From The New Republic's The Plank:
Wanted: NRLC Political Director
The National Right to Life Committee has now explained its curious decision yesterday to endorse the cratering campaign of Fred Thompson, and the explanation is that they have no one on staff who can read a poll. That's not how they put it, of course, but how else to interpret this quote from Executive Director David O'Steen:
We look at the fact that while there are various polls, and some are up and down, the overwhelming consensus has been that [Thompson] is best positioned to top pro-abortion candidate Rudy Giuliani for the Republican nomination.
I hope this is a (highly lame) rationale for a decision that was made on other grounds, because the alternative is that the folks at NRLC have all lost their minds. It's not merely that Mitt Romney is vastly better positioned to beat Giuliani for the nomination than Thompson; at this point, you could probably make the case that even John McCain and Mike Huckabee have a better shot (and I don't mean that in a good way). Ross Douthat and Daniel Larison have more to say on the subject.
UPDATE:
DSW - Editor’s Note: As the former Executive Director of Arizona Right to Life and the primary driving force of many AZRTL PAC endorsements, I am absolutely bewildered by NRL-PAC’s endorsement of Fred Thompson who has refused to support a Human Life Amendment - a longstanding requirement for endorsement. This will certainly go down as a huge error in judgement and loss of credibility of NRLC’s commitment to protecting innocent human life especially when there were other solid pro-life candidates who support the Human Life Amendment.
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