Burnt Orange Report

I would have been appalled if NARAL had supported a pro-life candidate. As it is, they simply did what they're chartered to do - support pro-choice legislators, and pro-choice legislation.

NARAL is an issues organization, not a wing of the Democratic party.

You're mad at NARAL for not supporting an anti-choice candidate.

Um, hello? Are you just really confused here?

I think the whole thread is pretty amusing. Kos & most of the posters on his site constantly demean the DLC, Blue Dog Dems and anyone who doesn't fit their progressive/liberal mold. Many have advocated throwing those Dems out of the party, voting for third parties, etc - basically, putting their left-wing ideology over party. Chet Edwards may not vote the way they want him to on some GOP-sponsored bills, but he's a reliable vote for a Dem Speaker who would never let those kind of bills show up on the floor.

Now, NARAL makes a similar stance of ideology above politic and they're wrong? Please - NARAL has made their agenda very clear: to support pro-choice candidates, not pro-choice Dems.

It's nice that Kos & his posters have found a new target beyond the normal evils of non-progressives, but the hypocrisy is sickening.

Personally, I do disagree with NARAL & think their move was short-sighted, but I don't advocate running conservative Dems out of the party.

Jim Langevin would be a phenomenal Senator, as his record in the House attests to

The man is a pro abortion criminalization nut job. He would support laws that would kill my wife and daughter, screw him.

, and would join Bob Casey (assuming he beats Santorum) as a new and exciting pro-life leader in our caucus.

Bob Casey is going to lose, because the moderate center won't go out for him, and the wingnuts will continue to vote for Senator "A frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex."

There are issues that Democrats can take conservative positions on in Pennsylvania, like Guns, where they can pick up votes.

Abortion is not one of them.

As an aside, having lived both in Texas and Pennsylvania, why is it that while guns are big in both, in Texas, people just want to shoot stuff, and seem to be constantly wacking themselves by accident, while in Pennsylvania, it seems to be the classic "responsible sportsman" behavior.

People who are big on guns in Pennsylvania hunt and eat what they hunt, and people who are big on guns in Texas want to use high powered weapons on oil drums and paper targets (not counting the internet hunting).

No wonder I don't take the "major" left bloggers seriously. They are so full of self-importance, they don't even take the time to use any sense at all. NARAL isn't a part of the Democratic Party, and it can endorse whoever it wants.

Lincoln Chafee isn't a fascist, by the way, and as long as he is in the Senate, and he will be re-elected, Democrats are going to need his help on so many issues.

Perhaps someday he will be so disgusted with the Republican Party he will bail ala Jeffords.

Wait a minute, you used to room with Ezra?!? I'm so jealous.

Andrew, did you really expect NARAL to endorse someone who would criminalize abortion? NARAL is not, I repeat, NOT associated with the Democratic Party. The same thing goes for Planned Parenthood, TARAL, etc. They are friendly towards Dems because of the pro-choice plank in our platform, and our party (generally) tends to try and avoid oppressing women by interfering with their right to choose. I applaud anyone who does not interfere with my reproductive rights.

You all are missing the point-- Langevin is not running anymore. Matt Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse are both pro-abortion rights and will vote for Democratic leadership, which will protect those rights. Lincoln Chaffee is also pro-abortion rights, but will vote for pro-life leadership. NARAL should endorse the candidate that will be best for their cause, and there is not a single Republican who can claim that mantle.

Bob Casey is leading in all of the polls, and I have never decried the DLC or the Blue Dogs-- I agree with them on a lot of things.

And Ezra and I shared a room for a while in Vermont when we were both working for Dean.

You're all missing Andrew's point a bit here I think-- he's not saying NARAL should have endorsed Langevin. But he IS saying that they are being a typical problematic inside-the-beltway interest group that misses the big picture, in so far as they've handled this situation with Chafee. And as someone who is looking at it from the ground up in Rhode Island, I'm with him on that.

