These candidates have spent months on the campaign trail, making speech after speech pontificating about their “courage”, their “leadership”. Yet their actual responses to Limbaugh’s venomous attack illustrate just the opposite.

I think Thurman Arnold's discussion of the thinking man and creeds is somewhat helpful in understanding what is going on. The thinking man is someone who prides himself on his rational appraisal of economic and social issues and his ability to discern right from wrong. His belief in his own rationality and free will is an illusion, however. What guides the thinking man in his decisions about what is right and wrong are the creeds of the organizations he belongs to, and though the thinking man thinks that he chooses these creeds, he does not. Men "become bound by loyalties and enthusiasms to existing organizations. If they successful in obtaining prestige and security from these organizations, they come to regard them as the ultimate in spiritual and moral perfection." This suggests that contraception is controversial not because there is actually any legitimate debate about whether it is good social policy but because the opposition to contraception comes from some organization (possibly political or religious, in this case) that has bound its members by providing them with prestige or security. I'm not sure what organization this would be, exactly, because Limbaugh's words go beyond what is espoused by the Republican party and most, though not all, mainstream religious groups.