Birkey writes:
With more than a year to go until the general election, abortion is already becoming an issue in the 6th Congressional District race. An analysis of anti-abortion campaign donations finds that Rep. Michele Bachmann is one of the country’s top earners — and she’s delivered for her contributors on that issue.
No, she hasn't. That's not true, what he's written there. Michele hasn't delivered any successful legislation that's lowered the number of abortions. And she hasn't organized any successful repeal of law permitting abortion. So what does reporter Birkey mean when he insists that Bachmann's "delivered" for her pro-life contributors?
Birkey explains here:
Bachmann’s disproportionate share of contributions has paid off for her anti-abortion benefactors. She’s sponsored or cosponsored an impressive 13 bills restricting abortion rights so far this year. Among the bills, one includes funneling entitlement money to “abortion alternatives” programs and another that would ban race and sex discrimination against fetuses. Yet another would give 14th Amendment protections to an embryo or fetus.
You see: Birkey seems to think that "making noise" equals "delivering for her contributors" or "paying off for her contributors." It doesn't.
It's true that the anti-abortion lobbyists love Michele, but it's not true that she's *ever* delivered anything of value in the way of the changes in the law that this lobby seeks. (I can't find any evidence of Bachmann delivering a successful reform in the law governing abortion, and I assume that Birkey can't either or he would have reported it.)
When Mark Kennedy, Bachmann's predecessor as Congressman here, announced on his web pages that he "delivered" for the people of the Sixth District: he listed the amounts of money that amount that his lawmaking work in D.C. produced for the people of the district. That was "real" money, a tangible refund to Kennedy's constituents of the real money that his constituents had paid in federal taxes. Kennedy was bragging that he had "delivered" something "real" to his district: a cash infusion to foster or preserve prosperity in the local economy.
Bachmann on the hand, "delivers" nothing real, nothing tangible, nothing that will become law. I think Birkey is wrong to suggest that she is delivering for the pro-life crowd, if all she delivers is empty resolutions that go nowhere.
To make it clearer, let's go back to Rep. Mark Kennedy. Suppose that Kennedy had announced on his web pages that he *hadn't* obtained large amounts of money for his district--announcing that he had merely "sponsored resolutions for large amounts of taxpayer money to be returned to his district" (but these resolutions had gone nowhere, in fact, and never become law or reality.) If that had been the case (and Kennedy and a newspaper had announced that his go-nowhere resolutions constituted "delivery to" his constituents) Kennedy would have gotten nothing but dismissive laughs. And so would a paper that reported his non-achievement as "paying off" for his supporters.
What Bachmann has delivered here, is also empty rhetoric and pointless gestures that don't go anywhere. If the anti-abortion set is *happy* with empty rhetoric and pointless gestures, that's their business--but Bachmann has in fact delivered nothing. A commenter to Birkey's article makes the point:
Alec
Comment posted July 30, 2009 @ 7:06 pm
You state that supporting Bachmann has paid off for the anti-abortion groups, but I do not see any evidence of that whatsoever. Authoring useless bills that will never pass doesn’t help, does it? In fact, I wonder if Bachmann has ever authored a bill that actually became law. I am pro-choice, and for all practical purposes Bachmann and I have done the same for abortion rights groups. Nothing. Which is about the same as she has done for her real constituents.
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