How Politicians take advantage of 'hot-button' issues

In the last election, religious and moral issues, like abortion and gay-marriage, played an important role in how many people voted. Abortion especially had split the public. While I am against abortion and believe it is wrong in nearly all circumstances, I did not support George Bush, the pro-life candidate. Although anti-abortion was one of his platforms, the only anti-abortion action of his presidency came in 2003 when he signed the partial-birth abortion ban after it was passed by the senate and representatives. According to an Alan Guttmacher Institute Voluntary Poll, .17%(2,232 of 1,313,000) of abortions in 2000 were partial-birth, however, being a voluntary poll, their numbers may be close, but not exact. In addition, 28 states had already banned partial-birth abortion, making this bill not very important.
I am not trying to tear President Bush down, but instead show how politicians take advantage of 'hot button' issues. He did not outline any plan for eliminating abortion. If abortion was illegal, there would be huge surge in births and/or illegal abortions that the nation would be unprepared for. Many politicians do not have solid plans for issues and simply state their opinion for them. Americans need to recognize this problem and not waste their vote on somebody with empty promises.