Santorum's "Elephant" tramples the numbers on abortion

So while we wait with baited breath for John Yoo's next monthly pearl of wisdom, we still have Rick Santorum and his "Elephant in the Room" to deal with. I think his Inquirer column today, actually has a good starting point, which is what are we to make of the first Gallup Poll in recent times to show a majority of Americans are "pro-life"?

The margin over the next decade fluctuated within a 10-point spread, but Gallup never recorded a majority of Americans identifying themselves as pro-life - until now. This month's survey found the pro-life position favored, 51 percent to 42 percent.

The coming months will tell whether the poll is an outlier (and it may be...read this), or the mark of a real, lasting trend. I'm not sure if I agree with Santorum's facile explanations for the poll numbers (the movie "Juno," is a tad overhyped by the right, no?) but I think he misses the forest for the trees. The real majority American position on abortion, or plurality, anyway, is a plea for centrism and common sense on an issue where it's so elusive.

That's why -- as Santorum correctly notes (how often do I get to say that? :-) ) -- Bill Clinton's "safe, legal and rare" stance was so popular with voters, and why voters aren't happy with any kind of extremism today, certainly not the extremism of Santorum's GOP. He fails to note in his column that the same Gallup Poll found only 23 percent of Americans believe what he does -- that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances.

And consider the mangling of statistics at the end of his piece:

Obama's zealotry has helped move moderate Republicans into the pro-life camp. From 2001 through last year, 55 to 60 percent of Republicans said they were pro-life, while 33 to 38 percent identified themselves as pro-choice, according to Gallup. But the most recent poll shows that 70 percent of Republicans are now pro-life, while only 26 percent are pro-choice.

Talk about getting it backwards -- the reality is this: Santorum's zealotry has helped move moderate Republicans...into the Democratic Party. The statistic that he leaves out? The overall number of Republicans has shrunk from 35 percent of Americans not too long ago to 21 percent, the lowest point in more than a generation, and the prime reason is that moderates -- including and perhaps especially those with a moderate stance on abortion and related social issues -- have been leaving the GOP in droves. The "Left Behind" (in the title of the Christian Right best sellers) in the party are the ultra-conservatives, thus boosting the intra-party pro-life numbers that Santorum cites.

In the reality-based world, Santorum's former colleague, Arlen Specter, just had to leave the Republican Party to chase down the hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania moderates who were driven away by Santorum-style extremism -- those same right, far-right views that also caused just 41 percent of the electorate to support Santorum's re-election three short years ago.