Arnold, CA…One of the things we love about covering small towns is that it matters much less where your political loyalties lie and more if a person tries to help his or her community thrive. In our rural and at times economically challenged counties communities it takes a community effort just to keep small towns functioning. No one asks or cares how you vote when volunteers help for a parade, clean up a park or work on a hiking trail. In rural areas we still know each other in the analog world and not just as keyboard junkies. That is a good thing.

The polls from May of 2018 show that 29% believe abortion should be Legal under any circumstances. 50% believe abortion should be Legal under certain circumstances. Only 18% believed it should be illegal under all circumstances. Click above for full polling data.

For political parties to thrive they need “evil villains” to demonize to raise money for their cause. The world has to be seen as coming to an end to maximize donations. Instinctively we all know this but in our hyper partisan world more and more seem to be drinking the “Kool Aid” of political factions.

Let’s take one of the most divisive topics we can find which is abortion. How divided are we really even on this the most dividing of topics? Every year Gallop tracks how the body politic feels on this issue. The positions range from. Legal without questions 100 percent of the time on one side to Never allowable even in cases of Rape on the other.

The press release version tries to paint us as hopelessly divided but if you actually look at the data it clearly shows that fully 79% of the U.S. population believed in May of 2018 that Abortion should be legal and available for women in if not all at least some cases for women.

In the policy world it doesn’t matter if someone believes themselves Pro-Choice or Pro-Life. What really matters is how the population believes abortion should actually be implemented in policy. Fully 79% believe it should be legal in some cases.

On an issue like abortion there is no political value in that number. Next time you see an issue where there is supposed to be a clear line of division. Our bet is that almost 80% of us will agree. The old 80/20 rule works almost every time.

In politics though the 20% on the fringes of either party always controls the narratives.