The Campaign and The Court
From Drew Western in the Huffington Post:
I'm sick of hearing holy, holy, holy out of the mouths of the decidedly human and flawed. And I'm sick of watching Democrats run away from the pro-choice position. A few years back, I worked on a campaign for someone running for state assembly. Her opponent's website was full of anti-abortion jargon and self-righteousness. He had the anti-choice zealots thoroughly enthused and activated, and they were pounding the pavement for him every weekend. And her site... had nothing. Attempts to put something pro-choice up were shot down by the statewide Democratic campaign committee, or the national advisers, I never did figure out which. The result? The forces that would have turned out for her - NOW chapters, NARAL members, etc. - didn't know where she stood. She had no hope of garnering anti-choice votes, so why hide?
At the Saddleback Church campaign event August 16, Rick Warren asked McCain, "At what point is a baby [sic] entitled to human rights?" and McCain answered, "At the moment of conception."
When is someone going to ask, "At what point does a woman lose her human rights?"
The answer is, when Republicans control the legislature; when they control the executive; when they control the judiciary; and never faster than when they control all three.
- The failure to state a clear position on hot-button issues has been a standard Democratic error for decades. Republicans never make this mistake. They've been running on a position on abortion that's at 30% in the polls for years-that life begins at conception, and there's no room for compromise-and this year they've even taken the more extreme position that every rapist has the right to choose the mother of his child. If Democrats don't run on abortion and contraception this year, when Republicans have governed or threaten to govern with positions so far to the right that you can't find them on a map of America (e.g., forcing teenagers to have their rapists' babies, perpetuating the cycle of poverty by making contraceptives unavailable to poor women, teaching only abstinence when it's nearly impossible to name a Republican who ever practiced it-they deserve another 3 Alitos and a Scalia for good measure.
I'm sick of hearing holy, holy, holy out of the mouths of the decidedly human and flawed. And I'm sick of watching Democrats run away from the pro-choice position. A few years back, I worked on a campaign for someone running for state assembly. Her opponent's website was full of anti-abortion jargon and self-righteousness. He had the anti-choice zealots thoroughly enthused and activated, and they were pounding the pavement for him every weekend. And her site... had nothing. Attempts to put something pro-choice up were shot down by the statewide Democratic campaign committee, or the national advisers, I never did figure out which. The result? The forces that would have turned out for her - NOW chapters, NARAL members, etc. - didn't know where she stood. She had no hope of garnering anti-choice votes, so why hide?
At the Saddleback Church campaign event August 16, Rick Warren asked McCain, "At what point is a baby [sic] entitled to human rights?" and McCain answered, "At the moment of conception."
When is someone going to ask, "At what point does a woman lose her human rights?"
The answer is, when Republicans control the legislature; when they control the executive; when they control the judiciary; and never faster than when they control all three.