More About Salisbury's Campaign For Bill Sali's Seat

Over at Idaho Chooses Life (a site I don't think I have ever visited before), they discuss Mr. Salisbury's position:

But this does not exactly settle the matter. I am mystified that Mr. Salisbury has chosen to anchor his campaign message in the philosophy of Planned Parenthood – you know, the rhetoric which claims that “the government has no business in our bedrooms”. Apparently it has something to do with his belief that Christians in public life ought not be very explicit about imposing our faith upon others. As the campaign develops he will have opportunity to better express his ideas.

We also know nothing about Mr. Salisbury's position on specific policy questions. That may be where we will find the conflict. But on the phone, he was adamant that he found abortion "abhorrent".

In any event, the biggest question that nags is why Mr. Salisbury is running at all. The media’s original description of his candidacy explained he was unhappy with Congressman Sali’s pro-Life politics. After our phone conversation yesterday, it seems that is not the issue. So now I’m left wondering why a pro-Life person would squander resources and enhance Democrat chances for taking the seat by challenging an incumbent with an unmatched pro-Life record.

It is very curious, and perhaps we will learn more about motivations as Mr. Salisbury refines his message in coming months.

Me too.

I don't think that a general ban on abortion makes a great deal of sense, because there is a large minority of Americans that support utterly unrestricted abortion--and some of them are prepared to go to prison to make sure that abortion remains available. You could pass a general ban on abortion--but you would need a heck of a lot of prison space to lock up all the criminals. The most that such a law would do is reduce advertising of such services, perhaps reducing the abortion rate somewhat, but like Prohibition, making it illegal would aggravate other problems. (Example: A D&X abortion often causes substantial and sometimes deadly infections; I'm sure that someone who was suffering a severe infection after an illegal abortion would delay going to a doctor or an emergency room for fear that it would come to light.)

If you want to make a real difference in the abortion rate, you need to tackle the underlying social problems that are causing so many women and men to be irresponsible about sex and contraception. Change that part of the social equation, and it will be both easier to get abortion restricted, and it will reduce the destructive side effects of prohibiting abortion when the time comes to change the law.

If Mr. Salisbury is as pro-life as the account above indicates, then trying to defeat Bill Sali on the abortion issue makes absolutely no sense. If the objective is to replace Bill Sali because he has become a lightning rod of liberal hostility, that might make some sense--but Sali's social conservatism, as near as I can tell, is the primary reason that Idaho liberals find Sali detestable. I'm sure if Bill Sali were supporting gay marriage, abortion on demand, and higher taxes, his style would be called "challenging, idealistic, and no-nonsense."