National Review: on Abortion
David French:
Denounce Planned Parenthood as largest abortion provider
What about the areas where Trump fans argue that he'd clearly be better than Clinton? On abortion, we know what she'd do--protect Planned Parenthood, and appoint the standard-issue leftist legal technocrats to the bench. How much better would Trump be?
It's impossible to know if his recent pro-life conversion is genuine, but it can't be a good sign that he still refuses to denounce Planned Parenthood, consistently using Democratic talking points to praise the nation's largest abortion provider.
Source: David French column in National Review, "Trump & Hillary"
Mar 29, 2015
Gary Johnson:
No funding for abortion; other restrictions ok
He calls himself pro-choice, but he's well to the right of Hillary Clinton -- supporting late-term abortion bans, parental-notification laws,
and opposing public funding for abortion -- and he's indicated that he'd appoint judges "who will interpret the Constitution according to its original meaning."
He also believes Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided because it "expanded the reach of the Federal government into areas of society never envisioned in the Constitution."
In the past, Johnson has indicated that he'd rather leave abortion policy to the states.
Source: National Review, "Plausible Alternative," by David French
May 5, 2016
Heidi Heitkamp:
Opposed 20-week abortion ban
The Senate voted on the 20-week abortion ban, and Heitkamp joined nearly all of her Democratic colleagues in opposing it, despite having promised her constituents that she'd support it.Not only that, but C-SPAN cameras caught Heitkamp high-fiving
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on the Senate floor just after the vote. PolitiFact assessed the moment as being "more of an awkward greeting than a crude celebration," but to many constituents, it appeared tone-deaf and even offensive.
After that vote, on February 15, Rep, Kevin Cramer entered the race, immediately making it the most-discussed Senate contest of the midterm cycle, and rightly so.
North Dakota has just one member in the House. As a result, Cramer has already
represented the entire state in Congress since 2012, the year that both he and Heitkamp were first elected (she in a close contest against Republican Rick Berg). In that election, Cramer received 12,000 more votes than she did.
Source: National Review on 2018 North Dakota Senate race
Jun 27, 2018
John Bolton:
Against abortion except for rape, incest, or maternal health
On abortion, I'm about the same as Reagan; I'm against it except in the cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother.
Bolton calls himself a Goldwater conservative, for the most part, at heart. (Goldwater, too, was more moderate on social issues later in his career.)
Source: Robert Costa in the National Review
Aug 22, 2013
Kevin Cramer:
Announced for Senate due to incumbent's pro-choice vote
Kevin Cramer wasn't supposed to run for the Senate. In fact, as recently as January, the Republican congressman from North Dakota had publicly announced that he was happy representing his state in the House and would not accept the GOP nod to challenge
Democratic senator Heidi Heitkamp this fall.The president called to say he was disappointed. "I hope you don't disappoint me again," Cramer tells me Trump said to him at the time. "Start thinking more about your country and less about yourself."
For Cramer, one of the very first Republican politicians to endorse Trump during his 2016 run for president, the pointed message was difficult to ignore.
Then, just a week or two later, the Senate voted on the 20-week abortion ban, and Heitkamp joined
nearly all of her Democratic colleagues in opposing it, despite having promised her constituents that she'd support it.
After that vote, Cramer says, he was inundated with calls from North Dakotans demanding that he jump in to challenge Heitkamp.
Source: National Review on 2018 North Dakota Senate race
Jun 27, 2018
Marianne Williamson:
2006: Mandatory counseling/(2014) No longer supports
In a 2006 radio interview, Williamson discussed the idea of instituting "speed bumps" for women contemplating abortion, including a mandatory three counseling sessions. In a subsequent interview, Williamson claimed the idea grew out her
experience counseling women who were trying to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy. By the time of her 2014 congressional campaign, Williamson said she no longer supported the concept.
Source: National Review magazine, articles on 2020 candidates
Jul 1, 2019
Stephen Laffey:
Pro-life
Steven Laffey, the mayor of Cranston, is running against Chafee in the September primary. His underdog campaign has shown both pluck and promise. Laffey has a track record of winning Democratic votes: That's the only way he could have been elected two
times as mayor of Cranston, a city of about 80,000 residents, most of them Democrats. But on key issues, Laffey is a conservative: He supports tax cuts and the war in Iraq, opposes corporate welfare and other forms of wasteful spending, and is pro-life.
Source: The National Review, "Dump Chafee"
Feb 6, 2006
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