Just how well could a Rove trick work if a Rove trick could work well? My guess is we'll find out later today, when Bush uses his single veto to condemn stem cell research to at least a couple more years of stagnation. The conventional political analysis here is that this is unpopular, that even Republicans support the bill and Bush will take a hit by kowtowing to his Christianist base. He won't. Three reasons:
- This is actually the optimal political outcome for the right. Individual representatives can vote for the bill, protecting themselves from DCCC ads in 2006, while the Christian Right won't heavily mobilize against them because the legislation, after all, failed. Bush's veto allows all manner of Senators and Congresscritters to cast a "Yea" without actually threatening the social conservatives. Vulnerable pols can appeal to the middle without wrecking the coalition.
- Rove's reputation may be overblown, but he does have a few insights. One is that voters can appreciate an act they dislike on the merits. Bush's veto here will prove politically useful precisely because it's unpopular -- just another scrap of evidence that he's a man who knows what he believes, follows his gut, protects his core values, etc. And, in the end, the electoral upside to instilling those perceptions in the electorate is exponentially greater than the likely benefits of signing a stem cell research bill. Voters will always prefer a president they like to one they agree with. As Clinton likes to say, strong and wrong beats weak and right.
- As you can already see, various rightwing legislators plan to muddle the issue with bullshit bills meant to promote non-embryonic stem cell research. While they may eventually prove viable avenues, they're useless in the immediate term -- holding out for such advances is like refusing to use renewables until all cars can run on hydrogen. But science is complicated, and the media will muck this one up till none understand why the Senate would want to use embryonic research when we can just grow the cells with a rock crystal set.
And, of course, while all this ace political posturing goes on, possible advances from stem cell research will be delayed, and those who would greatly benefit from the possible cures and therapies will continue to live imprisoned in their deteriorating bodies. Few doubt that stem cell research will eventually, even rapidly, be legalized and well-funded, but none can doubt that many more will suffer because the president has to prove that, for-the-record, he's opposed.
Update: In case you feel I'm not giving enough credence to the moral argument against such research, allow me to quote Darksyde's excellent primer on the science, logistics, and future of stem cells:
Embryonic Stem Cell lines come from material stored at fertility clinics which is already slated for destruction. Preventing these blastocysts from being used for research won't 'save' them. It simply means they'll be disposed of in a medical waste facility instead of being used to find cures for disease. The only reason to restrict federal approval of new lines is to appeal to a minority of extremist social conservatives and it comes at the cost of possibly delaying or denying treatment--and in some cases life itself--to millions of people.
Understand that graf, as no single point is more important in the moral argument: these blastocysts would be destroyed anyway. Not a single life is spared, or saved, in the barring of stem cell research. But in delaying possible cures and treatments, an untold number will be lost.
