Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), having chaired the Republican Congressional campaign committee, knows a thing or three about the realities in the electorate -- and one of them is that the authoritarian conservatives are way out of step with the voters when it comes to abortion rights.

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the Government Reform Committee, said the desire of GOP conservatives to see a newly constituted Supreme Court eventually overturn Roe v. Wade could produce a political backlash, particularly in the suburbs. "It would be a sea change in suburban voting patterns," Davis said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

Translation: The American voters don't want what the authoritarian government intrusion into private lives that the radical conservatives are peddling.

Davis's warnings on abortion grow out of the experience of Virginia Republicans in 1989, when the high court ruled that states could begin to restrict access to abortions. That fall, Democrat L. Douglas Wilder won the governor's race, with strong support in Northern Virginia.

"If Roe v. Wade is overturned," Davis said, "you're going to have a lot of very nervous suburban candidates out there. . . . It's easy to say you're for a culture of life, but the answer is what do you do about it at that point."

Someone should tell Chuck Schumer, who seems to think that the best Democratic gambit is to support socially authoritarian politicians, like Bob Casey, Jr., who are pushing for criminalization of all abortion.

How ironic that, just when the Democrats seem to be surging en masse to pander to the socially authoritarian minority in this country, the Republicans are seeing the writing on the wall for their support of such policies opposed by most Americans.

He also had choice words for the evasive and arrogant protests from President Bush and VIce President Cheney regarding criticism of the war on Iraq.

Davis claimed that that frustration over the war in Iraq and Bush's and Vice President Cheney's continued refusal to publicly address the CIA leak investigation continue to serve as a drag on the party. "I think the vice president and the president both right now probably are not helpful in a lot of marginal congressional seats," he said.

It doesn't take any seasoned eye to recognize that, what with the Administration's poll numbers in the tank.

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