The negative political consequences in the long term for the Schiavo manuevers by the GOP will be near-zero, even though a majority of Americans will view them negatively. This episode is simply too unique, awful and conflicting for anybody except a very small number of people to hold a grudge about it. Recall, liberals insisted that the Republicans would pay dearly for impeachment, that really didn’t pan-out either. Also — as Ramesh has pointed out many times — every “sophisticated” student of American politics has insisted for decades now that abortion politics hurt the GOP even though there is scant evidence to back that up either. Regardless, while some significant number of pro-lifers will carry the Schiavo cause for a very long time (and the GOP leadership can claim to be true to the cause), most Americans on both sides of the issue will be relieved to say goodbye to the topic entirely and few will remember it come the next election and virtually no Democrats will use it against Republicans in their campaigns.