The 2008 general election will be about issues, and abortion will resurface as an issue this fall.

Right now, McCain’s “maverick” reputation is causing many to think he’s a moderate on many issues. That is not the case, and the misperceptions are significant when it comes to abortion.

What John McCain really stands for came up most recently in light of his position on abortion. Planned Parenthood commissioned a survey showing that more than half of those women polled don’t know much about McCain’s stance, and a quarter of those who are in favor of keeping abortion legal mistakenly think the senator agrees.

These misperceptions will be corrected by November. Writers like Anna Quindlen are talking about it, and it will certainly come up in the campaign. McCain has been a favorite of many independents, but that was when he was running against Bush. Now that he faces a general election in a tough year for Republicans, his abortion stances are likely to hurt him with independents and some moderate Republicans.

I love libertarians!

More states are poised to ban racial preferences. These initiatives might pose an interesting dilemna for Barack Obama should he secure the Democratic nomination. Obama has acknowledged the problem of affirmative action programs based entirely on race, but he has not advocated banning the use of race entirley in favor of economic status.

He has a point:

The one that is the most problematic is (John) Edwards, who voted for the Patriot Act, campaigns against it. Voted for No Child Left Behind, campaigns against it. Voted for the China trade deal, campaigns against it. Voted for the Iraq war … He uses my voting record exactly as his platform, even though he had the opposite voting record.

When you had the opportunity to vote a certain way in the Senate and you didn’t, and obviously there are times when you make a mistake, the notion that you sort of vote one way when you’re playing the game in Washington and another way when you’re running for president, there’s some of that going on.

Thus far, most of Huckabee’s rhetoric on religion has seemed pretty harmless. Now that he’s appealing to Christian voters in South Carolina, he’s starting to sound a little more dangerous:

“[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it’s a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards,” Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Everyone should watch these videos.

Few of us would want libertarians running things in this country, but Ron Paul has demonstrated that they offer very important principles to our political discourse. Even a liberal like Michael Kinsley can appreciate that:

The libertarian perspective is useful, and undervalued. Why does the government pay farmers not to grow food? Why are medications for fatal diseases sometimes held off the market in case they aren’t safe? (Compared to death?) Legislators and regulators should ask themselves far more often than they do whether some government activity or other expands freedom or contracts it.

Republicans used to be for smaller government, but over the past 25 years, with the emergence of the religious right, they have become more and more willing to use federal power to advance their agenda and therefore restrict our freedoms. We now have a Republican administration telling the states that they can’t enact medical marijuana laws and limiting federal research on stem cells. We had a Republican congress telling state and federal judges that their rulings on a woman’s right to die should not be enforced. They even passed a law making it more difficult to play poker online. When will they leave us alone?

The Terry Schiavo case was a wake-up call. Americans will draw lines on the limits of government power over their lives. Republicans seem to have forgotten these principles.

Last night on MSNBC, Pat Buchanon argued that the voters were rejecting the GOP but were supporting socially conservative ballot initiatives. It turns out he spoke to soon. Conservatives suffered significant defeats in South Dakota, Missouri and Arizona.

In conservative South Dakota, the voters overwelmingly rejected a ban on all abortions by a 55-45 margin. This is a huge loss for cultural conservatives and a significant win for liberals and for libertarians. This, coupled with the outrage over the Terry Schiavo fiasco, makes it clear that most voters do not want government officials intruding into their personal lives. The social conservatives have reached too far. Hopefully Republicans will pay attention and start moving back towards the middle on social issues. As for Democrats, hopefully they will develope a backbone on these social issues. Their unwillingness to stand up to the Republicans during the Terry Schiavo controversy was shamefull.

Missouri provided the next big win for liberals by passing the stem-cell research initiative. This has become a huge wedge issue for Democrats. Hopefully this vote, along with the gains by Democrats in the House and the Senate, will lead to passage of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research with margins sufficient to override a veto by President Bush.

Finally, Arizona is the first state to reject a constitutional ban on gay marriage. The proposed amendment would have also banned civil unions. Again, many voters apparantly believed that the social conservatives went to far. A wide majority of Americans oppose gay marriage, but more and more Americans are open to the concept of protecting legal rights for civil unions.

Add George Will to the growing list of commentators who are ridiculing the new law passed by the Republican Congress to limit online gambling. Will calls it “Prohibition II” and argues that we need to fight excessive paternalism by the government.

Granted, some people gamble too much. And some people eat too many cheeseburgers. But who wants to live in a society that protects the weak-willed by criminalizing cheeseburgers? Besides, the problems—frequently exaggerated—of criminal involvement in gambling, and of underage and addictive gamblers, can be best dealt with by legalization and regulation utilizing new software solutions. Furthermore, taxation of online poker and other gambling could generate billions for governments.

We need a new movement to keep the government out of our lives. Following the Terry Schiavo fiasco, many liberals have rediscovered the notion that too much intervention by the government can be a very bad thing. Libertarian conservatives like George Will are taking on the cultural conservatives on these issues. Unfortunately, many of our politicians on the right and the left still don’t seem to get it. Perhaps this stupid law can help. By pissing off the legions of poker players and other normal Americans who like to bet online, the politicians who want to control our lives might have finally gone too far.

I’m hoping more politicians on the left and the right pick up on this trend.