ABC News guest: “The death penalty is going to go the way of opposition to gay marriage”

Political consultant Matthew Dowd addressed Dzokhar Tsarnaev's sentencing on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos"

Published May 18, 2015 12:50PM (EDT)

     (ABC News)
(ABC News)

On Sunday's edition of "This Week," political consultant and strategist for George W. Bush's 2004 campaign Matthew Dowd responded to a jury's decision that Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would receive the death penalty.

"I find it amazing actually that conservatives are all for the death penalty and government involvement in the taking of a life, but they're not for government involvement in health care and the saving of a life?" Dowd asked. "I don't get, sort of, the disposition on this case."

Bostonians are overwhelmingly opposed to the death penalty in general, and only 15 percent of the city's residents wanted Tsarnaev to receive a death sentence, according to a poll conducted by the Boston Globe. Meanwhile, around 60 percent of Americans support the decision to give Tsarnaev the death penalty.

"I think the death penalty 20 years from now," Dowd continued, "people that are for the death penalty are going to be in the same place as people that are against gay marriage. The death penalty is going to go the way of opposition to gay marriage."

Watch the clip below, courtesy of Mediaite:


By Joanna Rothkopf

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