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September 12, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – President Obama’s extreme views on abortion may be about to cost him the election, according to the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus.

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Carl A. Anderson wrote in an Aug 24 National Review column that Democrats’ strategy making “unrestricted access to abortion a key component” to the reelection effort was bound to backfire on the president.

“On November 7, we may well look back at this week’s events and see that this was the week that President Obama lost the presidency — because of the abortion issue,” he wrote.

He notes that a Knights of Columbus/Marist poll from this year shows a majority of Americans disagreeing with Obama’s views on abortion: while 12 percent of Americans support Obama’s abortion position, 88 percent opted for significant restrictions on the procedure.

The Democratic National Convention last week featured several leaders of the abortion movement and unveiled a party platform touting unrestricted abortions regardless of income – implying taxpayer funding of abortion – and declaring the party will “oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.”

Any political mileage Democrats might have gotten from Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” gaffe, Anderson said, wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover for such extremism.

“Come November, those entering voting booths from coast to coast are unlikely to be concerned by the poorly worded comments of a Senate candidate in Missouri,” wrote Anderson.

“What they are likely to remember is that the president has embraced the most radical abortion position possible — one out of step with nearly nine in ten Americans.”

Anderson pointed out the dramatic change between today’s party line and Obama’s toned-down abortion rhetoric four years ago when he courted the Catholic and Evangelical vote: Evangelical pastor Rick Warren, who said the prayer at Obama’s inauguration ceremony, has since vowed to go to jail rather than comply with the administration’s attack on religious freedom through the HHS mandate.

The pastor, Anderson said, “can hardly be alone in his disillusionment.”

“What must those voters who believed the president’s rhetoric in the last election think now? And what will they think in November?” he wrote.

The Knight of Columbus noted that if Obama continues to fall out of favor with Catholics, it will be unlikely he can win the election: no president in recent years has won without backing from Catholic majority.

“It is clear that the president’s winning coalition of 2008 is fractured, and it is unlikely to be resurrected by appealing to 12 percent of the population,” he wrote.