SIZE MATTERS

55 SENATORS KEEP HOPE ALIVE

In his first term, President George W. Bush had a Republican Senate. Well, sort of. A little bit. Sometimes. And not so you'd notice.

Now he has 55 Senators of his own party. And that's a very, very important number.

Not only does he have a far greater chance of defeating the filibustering nonsense the Senate Democrats saddled him with in the first term, putting one judicial appointment after another on ice, on the flimsiest of excuses--he also has new Senators that are far, far more conservative than the ones we've seen before.

The chief obstructionist, Tom Daschle, defeated House Minority Leader, has fallen to a flat-out conservative, John Thune. Pro-life Louisiana Congressman David Vitter surprised everyone by defeating two Democrats with better than 50% of the vote, avoiding a run-off election. The open Florida seat, formerly that of Democratic presidential aspirant Bob Graham, went to the President's former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Mel Martinez. The old job of John Edwards (the unluckiest unemployed lawyer in America) was picked up by a conservative co-sponsor of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act while in the House, who defeated former Clinton chief of staff, Erskine Bowles.

South Carolina's open seat, emptied by the resignation of distinctly Democratic Fritz Hollings, is now the property of former House member of the Congressional Pro-life Caucus, Jim Demint. Former ambassador to the United Nations and pro-life conservative firebrand Alan Keyes lost an open Republican seat to liberal Democrat Barack Obama, but Keyes was handicapped from the beginning by coming to the race late, in a party in disarray, scrambling to replace the unfortunate Jack Ryan, running as an outsider in a state he was not from, and which handily delivered its electoral vote to John Kerry. Keyes can take it, and we'll get over it. Perhaps most interestingly of all, the putative new Senate Minority leader, Harry Reed of Nevada, may be a pal of Patricia Ireland and Hillary Clinton, but he is also the rarest of breeds these days--a pro-life Democrat.

And Thursday evening, after the news reported in the morning that the assumed next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, moderate Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter had "warned" the president not to send up any divisive judicial nominees that might overturn Roe v. Wade, the airwaves were awash in Specter's denial that he ever did such a thing. If he did, he's been slapped down good, and I doubt he'll try it again, assuming the 60% of his conservative fellow Senators on Judiciary vote him into the position in the first place.

In this term, the president is likely to appoint at least one, and perhaps up to four new Justices to the Supreme Court. This, indeed, has been the target of the evangelical leadership for more than two years, since the first rumblings began that homosexual sodomy might become a right and gay marriage a fact of American life. But those Justices will no doubt share the president's concern with the taking of unborn life. If Rehnquist's health fails, we can expect the brilliant conservative Antonin Scalia to rise to the position of Chief, and another conservative to replace him. Several other justices are not well, and some are old. It is doubtful the other 8 will all hold out for another four years.

The fact is, not since 1972, the year before Roe was decided, has there been a better time to be an unborn child in America.

They have a pro-life president, a pro-life House, a pro-life Senate, and a presumably pro-life electorate on their side. The cozy roost the pro-abortion lobby had during the Clinton administration was vacated during the first Bush administration, and now has a "this property is condemned" sign on it. There's an open door at the White House for Crisis Pregnancy Centers and adoption advocates, and empty chairs at the Judiciary committee, just waiting for pro-life doctors, nurses, social workers, authors, and activists to occupy them as witnesses at hearings on the various aspects of abortion law. And International Planned Parenthood is persona non grata at the American delegation to the United Nations.

This president has delivered the goods for his pro-life base. The administration has been suffused with concern for the sanctity of innocent life, both in domestic affairs and foreign policy. The American UN delegation has fought to remove language that would spread the poison of abortion throughout the world--and won. The Congress has passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, the Child Custody Protection Act, and the Abortion Non-discrimination Act. Many of the incoming Senators already have solid records protecting the sanctity of life. Others have made promises the voters expect them to keep.

Fifty-five is a wonderful number. It's going to help some very vulnerable people stay alive.