SHELL GAMES IN ELECTION YEARS AND SHORTSIGHTED THINKING.

In the New York gubernatorial election of 1982, the setup for an election disaster was "perfect." The two major candidates were Mario Cuomo, nominated by the Democratic and Liberal parties of New York, and Lewis Lehrman, the candidate of the Republican and Conservative parties.

Mr. Lehrman was pro-life. But part of the pro-life vote could potentially be split off, because both candidates were Catholic. Mr. Cuomo cleverly and intensely exploited this opportunity through large advertisements in Catholic papers. Nicely fudging the issue, Mr. Cuomo claimed to be informed and formed by Catholic teaching on abortion. Of course, he turned out to be of the "personally opposed" type and resolutely unwilling to "impose" his personal views about abortion on others and translate them into pro-life public policy.

Although many politicians had resorted to this shell game before him, Mr. Cuomo surely became its most successful and illustrious practitioner. In fact, the "pro-choice" wing of the religious left was (and still is) awed by Mr. Cuomo's rhetorical dexterity in this regard.

In a famous speech at the University of Notre Dame in 1984, Mr. Cuomo demonstrated how to play the shell game: Beyond stating that one is "personally opposed" to abortion, one must lovingly speak of the Catholic Church and vocally profess loyalty to Church teaching on abortion, but then express one's greatest respect for "our unique pluralistic democracy"and, ultimately, stand firmly with the pro-abortion crowd for "choice." Obviously, for the Cuomos and like politicians, the real doctrine on abortion is to be found in Roe and Doe, not in the teachings of the Church.

To Cuomo's imitatorsfor example, Senators Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy, Chris Dodd, Dick Durbin, Tom Daschle (former Senator and Majority Leader), and John Kerrythe Notre Dame speech was not only an instruction on how to play the shell game but the very philosophical foundation for the exercise: it's OK, because the smart Mario Cuomo explained it.

At the time of Cuomo's Notre Dame speech, it was primarily Catholic pro-abortion politicians who were under pressure to play the "personally-opposed-and-in-full-agreement-with-the-Church-BUT" game. Then, non-Catholic pro-abortion politicians saw with admiration how well the exercise worked and began to imitate their Catholic colleagues.

This shell game about abortion is still going on today. In fact, we can currently observe how Senator Barack Obama, the ultra-liberal and more-pro-abortion-than-NARAL co-sponsor of the infernal "Freedom of Choice Act," is seeking to advance his candidacy for the presidency by speaking of his religious experiences, promoting faith-based initiatives, and of raising reservations about abortions on women who are merely "feeling blue" about the pregnancythough that would not only be contrary to Doe v. Bolton but also to the "Freedom of Choice Act" promoted by the senator.