Ward likes to offer multiple iotas of shit. One iota I found problematic:
There were other nuances such as GOP winners who stood up to the unprincipled positions of pro choice opponents
Just because someone's principles aren't yours, doesn't make them UNprincipled. While you accuse anyone disagreeing with you of "pounding the table" or "stomping your foot," you never take your own foot off the partisan rhetoric pedal.
The abortion campaign example was illuminating for the GOP.
The position of the dems is
abortion on demand until birth, paid for by taxpayers polls at 10 per cent with the public even after SCOTUS and Dobbs. I call that an unprincipled position even if extremist is a better choice of words.
In the campaign dems outspent the GOP counterparts by a ratio of about 400 to 1 largely casting republican candidates as heartless villains who will let women die. Those in the GOP who ran from the debate like Dr. Oz and Adam Laxalt lost.
In contrast those in the GOP who exposed their dem opponents as extremists who support abortion on demand without limits were winners like Marco Rubio, Ted Budd and J.D. Vance. Their pro life poisons were based around consensus measures such as protections for unborn children when their heartbeat can be detected or they can feel pain and health care for women whose lives may be in danger.
Republican Governors who exposed similar views include Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis, Mike DeWine, Kay Ivey, Brian Kemp, Henry McMaster, Kristi Noem, Kim Reynolds, Kevin Stitt and others were handily re-elected.
According to the AP smallest margin of victory among them was eight points, the largest 37 points.
I hope future pro life candidates heed this GOP strategy in the next campaigns.