The fact is, its not that NARAL made noises they'd support Chafee over Langevin in the end and were set to help the only other candidate in the race then, Matt Brown (Sheldon Whitehouse was going to stay out of it and back Langevin, and maybe run for Govenor). Its that they did so in a rather manipulative way to force Langevin out by making it clear that they'd create such a nasty primary that either guy would be bruised and financially drained coming out into the fall campaign (we have a late primary in early September, though there is FINALLY talk of changing that afoot). That has resonance since its what happenned last time, when Langevin's also-pro-life-predecessor Rep. Bob Weygand got crushed by Chafee after he and pro-choice former Lt. Governor Richard Licht duked it out rather bitterly. This was power politics at its most successful being played, with noise aimed at the national party over Langevin and Casey, Hollywood celebs fundraising for Brown, and so forth--- and yet then they turn around and endorse Chafee, the guy who has only met 1 Bush nominee he couldn't vote for!!!

And moreover, I think the big problem that the folks at Kos latch onto, is that in this case they are taking power to decide for ourselves away from the people at the grassroots. Langevin is a liberal populist who happens to part company on this ONE ISSUE, albeit a big issue that does make me uncomfortable; and its overall a pro-choice state, albeit heavily Catholic and thus with good chunk of its overwhelming Democratic majority consisting of anti-choice Democrats; but still, people here really do LOVE him! In 2000, when he ran for his House seat (representing half the state), he did so not only replacing a fellow pro-lifer, but in a primary where he was against 3 other credible candidates that were pro-choice (including one supported with tons of funds by EMILYs LIST). Lots of people who are pro-choice voted for Langevin, and still do vote for him. The point is, that's a debate we should be having.

And likewise with the matter of whether Chafee's votes on judges and empowering Frist/Dobson are utterly damning to his pro-choice stance across the board otherwise. I happen to personally think that even Langevin, who is wrong on the issue and individual votes but would have been against Bush's extremist judges like Harry Reid, would have been better for choice on this count, and that either Brown or Whitehouse now DEFINITELY is better by far. But still, I don't expect NARAL or anyone else in the pro-choice movement to utterly ditch one of the few remaining supportive Republicans. However, I WOULD have liked it if, all things being equal in those things balancing out to me-- and especially being equal now that you have two pro-choicers on the Democratic side-- they'd have kept neutral on this one. I mean, seriously, Chafee might be someoene they still want to represent pro-choice Republicans, but personally, as someone who does give a huge damn about protecting choice, I think that shouldn't be enough to give him the endorsement. We do live in day and age of partisan poltiics where the GOP has gone off the deep end, and that is something that liberal interest groups are being rather slow to factor into their still doing politics-as-usual. I've got no problem with them supportign a pro-choice REpublican to keep those folks alive, so long as they actually GET something in return. With Chafee, all you get is a vote on everything but the stuff that matters the MOST, and someone who is frankly a wimp in standing up for himself effectively. The Bolton nomination fight shows how he has a powerful possible role to play on the Foreign Relations Committee-- why not use his swing vote, for instance, to join with Dems in doing something about international family planning policies and other ridiculouslness--and also how feckless he is with it (and how frankly, his status in the GOP yet as a known contrarian makes him completely able to be railroaded as such by his leadership). In that regard, then, he's actually worse again than Langevin, who on birth control, sex ed. and stem cell research (especially the latter, given its PERSONAL relevance for him) is not only on the right side, but AGGRESSIVELY so. A good analogy is Rep. Sherwood Boehlert of upstate NY, who is pretty conservative overall but is a dedicated environmentalist and every cycle since 2000 has gotten an aggressive primary challenge sponsored by Club for Growth. Now, I've got no problem wiht LCV et. al. going gangbusters for Boehlert, but its because he is in such danger and actually gets them something in his role as House Science Committee Chairman (indeed, the very thing that most infuriates the far right about him and motivates them to come back just as strong each cycle). Chafee, on the other hand, has done squat to really and effectively push back against his party's extremist tendencies, with the sole exception of his deciding committee vote on Clear Skies (a big part, btw, of why Senator Inhofe is reportedly among those encouraging Steve Laffey to challenge him in a primary)-- certainly he hasn't done anything useful on choice, and more generally he has bowed to leadership on major opportunities to stand up like judicial nominees, the Bolton nomination (and Gonzales for that matter), and the sham medicare prescription drug bill (he voted against all progressively-oriented "poison pill" amendments Dems tried to attach and against the last ditch attempt to effectively filibuster it that failed by ONE VOTE, then voted against the bill on the floor!). Like I said, I WANT there to be pro-choice Republicans around with influence and want NARAL and other groups to support them if justifiable, but I DON'T think that an utter wimp like Chafee justifies that support, let alone trying to bolster him with such early involvement the way things have gone down.

