Eleanor Clift reports:
“We have won the battle for women on right-to-choose in the courts,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Chris Van [Hollen] told NEWSWEEK. “We’ve never won this in Congress. It’s a mistake to say that now Democrats are in charge, it’s different. If we ever had a vote up or down on Roe v. Wade, my best guess is that it might be defeated.”
Judith Warner writes similarly in the New York Times, finding the Stupak vote “maddening” but noting that it reflects falling popular support for abortion.
Neither Clift nor Warner is willing to dispense altogether with comforting illusions about the politics of abortion. Clift imagines that the vote had something to do with pro-lifers’ financial contributions to candidates, and Warner calls the vote “political sleight of hand” for some undisclosed reason. But both are acknowledging that the public is a lot less pro-choice than they wish.