TAPPED readers will not be surprised to know that I share Monica's concerns about Alaska's new abortion parental notification law. In practice, these are terrible policies that place great burdens on young women in the worst domestic situations -- with little to no discernible benefit.
In an interesting piece at the Daily Beast, TAP alumna Dana Goldstein points out that the passage of this anti-young woman abortion ballot measure isn't unrelated to Tea Party candidate Joe Miller's surprisingly strong showing in Tuesday's primary. Despite some claims that Tea Partiers are focused primarily on "fiscal irresponsibility," Miller cultivated anti-abortion activists and staked out strong anti-choice positions. And he has plenty of company among Tea Party darlings.
The attempt to bill Tea Partiers as some kind of distinctive quasi-libertarians reminds me of similar wishful thinking in 2008 about Sarah Palin; they're just orthodox conservative Republicans. Occasional, hypocritical "get the government off our backs" rhetoric notwithstanding, Palin is of course statist in all the ways you would expect a conservative Republican to be statist. And, in this, Palin is definitely a prophet of the Tea Party.
-- Scott Lemieux