That's the sort of me-first, Beltway-focused mentality that has been killing progressives for a while and dragging down the Democratic Party as it caters to that tendency rather than forging a broader progressive brand that incorporates ALL of those usually-allied groups' issues. AND its also allowed the GOP to grow even more to the right and grow more powerful, by showing its members in Congress, that they can buy off organized progressive opposition outside of the Democratic Pary infrastructure. By allying on a few issues and in return getting a scorecard designed in their favor (for instance, NARAL giving Chafee a 100% rating, because the one judicial nominee whose cloture vote they've put on the scorecard coincidentally is the only one he voted against), while all the while generally advancing a conservative agenda and power which detracts from the number of GOP moderates and makes said groups get even more defensive of them, folks like Chafee get off easy yet in the end screw themselves and the progressive agenda elements they support. Meanwhile, the GOP and its affiliated groups go around picking off moderate Democrats left and right with absolutely no compunction regardless of their particular stances, and indeed with occasional inadvertent help from those same DC-based interest groups (via stuff like expending energy against people like Langevin). I fervently support the work NARAL does, and its BECAUSE I want them to be more effective in it and BECAUSE I fully grasp the argument that is behind their involvement in the RI Senate race, that I'm so pissed at them right now.

But if NARAL is deciding none of the above matters enough to not support their friendly-yet-feckless incumbent out of political calculation, and to send both money and an endorsement his way to bolster his own campaign's notion that he's a sensible progressive (and thus undercut Brown or Whitehouse's ability to broadcast a sensible critique that hits home), then they are in a sense just trying to run the table for him. I'm against Chafee BECAUSE I care about choice and a broader range of progressive concerns, and would have accepted Langevin because I think that he balances out Chafee on the issue when all is said and done (and yes, as Andrew points out, would have demonstrated overall that people who are pro-life have a home in the party). Yet at the end of the day, the "official" voice of the pro-choice movement has decided to manipulate things in favor of politics-as-usual. First they support Brown as the pro-choice option and put him up to go around getting press literally saying (I was there when he said it on one occasion) that he doesn't want anti-choice people in his party, and then after Langevin doesn't run they turn around and dictate support for Chafee anyway, without even giving anyone else a real chance or letting us here in RI filter it all out, and that's just ridiculous, pompous, and short-sighted.

Sorry for the long comments before-- its just that as someone here in RI, I always think that a bit of education on the things at play might be worth putting out there, and I would expect the same from any of you if I ever comment on something Texas-related (for instance, the most recent post on my blog deals with the sexy-cheerleading ban). But just realized I had a few individualized points to respond to as well as the broader stuff:

Andrew-- sorry to break it to you, but Langevin isn't getting back in and probably shouldn't politically. If he does so now, then he's giving up a safe seat and flip-flopping in a huge way that is simply not in character for him. He never actually considered running for Senate this time around seriously until Kennedy suggested it when he took his name out of hte running in December, and then the polls showing him clobbering Chafee came out in January and got everyone in the state and national parties pushing for him to jump in. And while he very definitely was going to run, it was his weakness in not wanting to give up his safe seat (which he really could have for life if he wants) for such a big risk that NARAL et. al. played on by making a national issue out of it and stumping for Matt Brown. It was very known that Langevin put off announcing his plans even as he put everything into place to run for Senate (and indeed as others laid plans; Charlie Fogarty, the Lt. Governor who had been planning to run for Governor and now publicly has made that path known, was going to step aside in favor of Whitehouse, and went to DC to let Patrick Kennedy introduce him to contacts that could help him put together a campaign for Langevin's open House seat), because he wanted to see how the abortion issue played out and how Brown did in the money department during the first quarter. Once he knew that Brown was going to do quite well, and that the national heat would be on, he bailed, and he's not going to interject himself back in. Besides which, he and Patrick Kennedy are Sheldon Whitehouse's co-chairs as an attempt to rally consensus behind him in the party, so as to avoid a bloody fight; so its not exactly looking good for him to bail on that exactly...

