Converting The Heathens (Mara Vanderslice, the guru of the DINO Movement)

[Ian David]

Converting The Heathens

by digby


People can say I'm being hysterical all they want, but I honestly feel that a woman's right to choose is about to go the way of the death penalty as a fundamental liberal value. The party is dying to find a reason to throw in the towel. And people like this are helping them do it:

Party strategists and nonpartisan pollsters credit the operative, Mara Vanderslice, and her 2-year-old consulting firm, Common Good Strategies, with helping a handful of Democratic candidates make deep inroads among white evangelical and churchgoing Roman Catholic voters in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Ms. Vanderslice’s success in 2006 is a sharp rebound from her first campaign, in 2004. She was hired, at age 29, to direct religious outreach for Mr. Kerry in his presidential campaign and was then quickly shoved aside, a casualty of a losing battle to persuade him to speak more openly about his Catholic faith, even if it meant taking on the potentially awkward subject of his support for abortion rights.

The midterm elections were a “proof point” for arguments that Ms. Vanderslice had made two years before, said Mike McCurry, a Democratic consultant and former spokesman for President Bill Clinton who worked with Ms. Vanderslice on the Kerry campaign. For the Democrats, Mr. McCurry said, Ms. Vanderslice and her company “were the only ones taking systematic, methodical steps to build a religious component in the practical campaign work.”

<snip>

I also believe that the Democratic Party -- we really need to engage in a more thoughtful debate on the abortion issue in this country. I can't tell you how many times I had conversations with people of deep faith said, "I support you everything you are doing on every other issue except for this one." It is such a painful and divisive issue in this country, and we have, therefore, avoided it, I think, to a large extent. I don't think that does service for us. I believe that we need to work across our differences to find ways to reduce unwanted pregnancies. There are a million and a half abortions every year in this country, and no one can feel that's a good place for us to be. But we need to support the programs that we know reduce the need for abortions. Abortion rates went down to their lowest levels in 25 years under President Clinton; abortion rates went up under President Reagan. We need to work together to support the programs that will help women choose life, and I think we need to be open to a new dialogue on this issue.



We need to support the programs that will help women choose life. She slipped that one right in there, didn't she? It's hardly a ringing endorsement of a woman's right to own her own body. In fact, I don't hear even one tiny acknowledgement in that argument that it's important to defend the right to abortion. All I hear is smooth PR copy.

More:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116719904478865320