Most voters do not especially like political discussions of abortion. (I suspect that holds true for a lot of Corner readers coming across my recent posts.) They seem to react negatively to politicians who bring it up. That’s why so much of the political battle over abortion tends to turn on which side is being more aggressive. Thus the many judicial-confirmation fights in which Democrats have accused Republican nominees of seeking to outlaw abortion and Republicans have accused Democratic politicians of not being willing to tolerate nominees who disagree with them.
Reports that the Democratic convention will be an ode to abortion rights thus seem to me to suggest that the Democrats are making a mistake. They’ll end up being the party that talks the most about abortion, that palpably hungers to talk about it, when the median voter doesn’t want to hear about it. And the fact that they’ll be carrying on about the other side’s alleged obsession with the issue that they themselves are spending the most time discussing won’t help their case. Recent Democratic conventions have been smarter about this.