In case you haven’t been paying attention for the past few days, NARAL Pro-Choice America has been running an ad opposing John Roberts‘ nomination. The ad targets pro-choice Republican Senators in Rhode Island (Lincoln Chaffe) and Maine (Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe) in an effort to create pressure from their mostly pro-choice constituents. The ad focuses on Roberts’ work as Principal Deputy Solicitor General under George H. W. Bush, specifically briefs he filed which argued that federal law did not prohibit violent protests around clinics where abortions are performed. Critics have focused on the fact that the NARAL ad is misleading in that it mentions a clinic bombing but not that Roberts’ brief was filed years earlier and that it accuses him of supporting violent groups and the clinic bomber.

On Thursday, NARAL buckled under pressure from pro-life groups and pro-choice Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter:

“We regret that many people have misconstrued our recent advertisement about Mr. Roberts’ record,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

“Unfortunately, the debate over that advertisement has become a distraction from the serious discussion we hoped to have with the American public,” she said in a letter Thursday to Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who had urged the group to withdraw the ad.

Specter, himself an abortion-rights supporter as well as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that will question Roberts next month, earlier Thursday had called the ad “blatantly untrue and unfair.”

This is bad policy, bad politics, betrays a critical lack of foresight on NARAL’s part, and is emblematic of exactly what is wrong with the Democratic party and Democratic-leaning issue groups. We will simply never win like this.

Was the NARAL ad misleading? I think it was, and worse, there wasn’t much need for it to be. Kevin Drum did a rewrite of the ad that made it both better and less misleading by focusing on the implications of Roberts’ brief rather than linking him to violent groups. The link isn’t important, the consequences are. But the last few years have seen political ads forsake any claim to reality in favor of polarizing the electorate and demonizing the opponent. That’s the game we’re all in right now, and Republicans and their allied groups have been firing away with abandon. Recent examples aren’t hard to remember: Morphing Max Cleland with Osama bin Laden in the 2002 Georgia Senate race, accusing the AARP of being anti-military and pro-gay marriage, the Swift Boat Liars’ attacks on John Kerry which cost him the Presidency, and even a Specter ad that distorted the record of his 2004 Senate opponent Joe Hoeffel.

NARAL apparently calculated (if they even bothered to calculate) that a more incendiary ad would get greater attention and have a better chance of provoking calls from Maine and Rhode Island residents to what NARAL considers to be “swing votes” in the Senate. And it worked, at least in terms of raising the issue; besides being a big blog topic this week, it made significant inroads into the media. What started as an ad buy in two small northeastern states crossed over to the national news. Even taking into account the criticism from nearly all Republicans and some Democrats, this result was the best NARAL could have hoped to achieve. Anti-choice groups would have cried foul and attacked NARAL no matter the message in the ad, but with two-thirds of Americans opposed to overturning Roe v. Wade, you weather the storm and keep fighting.

But not NARAL. By ending the campaign, they are weakening themselves and their cause while handing their opponents a victory and added power. The right isn’t going to issue a statement praising NARAL for pulling the ad, and they won’t hesitate to battle the next ad NARAL runs:

The replacement campaign, which Naral officials said would begin on Monday, will examine Judge Roberts’s records on several points, the officials said, including an argument he made as a government lawyer in 1991 that Roe v. Wade was “wrongly decided.”

On the other side, NARAL supporters will look at the capitulation and wonder if their donations and volunteer efforts are really worth it.

Making matters worse is the timing of the fold. Responding to Specter’s call to halt the ad proves the futility of NARAL’s support of pro-choice Republicans:

“The NARAL advertisement is not helpful to the pro-choice cause which I support,” Specter said in a letter to Keenan.

Specter’s letter should be tossed in the coffin when the pro-choice movement is dead and buried, an outcome I have little doubt Roberts wishes to hasten. Specter supports the pro-choice cause so much that not only is there a 0% chance of his voting against confirmation, there’s less of a chance that he will exercise his power as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to stall the nomination entirely. In fact, after vowing to oppose nominees who oppose abortion, Specter had to beg and promise to help confirm the President’s judges just to ensure his committee chairmanship. Wonder how NARAL feels about their endorsement of Specter now?

There’s a saying in AA that Democrats in general and NARAL specifically need to come to terms with right now: “simple not easy.” Given the pressure from the media and right wing groups, it’s not easy to stand up for what we believe in, but it’s simple to figure out that it must be done. We’re fighting against an opponent who will never stop, will never give us credit for being “decent,” and will never, ever play by the same rules they demand we follow. It takes force of will, a strong stomach, and thick skin to win this game, and almost no one on our side is displaying any of these qualities. The result is a string of losses that shows no signs of abating. The rank-and-file right see their proxies contest every minute detail on every issue important to them, while our rank-and-file see the leading pro-choice group fold a playable hand on the issue most Democrats point to as their top priority. Is it any wonder the other side has almost unlimited funding and we have to hold bake sales?

I hold out little hope that Roberts will be denied a seat on the Supreme Court despite many reasons that he shouldn’t even see a vote in the Senate. In politics there are four general outcomes: looking good while winning, looking bad while winning, looking good while losing, and looking bad while losing. NARAL looks about as bad in this loss as is humanly possible. Barbara Boxer has promised to hold up Senate business until she gets answers from Roberts and documents from the White House. She looks about as good losing as can be expected. Boxer is one woman who has to face statewide elections; NARAL isn’t answerable to anyone except women who want abortions, and you can bet your last dollar that they would have wanted NARAL to see this battle to completion.

As I have said over and over again, it’s time to start playing the game by the rules in place, not the rules we wish were in place:

There are no deals to be made with this crop of Republican power-brokers. Did they think that Grover Norquist was kidding when he compared Democrats to neutered farm animals? Do they think that Stephen Moore is just messing around when he funds primary challenges against moderate [Specter himself] Republicans? Any rational look at the last decade will reveal that these men and others like them will never deviate from their mission. Compromise? Maybe on what brand of cigar to have after dinner. Maybe.

With about six weeks left until a final vote on Roberts, NARAL needs to get back in this game. Their relevance is on the line along with an issue central to our side. Stand up or step off.