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Jessica, I'm glad you raised the abortion issue. As I was listening to clips from the pro-life rallies yesterday, what struck me was the time-warp factor. The abortion debate has 
shifted radically over the last five years, but you wouldn't know it from listening to those protesters. Democratic interest groups have been working hard to shift their party's language about abortion. Candidates hardly ever talk about "choice" anymore. They don't even stop at Clinton's "safe, legal, and rare." Nowadays, they take that formula one step further and use the word "reduction," as in, "we will actively pass laws that help reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, in order to ultimately reduce the number of abortions." (See my Atlantic story here, and Amy Sullivan's great book.) Of course, it is a classic strategy of the party in opposition to create straw men. Democrats did it, too. But I can't imagine the callous-to-life argument will stick to Obama, who has mastered the kind of religious overtones that make him impervious to this charge.
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Eve, you're right that Kirsten Gillibrand has a remarkably conservative record for a New York Dem, except on one issue: reproductive rights. She co-sponsored a 2007 bill to "expand access to preventive health care services that help reduce unintended pregnancy, reduce abortions, and improve access to women's health care," and she also got a 100 percent rating from NARAL Pro-Choice New York. It's been argued by Ross Douhat and others that pro-lifers are more willing to compromise, especially now that Obama and his choice-loving compatriots are in charge, but the evidence of that is scant. In fact, it seems like the pro-life movement has been invigorated by Obama's inauguration, as tens of thousands of anti-abortion activists attended a rally in D.C. yesterday to mark the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. (According to the AP, one woman held up a sign that said “The Audacity of Hope: No More Roe.”)
Related: Wonder what the Catholic Gillibrand thinks of this ad making the rounds from CatholicVote.org, which argues that if Obama had been aborted, he wouldn't be president today.
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