What are the issues?
Today, the Christian Science Monitor published an article on Fred Thompson’s presidential bid in South Carolina. Mr. Sabar, whom I met at a Thompson speech earlier this week, discovered that traditional issues, such as abortion, may be taking a back burner to current hot topics like Iraq and immirgration in the coming election.
Bruce Rochester, a paramedic, echoed a common view here in saying he didn’t care about small differences in candidates’ positions on abortion and gay marriage. “I just don’t think those are major problems now,” he said before a Thompson campaign stop at The Beacon Drive-In in Spartanburg. “The main problems are the war and immigration.”
The interesting thing about this statement is that I heard almost the exact statement from a women I was chatting with at the same Fred Thompson rally. She stated that she didn’t care about what a candidate’s stand was on abortion because the president has very little influence in that anyways. She continued by stating that she believed it was a state issue anyways. Now, keep in mind, this is South Carolina, home of the states’ rights movement but I do believe that a lot of the country (and a lot of conservatives) are giving more leeway to candidates’ position on moral issues. This could explain why Giuliani has become such a popular choice.
