Views > January 28, 2005

Dems: Because They Can?

By Cynthia L. Cooper

In a moment of morning-after madness, politicos within the Democratic Party are taking three giant steps backward from a woman’s right to choose. The results could be disastrous for progressive women’s political base.

Much of the drama is emerging around the normally staid contest for the chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which will be decided by 447 electors on February 12 at a DNC vote in Washington, D.C. All of the candidates for the position now held by Clinton-ally Terry McAuliffe are men, a large number of whom who are using Lincoln’s birthday as the opportunity to distance themselves from reproductive freedom. This comes at the time of greatest peril, when one or two anti-abortion appointments to the Supreme Court could upend the right to privacy protected by Roe v. Wade.

“What are we,” asks Eleanor Smeal, president and founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation, “fair weather friends?” Apparently so.

“We fought like mad to beat back the Republicans,” blogged Karen M. White, national political director for EMILY’s List, a pro-choice Democratic fundraising machine. “Little did we know that we would have just as much to fear from some within the Democratic Party who seem to be using choice as a scapegoat for our top-of-the-ticket losses.”

One of the favored candidates for the DNC chair is former Indiana Rep. Timothy Roemer, who has never found an anti-abortion measure that he didn’t like. In his campaign for the position, he called Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, to sweet-talk her, arguing that because he was victorious in a “red” state, he’d be a great leader for the Dems. The implication is party first, women second. Feldt didn’t buy it. She called upon Democrats to uphold a commitment to “women’s rights and health.” NARAL Pro-Choice America also announced a national campaign to defeat Roemer.

But Roemer is not without fans in high places. They include Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the pro-choice leader of Democrats in the House of Representatives. And her enthusiasm is shared by her newly selected Senate counterpart, the anti-abortion Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada.

But the cruelest cut may be closer to the heart. Pro-choice former presidential candidate Howard Dean is also a contender for the DNC chair. He alarmed pro-choice activists by stating that the Democratic Party needed to be more “inclusive” of pro-lifers.

Other lesser-knowns are in the mix. For a short while Kate Michelman, the former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, flirted with running for DNC chair. Also aspiring to the position are former Texas Rep. Martin Frost, former Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Leland, party activist Donnie Fowler, former Denver mayor Wellington Webb, and Simon Rosenberg, founder of the New Democrat Network. Rosenberg also declared that he is “open to pro-lifers,” according to an article in The American Spectator.

The irony is that pro-choice voters are a powerful base in the Democratic Party. More women (51 percent to 48 percent) voted for Kerry over Bush, according to polling by Lake, Snell, Perry and Associates. And despite the oft-repeated declaration that “moral values” swayed voters, further analysis shows that Iraq, terror and the economy were the driving issues for over 70 percent.

In the post-election atmosphere, everyone is positioning. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) called for the Democratic Party to hold fast to a woman’s right to choose. But Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) took a surprising turn, praising chastity education, asserting that abortion represents a “sad, even tragic, choice,” calling for “common ground” with pro-lifers.

The top gun himself may have started the rampage. During the election, Sen. John Kerry did such a lousy job of articulating his position that even campaign volunteers didn’t know he was pro-choice. Soon after he lost, Kerry told a group of progressives that Democrats should be permitted more latitude in supporting the anti-abortion line.

It seems as though these guys don’t want to take the rap for their losses—a familiar scenario to multitudes of women: A guy loses a fight in a bar, bumbles home and decides to take it out on his girlfriend instead.

Democrats are counting on the notion that women have nowhere else to go. The Greens are wooing women, and even pro-choice Republicans stuck with a hostile anti-abortion platform are gloating, arguing that pro-choice gals who left might as well come back. Fond memories are floated of the suffragists’ National Women’s Party. But there are few shelters for this type of domestic political violence.

Activists know the radical right isn’t interested in “common ground,” but rather the obliteration of sexual and individual liberties. If anything were to brand Democrats as losers, the post-election behavior toward women’s rights just might do it.

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• Reader Comments

  The Dems are going at it again, moving farther right to try and get more voters. The honest truth is people want an alternative. Democrats need to stop worrying so much about winning: they need to create change, and battle the conservatives until they are heard. Abortion AND gay marrage are both hot issues. Liberal Democrats need to tell people two things. First, being anti-gay is the same as being racist. Second, they need to to people if you don’t like abortions, don’t have one.

  No more of this “oh, we should probably change this.” “Oh, we should change this.” HECK NO. “THIS is what we stand for, and THIS is why you’re going to vote for us.” No more beating around the frickin’ bush!

  Posted by Brad on Jan 28, 2005 at 4:29 PM

  This country went too far left in too little time. Cultural attitudes have changed so much in the last 50 years that a backlash was just waiting to happen. Welcome to it. Now might be the time to use a little tact providing the political climate we now find ourselves in. Maybe gay marriage and such progressive ideas aren’t the best thing to be shoving down people’s throats at this particular moment. Stay Democrat, stay liberal, maybe just use your better judgement. This obviuosly is no longer the 1960’s.

  Posted by Ryan Conover on Jan 28, 2005 at 5:18 PM

  ok, i was with her for a moment. then we hit the part where she says, “a familiar scenario. . .a guy loses a fight in a bar, bumbles home, and decides to take it out on his girlfriend instead.” oh really? just how many “guys” does this woman know? does she run with bar-brawlers? give me a break. more likely she gets her psychology from stallone movies. stupid, sexist bullshit. great going, “girl,” you get ‘em.

  Posted by horace albaugh on Jan 28, 2005 at 9:04 PM

  Right on Horace!
  This woman has done exactly what the supposed “women’s movement” originally set out to do. Crush stereotypes of the sexes.
  No wonder dems are in such a shit hole!
  Rey

  Posted by Rey on Jan 28, 2005 at 9:35 PM

  More spinelessness from the democrats, a nearly wholly owned subsidiary of the republican party. It was not the democrats that made gay marriage a campaign issue, it was the republicans, in spite of the fact that there wasn’t a snowballs chance in hell that gay marriage was going to be legal in the US. It’s only purpose was as a wedge issue, and it worked. Just like the WMD scare and the social security “crisis”.
  Why can’t the democrats use the hypocracy of the pro-life party as an issue. republican policies hurt families in general, and children in particular.
  How many children has James Dobson, or Jerry Falwell, or Pat Robertson, or Tim Roemer ADOPTED from the children forced to give birth because of the many restrictions states have placed on a woman’s right to choose?
  Lastly, I don’t know how old Ryan is, but this country hasn’t been anywhere near the left, let alone too far left, since the first administration of FDR. Was Truman a Liberal? Eisenhower? Kennedy? LBJ? Nixon? Ford? Carter? Reagan? Clinton? If, by too far to the left, you mean civil rights legislation, environmental protection, and trying to stop the CIA from overthrowing elected leaders and replacing them with military juntas, then perhaps you need to re-examine the definitions you’re using. This country has more often flirted with fascism than with socialism, undermined democracy where ever it conflicted with profit, supported the worst kind of despots, Saddam Hussein among them, as well as Pinochet, Somoza, Duvalier, Shah Reza Pahlavi, Mubarak, we can’t wait to do business with China, but can’t stand Chavez, or Lula. Don’t be decieved, we have never been “too far to the left”.

  Posted by Kenneth D. Brown on Jan 28, 2005 at 10:08 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

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• Dems: Because They Can?