General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHey, Democratic Candidates: Pro-Choice Women Are Your Base
Running an anti-choice candidate might pick up a few Republican votesat the expense of turning off the partys loyal voters.
Imagine if Democrats, sick and tired of losing white votes in Mississippi, decided to nominate a segregationist for governor. Imagine if they found that LGBTQ rights turn off voters in Tennessee, so they ran one of those anti-same-sex-marriage Christian bakers. Imagine if they found that plenty of Oklahoma voters didnt believe in climate change, so they ran a denialist. After all, why get hung up on one item in the long list of good things we all support when the important thing is getting back into power? Everyone has to take one for the team sometimes, right?
Dont worry, Nation readers. These scenarios arent about to happen. Only women are expected to let history roll backwards over them. Only womens rights to contraception and abortion are perpetually debatable, postponable, side-trackable, while those who insist on upholding the party platformand the Constitutionare dismissed as rigid ideologues with a litmus test. Party leaders cant come right out and say soin fact, Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez has issued a statement declaring that abortion rights are non-negotiable. But if you pay attention, you can feel the waters are being tested. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi told The Washington Post, This is not a rubber-stamp party. Why else would Perez meet with Democrats for Life? And why did so many pay such close attention to Heath Mello, a former state legislator in Nebraska with a long record of anti-abortion votes, who ran for mayor of Omaha with the approval of both Bernie Sanders, and, initially, Perez? Maybe they hadnt done their due diligence and didnt know, or maybe it was a test: Can we win in red states if we run anti-abortion candidates?
Now comes Joshua Svaty, who is running in Kansass Democratic gubernatorial primary. Svaty, who served most recently as the state secretary of agriculture and EPA adviser, has a long anti-choice record from his years in the State Legislature (20039). He voted for no less than 11 anti-abortion bills, including one that declares the unborn child a person from the moment of conception, and a rather confusingly worded measure, vetoed by then-Governor Kathleen Sebelius, that would have allowed a womans husband, parent, or guardian to sue the clinic to prevent her from getting an abortion or receive damages if one had been performed. Never mind what the woman wanted; her pregnancy belongs to her family.
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Kansas presents an opportunity for the Democrats. Governor Sam Brownback, who cant run again due to term limits, has ruined the states finances, cutting education and other services to hand out tax cuts, and right now it looks as if the Republican candidate will be Kris Kobach, Kansass secretary of state, most famous for his ongoing efforts to take away voting rights from as many people as possible. The conventional wisdom is that you need to be anti-choice to win in Kansas, where the pro-life movement has long been extremely militant. But is that true? According to a 2016 poll, 30 percent of Kansans want to ban abortion completely, which is much higher than the national average; 30 percent want it to be legal; and 38 percent said they wouldnt choose abortion for themselves but that the government shouldnt prevent women from making their own decision. Over half said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who wanted to defund Planned Parenthood, which Brownback tried to do before being blocked by the courts; 32 percent said they would be more likely to vote for such a candidate. Indeed, in 2016, even as Trump carried the state by 56.2 percent, Kansas Democrats elected 17 new members to the State Legislature, most of them pro-choice."
https://www.thenation.com/article/hey-democratic-candidates-pro-choice-women-are-your-base/
50 Shades Of Blue
(10,141 posts)ehrnst
(32,640 posts)appal_jack
(3,813 posts)The anti-choice camp is pro-forced labor for women. Any American should oppose that, and stand for choice & privacy.
-app
dsc
(52,187 posts)this was a very poorly researched piece. The current, Democratic, governor of WV is literally a coal executive who ran a Trump like campaign and certainly a climate denier. Gov Bashear of Kentucky was very anti gay he was nominated and ran twice by Democrats. The Nation should do a better job of editing.
IronLionZion
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