GraniteGrok

In the oversimplified way that politics gets explained, the Republican base -- that is, the voters said to hold the most sway in selecting the party's presidential nominee -- care most about abortion. No pro-choice Republican, the thinking goes, can make it to the general election.

There are problems with this analysis, not the least of which is that few voters care about only one issue. Another is that, particularly in New Hampshire, there are a significant number of Republicans who vote in primaries who are also pro-choice. Anyway, people invariably vote for candidates with whom they do not agree on a given issue -- and sometimes do so even when that issue is abortion.

That said, if you're going to make one issue a stand-in for all others, abortion is a pretty good one. In general, Republicans who do not call themselves pro-life will be more likely to break ranks on other core issues than those who embrace the label.

Let me unequivocably state that I am pro-life. That being said, in my rundown of the GOP candidates I only mentioned the subject of life and abortion twice, and only in passing. That point was not lost on Ari:

But what if abortion is trumped by the war?

Because President Bush was unchallenged within his party in 2004, the 2008 presidential election is the first in which Republicans are choosing a post-9/11 nominee. They happen to be doing so at a time when polls find a majority of the country opposed to the president on Iraq. With a number of Republicans in Congress looking like increasingly unreliable allies in the war on terror, some in the party fear the legacy of Reagan hangs in the balance.

Suddenly there are socially conservative Republicans, including here in New Hampshire, wondering aloud whether they can overlook Giuliani's social-issue stands because they feel so strongly that he has the necessary outlook on national security.

John McCain, too, is finding support from Republicans who in the past have recoiled from his stances on immigration and campaign finance and his willingness to make deals undermining some of Bush's judicial nominees. What is it that compels the Republican base to give McCain a second thought?

"The war," explains Gilford Republican Doug Lambert. "That's the thing that matters most above all else to me."

If we lose the war, we will, by default, truly lose the right to life... and a lot of other rights too, given the nature of the enemy and what they have planned for us. Said Osama Bin Laden in his 1996 Declaration of Jihad against the United States:

The two youths hit Aba-Jahl with their swords till he was dead. Allah is the greatest, Praise be to Him: Two youths of young age but with great perseverance, enthusiasm, courage and pride for the religion of Allah's, each one of them asking about the most important act of killing that should be induced on the enemy... It is this role that is now required from the people who have the expertise and knowledge in fighting the enemy. They should guide their brothers and sons in this matter; once that has been done, then our youths will repeat what their forefathers had said before: "I swear by Allah if I see him I'll not let my shadow to departs from his shadow till one of us is dead".

Won't somebody tell Mr. Bin Laden we had an election and voted not to have a war? Mr. Bin Laden? Hello? The next president we elect must be the right one... lest he/she be the last. Says Bin Laden on today's generation of radicalized Moslem youths:

Those youths know that their rewards in fighting you, the USA, is double than their rewards in fighting some one else not from the people of the book. They have no intention except to enter paradise by killing you. An infidel, and enemy of God like you, cannot be in the same hell with his righteous executioner... Those youths will not ask you (William Perry) [meaning Clinton's SecDef William COHEN] for explanations, they will tell you singing there is nothing between us need to be explained, there is only killing and neck smiting.

Yeah-- the war is it for me. Do I want Hillary Clinton or Jonathan Edwards or Barack Hussein Obama leading us during these troubled times? No way! This is why Republicans must choose wisely.