Susan-- sorry to break it to you as well, but Chafee is not switching parties anytime soon, despite occasional fits of being public about his tormented relationship to the national GOP and Harry Reid's serious efforts to capitalize on them. He's simply way too tied to the legacy of the Rhode Island Republican Party historically, and to supporting the state party despite its own rightward lurch of late (and lurch against him for that matter in some ways). Part of its about his late father's legacy-- his being in the Senate is rather unnatural, as John Chafee was going to retire in 2000 anyway prior to his late-1999 death, and Linc had no intention of doing anything other than serving out his recently-begun third term as Mayor of Warwick until the Senate was thrust upon him and it was then clear that he'd stick around since no one else could carry the GOP banner forward in 2000 against the pro-Gore tide. He's if anything more liberal personally than his father, yet tempermentally and as a result of his isolation and moping over his dad's legacy, he's ten time less effective (his dad, for instance, was the point man getting Bush Sr. to overcome the right's furor and strengthen the Clean Air Act in 1990). Yet still he remains committed to that legacy and his family's more generally-- the Chafees being one of the old quasi-moderate Yankee elite that ran the state by fiat under the GOP banner until the New Deal era. He thinks of the RI GOP as something it even has ceased to become, and is thus inclined to stick it out ineffectively in the national party too, and frankly the only thing that might change that would be if the local grassroots and even some state GOP notables support a Laffey primary challenge successfully, at which point it'd already be too late and he'd have spent the process whoring himself to the national GOP leadership in return for committed support in that battle (a la Arlen Specter) anyway.

Andrea: You are right that NARAL is in no way a part of the Democratic Party nor ought it to be-- but aside from points about how it ought to handle things to their most effective strategy, that really does not matter in a couple of big ways in reality. First of course is public perception, wherein the pro-choice movement institutionally and the Democratic Party HAVE been joined by the way they typically interact the last couple of decades, under the lines I mentioned in my other comment. Second, and even more important and relevant to this situation, is that this same trend has sadly fed into the same deterioration of state parties that Dean is trying to counter, and in its place put state parties that basically ARE an amalgamation of progressive advocacy groups. Here in Rhode Island, because of traditional dominance and high ability to rely on such strong groups (particularly organized labor), the state Democratic Party existed only on paper as an organization until a few years ago, in the person of a Chairman and executive committee. That the current Chairman, Bill Lynch, maintains office space adjacent to Patrick Kennedy's for the party and hired an Executive Director in 2003 (as well as bringing on board a couple of paid field staff and a handful of other folks on a volunteer basis, and has also actually started having an internship program, and generally taking us young 'uns quite seriously/lending a huge hand) is rather revolutionary in the scheme of the last several decades. But in the meanwhile, its basically a fact that in our present case, gropus like the state NOW affiliate (the most organized women's-rights-oriented group locally, headed by an awesome woman named Melody Drnach) basically comprise the institutional Democratic Party. And its the same nationwide-- think of Ohio, where the Kerry-Edwards campaign was on its own aside from the national America Coming Together infrastructure (an amalgamation of interest groups) because the state Democratic Party was in shambles.

The question for NARAL should be- will Chafee vote against any Supreme Court nominee who is pro-life? I would guess from his recent behavior that he would not. It would be pretty ironic if NARAL endorced Chafee only to have him vote FOR a Supreme Court nominee who ends up turning over Roe v. Wade.

These are not normal times- normally NARAL should endorce the pro choice candidate no matter which party- but these are not normal times. They need to look at the big picture and see that Chafee is a huge wimp and that when the rubber hits the road he does not stand up for moderate values. How many of Bush's judges has he voted against?

The other side of this whole thing is why now? Why did NARAL endorce so early? Did they endorce candidates nationally? It would be interesting to know what kind of personal connections there are between NARAL and Chafee's people.

I mean NARAL endorcing a guy who voted for Dobson puppet Frist- come on people....... you really think that guy is committed to choice? Where have you all been? We need that Senate seat- we need it bad! If they get this filabuster thing- good-bye Roe v Wade Chafee or no Chafee.

I was very upset that Reid became minority leader since his is pro-life- but I have to say now I really think Dascle losing was the best thing that ever happened to us. I worship Reid now. If a candidate is pro-choice, but doesn't have any balls- it doesn't matter.