century what slavery was to the 19th century - an evil embraced by too many Americans against a helpless people. Earlier this year, President Clinton showed he is a pro-abortion extremist by vetoing a ban on the most despicable form of abortion - partial-birth abortions. Now, GOP presidential candidate Dole has revealed he’s little better by embracing a “big-tent” approach to the Republicans’ anti-abortion plank.

Said Dole: “Either we’re tolerant or we’re not.”

James Dobson of Focus on the Family spoke for social conservativism by responding: “When it comes to the life of an unborn child, there is no room for toleration.”

By embracing tolerance to launch his Everyman campaign, Dole sold out the 1.5 million unborn babies aborted annually, as well as the social conservatives who have helped him lock up the nomination and who have been at the heart of the GOP resurgence.

It’s time for social conservatives to bid adieu to the Republican Party.

Economic conservatives would like nothing better. They believe the party can become dominant by shedding its social conscience and fusing America’s mushy middle. But such thinking kept Republicans in the congressional minority for decades.

Republicans seized Congress two years ago with a plank that, since 1976, has supported an unborn baby’s right to life. Polls - without the liberal media spin - show an overwhelming majority of Americans either oppose abortion or want it limited.

Republicans such as Dole, however, are willing to yield the high moral ground on abortion, confident that social conservatives will stick with them anyway. Social conservatives should teach them a lesson by sitting this presidential election out.

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