We've heard a lot about how Sarah Palin's nomination will affect the national race, but looking down the ticket, you have to wonder how choosing Palin, who is radically anti-choice -- radical because she makes no exception for incest or rape -- will affect the chances of pro-choice Republicans running for house seats.
One example in IL-10 is Rep. Mark Kirk, who is nominally pro-choice, but was "encouraged" by the Palin pick. One of his constituents, Karen Fujisawa, sent a letter to Kirk [PDF] criticizing his support for Palin, which came in the wake of his recent vote against a House bill supporting pay equity for women.
I spoke with Karen this afternoon. Prior to this election, she considered herself an independent and voted for the occasional Republican. She now plans on voting Democratic. "Watching someone I was introduced to as a moderate, for him to come out and give a warm welcome to [someone who] stands for everything women have fought against, I was appalled," she said.
Kirk's opponent, Dan Seals, has been running a competitive enough race to find himself on the DCCC's Red-to-Blue program. His communications director, Elisabeth Smith, told me that though they didn't have plans to make Kirk's support for Palin a major issue, it was "one more reason for Dan to cite about why Mark Kirk is out-of-touch with his district."
Similarly, in Connecticut's fourth district, moderate Republican Rep. Chris Shays has come out in favor of Palin. Michael Sachse, a spokesperson for Jim Himes, Shay's Democratic opponent, told me that "This nomination is a sop to the social conservatives, and it makes the national ticket more conservative, thus more out of step with voters in this district. When Chris Shays rallies to her defense, it shows that while the ticket is out of step with Connecticut, [Shays] is in lock-step with the ticket. The politics of Palin specifically obviously affect a range of issues, not just women's issues, high on that list, but also environmental issues."
Though it won't be clear for some time how effective it will be for down-ballot Dems to tie their opponents to Palin's brand of conservativsm, it will be hard for those Republicans to continue to claim they are moderates. No wonder, then, that that the moderate Republican is a dying breed, and that the New England variety could become extinct in this election season.
--Tim Fernholz
