HHs Mandate Politics

I wonder what the President will think of these allies if these moves cost him reelection.  Excerpt:

...The Vice President and others argued that this wouldn’t be seen as an issue of contraception – it would be seen as an issue of religious liberty. They questioned the polling of the rule advocates, arguing that it didn’t explain the issue in full, it ignored the question of what religious groups should have to pay for. And they argued that women voters for whom this was an important issue weren’t likely to vote for Mitt Romney, who has drawn a strong anti-abortion line as a presidential candidate, saying he would end federal funding to Planned Parenthood and supporting a “personhood” amendment that defines life as beginning at the moment of fertilization.



Political hands disagreed with that interpretation. Cultural issues will play a bigger issue in the 2012 election than they did during the economic crisis of 2008, they said. Some of the suburban women up for grabs in this election, ones who are starting to feel more confident about the economy, can be firmly won over if they learned about this rule – if they also were told that President Obama supported an exemption for houses of worship while Romney opposes not only abortion but federal funding for contraception.

Some in the White House thought that the president’s hands became tied when Sebelius issued the proposed rule in August; they would have preferred a delay so as to work out some sort of arrangement with religious charities and schools. The president was boxed in by this rule, they say; after the rule was issued, any discussion about expanding the exemption became a rallying cry for groups that support contraception and legal abortion, such as Planned Parenthood. When President Obama met with Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in November, discussing this topic as well as others, these groups sounded the alarm...

Hm. I wonder if any of this had anything to do with this:

Speaking of which, here's Michael Sean Winters talking on the politics of the "accommodation". Excerpts:

...For me, the politics of the HHS mandates issue has always been simple. Any policy, and the HHS mandate is a policy, even if you think it is a very good and desirable policy, must be pursued within the principles articulated in our Constitution. One of the principles is the right to freely exercise our religion. And so, in keeping with the arguments used in the 9-0 Supreme Court decision last month in the Hosanna Tabor v. EEOC case, I have argued that the right of a church to conduct its own affairs free from government interference should trump the concern to extend contraception coverage without copays to women who work at religious institutions. Even if you think contraception is a good thing, and even if you think it should be available at no cost, I think you have to admit that the health of America’s political and social culture requires us to defend the First Amendment rights of our churches.

Secondly, I have never, and do not now, buy into the idea that the whole religious liberty issue is nothing but a ploy by the bishops to defeat Obama in the next election. Yes, there are some bishops who make irresponsible and nasty comments about the president and who, in a manner I find unbecoming in a religious leader, assign foul motives to everything this president does. But, I do not think that indictment can be laid at the feet of the president of the USCCB, Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, who met with the president in November and went to the USCCB meeting and spoke warmly, almost glowingly, of that meeting and of the president’s responsiveness to the concerns Dolan raised.

...I confess I no longer understand Obama. He did not go to the mat to end the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich. He did not go to the mat for comprehensive immigration reform. He did not go to the mat to close Guantanamo Bay. He did not go to the mat for Card Check. He did not go to the mat for a public option in the health care reform. But, he went to the mat over the principle that a Catholic college or charity or hospital is not really religious.

The president not only is the chief magistrate of the land, he is the leader of the Democratic Party. I know I am something of an odd duck by being what I call an “Ella Grasso Democrat.” Grasso was the first woman to be elected a governor of her state in her own right, not succeeding her husband. She was pro-labor. She was pro-Israel. She was pro-higher taxes on rich folk. She stood up for the little guy. Unlike other male Democrats – Kennedy and Gore and Gephardt and Muskie – she remained pro-life. I believe that it is the historic calling of the Democratic Party to stand up to the moneyed interest and say that the common good, not just the individual pursuit of profit, is a moral obligation and a necessity in a free and just society. I am simply not interested in a Democratic Party that is so beholden to the fundraisers at Emily’s List, so consumed with lifestyle politics, that it is willing to thumb its nose at those working class voters who really do care about social justice and for whom that care is a part of their religious beliefs. And, if liberals no longer care about a robust defense of the First Amendment, well, then, we do not deserve the presidency...