OPINION: Will Rauner complete a ‘Full Obama’ on abortion rights?

Sept. 22--Political flip-flops are actually quite rare.

Sure, opportunistic, craven or newly enlightened pols frequently change their views.

But, to be persnickety about it, that's just a flip -- think of a light switch, a pancake on the griddle or a card on the blackjack table.

Common usage notwithstanding, a flip-flop is actually a double inversion: First the flip -- a reversal on an earlier position -- then the flop -- a return to the original position. A 360, to put it geometrically.

A classic example is Barack Obama on same-sex marriage. In February 1996, when he was running for the state Senate, he expressed unequivocal support for gay marriage in candidate questionnaires, writing that he "would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages."

Then in 2004, when he was running for the U.S. Senate and needed to appeal to voters statewide, he flipped. "I am not a supporter of gay marriage," he said. "My religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman."

Obama stuck to that position through his successful presidential run in 2008 and most of his first term. Then in May 2012, with his re-election campaign in full swing and his finger to the winds of shifting public opinion, he flopped: "I think same-sex couples should be able to get married," he announced in a TV interview.

A big question in Illinois these days is if Gov. Bruce Rauner will end up performing a "Full Obama" on the issue of Medicaid and state-employee health insurance funding of abortion services.

In April 2014, Rauner, then running for governor as a socially liberal Republican, wrote in a candidate questionnaire that he "dislike(s) the Illinois law that restricts abortion coverage under the state Medicaid plan and state employees' health insurance because ... it unfairly restricts access based on income."

He wrote, "I would support a legislative effort to reverse that law," and added the emphatic declaration, "I fundamentally believe that abortion should be a woman's private decision."

It was part of his successful "no social agenda" appeal to moderate Democrats, independents and centrists.

Illinois voters are slightly more likely to support abortion rights than voters nationwide, according to polls taken in March 2016. A Paul Simon Public Policy Institute poll found 36 percent of Illinois residents agreeing that abortion should be legal in all circumstances, compared to 29 percent of Americans overall in a poll that same month by the CNN/Opinion Research Center.

But was Rauner sincere?

He certainly failed a major test in April when the General Assembly was headed toward passing an abortion rights bill that called in part for Medicaid and state health plans to cover abortion, just like Rauner had said he wanted.

But, evidently feeling the heat from social conservative and base Republican voters, Rauner announced he would veto the bill based on that very requirement.

He said he'd been listening to constituents and concluded that "expanding taxpayer funding is a very divisive issue ... (and) what we should not do is take on controversial, divisive issues right now."

So there's your basic political flip -- Rauner trying to assuage base Republican voters whose enthusiasm he'll need if, as expected, he runs for re-election in 2018.

But now the flop?

Democrats are waiting to send the bill to Rauner's desk, either to try to force him to rethink his veto threat or to maximize the fallout if he does issue a veto. And Rauner's gone wobbly.

In recent days he's pointedly declined to reiterate his previous intention to veto what the alarmed and excitable Illinois Review calls the "free abortions bill," saying only that he's been "meeting with advocates on both sides ... (and) listening to their points of view."

His press office did respond to my request for clarification of his position, but did not offer anything new to the issue.

It's an indication that, since last spring, Rauner has come to fear a revolt from the moderates who helped elect him more than he fears a primary challenge from the right wing of his party.

And perhaps an indication that he's read his recent history.

Obama didn't pay a political price after performing a Full Obama and was subsequently re-elected.

Rauner may be hoping for the same.

ericzorn@gmail.com

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