At the Register’s editorial meetings 10 years ago, if an editor had suggested covering a presidential campaign two years before election year, we would have dismissed the idea.  In fact, I can recall at least one such discussion. We decided that only those obsessed with politics will be interested. Most of our readers appreciate a long, blessed rest between political seasons.

But now it is February of 2007, and in this issue we are printing the second of two front-page stories about presidential candidates. What has changed?

The public face of the parties.

In the last political season, the Democratic Party backed a few high-profile candidates who claimed they were pro-life. We need to keep a careful watch to see if they will be allowed to have any impact or if, having used these pro-lifers, the Democratic leadership will now neutralize them. And so far, the Republicans’ major contenders for the presidency are pro-abortion or only ambiguously pro-life. Catholics need to keep a careful watch on the Republicans to see if, having used pro-life voters, the GOP leadership will now cast us aside.

So our first article about a presidential candidate introduced readers to Sam Brownback, a Catholic convert and pro-life stalwart in the Senate. This week’s article examines Mitt Romney’s claims to have turned over a new leaf after his earlier support for abortion and his disastrous signing of a law that changed the definition of marriage.

Some will accuse us of being too focused on a single issue. The right to life is not the only issue, but it is the threshold issue. The right to life is fundamental to America’s freedoms. Without it, all the rest is hollow.