The Republican Party is killing itself with the Presidential Primary. It has been a nasty affair. So nasty that Republican establishment types in D.C. are gaming Congressional races and more worried about controlling Congress than having one the four fighters to the death beat Obama.
Added to that President Obama has had some good news. Things seem to be turning in the economy. Unemployment actually is going down. The real estate market, based on refinancing, seems to be turning upward. Obama seems a leader more in world affairs. Iran and Syria are actually giving the President a chance to look Presidential. Like it or not, add all that with the fact he is the President who got Bin Laden, and well, you get numbers where Congress is more than twenty points behind President Obama in approval and the President leads every Republican presidential contender head on head. Indeed, Democrats seem to be jumping at the chance for the President to run against Romney.
Thus, it would seem a President with some political sense would just sit and wait, and let the forces at play do their thing to re-elect him. Not President Obama.
After time proved the Tea Party and Birthers sort of nuts, President Obama gave a potential opponent a gift. The Obama Administration decided that Catholic based hospitals and other organizations must offer birth control services to employees and patients. Most Americans might think "whatever."
But, Catholics do not. Northern Catholics are a key Democratic voting block and were essential to Obama winning states like Ohio and Pennsylvania in 2008. They are comparable to Southerners. While a Southern good old boy might like to drink and mess around, he does not want someone to throw it up in his mama's face. A Northern Catholic might vote liberal, live liberal, even use birth control, but he respects his church so much he does not want that thrown up in his church's face. Perhaps to the logical mind it makes little sense. But human beings are not always logical. The fact is, no matter how they live, Catholics do not want the government or a President telling their church it is wrong, even if they believe its wrong.
Put plainly there is a way that Southerners can grasp what is going on here. We Southerners act different when mama or the Preacher is around. We might drink a case of beer and cuss and carry on to high heaven, but when mama or the Preacher is around, we measure ourselves. Northern Catholics are that way. Sure, they might use birth control, but they are not going to go to their parish and brag about it. They surely would not try changing their church's mind on the issue. Like Southerners do with mama and the Preacher, Northern Catholics have too much respect for their church to do such a thing.
When one lives in a logical and legal bubble, as those in the Obama Administration do, simple human characteristics are lost. What that does politically is create incredible damage. First, it alienates a core traditional Democratic voting block in Northern Catholics. Second, it opens President Obama to the notion, which will be exaggerated and forced to the highest degree, that the President is against religion. That gets other groups both fired up and alienated.
In sum, it gives what will likely be a weak Republican nominee the key to victory in November. It is such a politically boneheaded move it will make Democrats long for Jimmy Carter and his killer rabbit if the President does not change course on the issue soon.
