TO GET ELECTED IN A 60-40 NATION...:

Out of Touch: Most Americans disagree with Obama on abortion and the Supreme Court. (David Freddoso, 5/22/09, National Review)

Pollster Kellyanne Conway recently conducted a survey to measure public opinion about Obama’s impending choice of a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. What is most interesting about her poll is that respondents reject precisely the kind of nominee that President Obama is almost certain to pick. Far from preferring “empathy,” 92 percent of Republicans, 86 percent of Independents, and 84 percent of Democrats said they prefer a nominee who “will interpret the law as it is written and not take into account his or her personal viewpoints and experiences.”

But Conway’s most striking finding is just how out of touch President Obama is on the huge, hot-button issue that always plays an oversized role in Supreme Court confirmation hearings: abortion. [...]

Conway’s poll suggests that a vast majority of Americans want President Obama to nominate someone who disagrees with nearly everything he believes about abortion. Of those surveyed, 82 percent said they oppose a nominee who “supports late-term abortions, which are abortions in the seventh, eighth or ninth months of pregnancy and are also known as ‘Partial-Birth Abortions.’” When the Supreme Court upheld a congressional ban on partial-birth abortion in 2007, then-candidate Obama said that even such a modest restriction on abortion is completely unacceptable:

This ruling signals an alarming willingness on the part of the conservative majority to disregard its prior rulings respecting a woman’s medical concerns and the very personal decisions between a doctor and patient. I am extremely concerned that this ruling will embolden state legislatures to enact further measures to restrict a woman’s right to choose, and that the conservative Supreme Court justices will look for other opportunities to erode Roe v. Wade, which is established federal law and a matter of equal rights for women.

In the new poll, 69 percent said they do not want a new justice who opposes “making it illegal for someone to take a girl younger than the age of 18 across state lines to obtain abortions without her parents’ knowledge.” Then-senator Obama voted against precisely such a ban in 2006, known as the Child Custody Protection Act. The bill received 65 Senate votes, including those of many pro-choice Democrats.

...you have to convince folks you're part of the 60, which makes it awkward to govern as part of the 40.

MORE:
New National Poll Shows 14 Percent Pro-Life Majority on Abortion, Fifth Survey in May (Steven Ertelt, May 22, 2009, LifeNews.com)

The results of a new national poll are the fifth survey this month to confirm a majority of Americans take a pro-life position on abortion or show movement in the pro-life direction. The latest poll was conducted by the Polling Company of 800 adults from May 17-18 and it has a 3.5 percent margin of error.

The poll, which also found the public does not want President Barack Obama to appoint a pro-abortion activist to the Supreme Court, featured two questions directly about abortion. [...]

A Rasmussen Reports survey released May 5 found that 58 percent of Americans say abortion is morally wrong most of the time and a seven percent increase in the number of Americans who say abortions are too easy to obtain.

A May Gallup poll found 51% of Americans calling themselves pro-life and just 42 percent saying they are "pro-choice" and supporting legal abortions.

A Fox News poll conducted May 12-13 found 49 percent of Americans say they are pro-life while just 43 percent say they are "pro-choice.

And a Pew poll released at the end of April found the support for legal abortions has dropped to its lowest level in 15 years.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 22, 2009 2:30 PM