Conservatives aren't stupid

Over at FredAir, Allahpundit has a couple of new posts up, one about James Dobson "reassessing" Thompson. The other, not unrelated, links to a Politico piece pondering the lack of fallout from the LA Times' "Fred lobbied for an abortion group" hit piece.

The Politico says the conservative shoulder-shrug owes to right-wing "hunger" for a Thompson candidacy. That's some shallow analysis. I think the lack of reaction owes to more rational thinking:

1. Conservatives aren't stupid. Since Roe v. Wade was decided, three presidents and all of the congresses have been anti-abortion to some degree. The congressional majorities haven't been big enough to pass a constitutional amendment, but they've been big enough to prevent public funding of abortion and to pass a ban on partial-birth abortion. Conservatives generally, and the pro-life subset especially, are fully aware that there's nothing a president can do to affect abortion policy -- except to keep appointing conservative Supreme Court justices. Fred will appoint conservative justices. Conservatives feel that in their bones, whereas with Rudy they're probably not entirely certain. He is, after all, from New York City.

2. Abortion doesn't guide all conservative votes. There was a number going around years ago that 1 percent of voters on each side of the spectrum are single-issue abortion voters. I'm anti-abortion. But I'm also a hawk, a cultural conservative and a small-government conservative. Give me a candidate who'll bomb Iran and defund the NEA, and I really don't care how he feels about abortion, especially given Point No. 1.

3. Not all conservatives are anti-abortion. Some number of conservatives have the exact same view of abortion that prevails on the Left and that traces its roots to Margaret Sanger: Rudely and simply put, it goes like this: "We don't want all these welfare babies running around." It's probably a bigger group than pollsters can measure because I'll bet a lot of people lie about it.

4. A lawyer's gotta do what a lawyer's gotta do.

5. The Los Angeles Times is the enemy.

I think this makes a lot more sense than Fred hunger. The Times picked an issue that people who don't give a damn about the Times don't give a damn about.