Prof. Bathtub
Member
What other Seth Rich-ian deflection stories will they plant in Fox news?
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PoliGAF 2017 |OT5| The Man In the High Chair
- Thread starter aspiegamer
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I dunno when it became the norm to want instant results with politics. Supporting "pro-life" Democratic candidates in deep red states is NOT an affirmation that the Democratic party supports such a position. However, there are some positions that take time to be accepted in society. Further, Democrats need any sort of foothold they can get in these Conservative states. Once a Democrat wins and people realize that they're not literally the spawn of Satan, people can become comfortable with the fact that it's okay to have a Democratic senator, representative, governor, etc. It's disingenuous to suggest that us liberals in these states are happy about this, but it's how it goes. I'm from Arkansas. Go ahead and try to run Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren down here. I guarantee they'll lose by 30+ points. Just because our political positions are obvious to us doesn't mean people from a certain region will accept them. People here literally believe that Democrats cut women open just to kill their babies. Let me know how running a pro-choice candidate would counter that.
balladofwindfishes
Member
Gaining the power back to protect gay people, women, minorities, etc, requires some uncomfortable choices
I want to do everything possible to protect people from harm. If that requires me to tolerate an insignificant amount of people quietly voting no on a bill that's passing anyway and only up for a vote because their butt is in a seat, than so be it.
nature boy
Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...white-house-senate-break-up-with-no-progress/
But hey HEALTHCARE AND TAX REFORM
Yup, it doesn't matter if someone is pro- or anti-abortion. It really doesn't. The policy in question is whether women should have access to abortion services.
If a politician is in favor of waiting periods or mandatory ultrasounds because they are anti-abortion, they are infringing upon women's access to abortion services. Period.
What if it's a strategy that doesn't actually work?
Box of Kittens
Banned
Not saying it was a good statement or I agree with it. In fact I'm saying the opposite so I have no idea what your point is supposed to be.
OK, so should we nominate candidates who are willing to vote with the Republicans on health care? Almost every time a politician says "no litmus tests" it's because they're trying to dodge a question. We can legitimately debate what the litmus tests should be, but I think "no litmus tests" sounds better in theory than in practice, except it clearly didn't even sound good this time judging by the reaction.
benicillin
Banned
I should have clarified to say that pro-choice is anti-abortion in the sense that pro-choice policies, including sex education and all those things together are the actual policies that curb abortion rates, not the ones lobbied for by people who call themselves anti-abortion/pro-life. I agree with you.
this is garbage
Womens groups that are the core, party base (e.g., NARAL, Emily's List, etc.). want this to be a purity test and this should be. They ARE the party.
When you say it doesn't "necessarily" have to be, because its only a small minority and / or other bullshit strategic reasons, you're telling them to fuck right off.
balladofwindfishes
Member
Nah. I don't really give a shit if people have abortions or not, and despite the way it's portrayed in movies, most people who have abortions report feeling relieved afterwards.
This idea is itself a product of the pro-life stigma.
Alternately, how protected will women be with a mixed Congress but one in which Democrats have explicitly allowed pro-life Democrats to take office and change the opinion of the party so that abortion restrictions get bipartisan approval and Democratic voters hear that the party opposes abortion now?
AnotherNils
Member
PBY, I get the feeling you'd have voted against Lincoln because he wasn't explicitly against slavery.
balladofwindfishes
Member
We're only talking 10 seats at most here. It's not like half the party is going to be anti-abortion.
This isn't what we're discussing here and you know it. I'll repost this bc its the core of my argument:
Womens groups that are the core, party base (e.g., NARAL, Emily's List, etc.). want this to be a purity test and this should be. They ARE the party.
When you say it doesn't "necessarily" have to be, because its only a small minority and / or other bullshit strategic reasons, you're telling them to fuck right off.
How can Pelosi keep the government running and Planned Parenthood funded if the only way to take a majority of seats in the House is by running pro-life candidates in the margins. They can vote with the Republicans then to block the bill, and shut the government down. Or, alternatively, they'll side with Pelosi and lose their seat in 2020 because they lied and broke their fundamental campaign promise. Isn't this a catch 22?
Likewise, even if you do believe that to be true, why on earth would a pro-life voter believe them if they know Pelosi will just outmaneuver their meaningless vote anyways? A vote for Pelosi is a vote for Planned Parenthood.
I don't understand how this strategic tradeoff actually functions?
Wait a second, I can see where this is going...
Likewise, even if you do believe that to be true, why on earth would a pro-life voter believe them if they know Pelosi will just outmaneuver their meaningless vote anyways? A vote for Pelosi is a vote for Planned Parenthood.
I don't understand how this strategic tradeoff actually functions?
Wait a second, I can see where this is going...
Tim Ryan for speaker
Officerrob
Banned
There isn't one, yet people go round and round with him, cluttering up this thread every day now
My position is the position of mainstream, women's groups in the party. If you don't like that, I don't know what to tell you.
Its not a fringe position.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
It's not. The Democrats have a serious problem with shouting down any kind of moderate positions out of the dialogue. The amount of outrage you get for challenging younger Democrats on literally any position is almost shocking. See, e.g. any political thread on NeoGAF.
balladofwindfishes
Member
I mean, the GOP majority in the house is 16 and the GOP majority in the senate is 2. Aren't you the one arguing that individual seats matter?
If pro-life Democrats can't make any legislative difference in abortion policy, we wouldn't need them to take the majority.
I am fine with the Rahm 06 playbook (even if I don't know that it applies to the current political environment), but I think there is a very compelling case to be made that he constructed a particularly fragile Democratic coalition because it was not built upon actual Democrats.
I am fine with the Rahm 06 playbook (even if I don't know that it applies to the current political environment), but I think there is a very compelling case to be made that he constructed a particularly fragile Democratic coalition because it was not built upon actual Democrats.
Poodlestrike
Banned
I mean... not to put too fine a point on it, your position when this first broke was more "Oh, so mainstream Dems can get away with minimizing in messaging!"
We all know that this isn't an actual endorsement of anti-choice Dems over pro-choice Dems. It's just a statement that they're not gonna turn away ANYBODY who wants to run for congress in 2018. Abortion was the wedge issue named as an example, so that's the one getting run with. It was a ridiculous gaffe, and probably not a great stance to take in the first place, but I'm not sure it's anything more than that.
Yup. Getting real tired of this.
This is my bigger thing with this plan. Maybe we get majorities in the house with some conservative Dems in places like Kansas and Arkansas winning off the back of Trump hatred. And maybe they hold on in 2020 because Trump's still in fucking things up.
But then what happens in 2022 when Dems are on the defensive again? Those seats are probably going poof.
This strategy only works when the GOP has fucked up catastrophically and only works in the short term before Kansas remembers it's Kansas.
My position is, has been and will always be if you are democrat and getting democratic support and funding, you have to be pro-choice. Women are the party. Turn out your base!
But anyways, I trust the party leadership in this respect.
balladofwindfishes
Member
The senate is a little different, because obviously that majority has 2 senators that have influenced the party just last week, but on the house side, that +16 hasn't changed the GOP's positions in the house at all.
VendettaRed07
Member
Ideally, we should form a party platform/manifesto so that if we do get the majorities they can actually work together and agree on something and we aren't asking half of them to jump off a bridge by voting for something because they ran on the complete opposite just a few months ago
Talking in chat about this helped me articulate why I hate this argument -- it's based on condescension.
If you believe that voting for a pro-life Democrat is fine because what really matters is getting Pelosi as Speaker and Schumer as Majority Leader...why do you assume pro-life voters can't make the exact same calculation?
If you believe that a pro-life Democrat can get voted in and only make vague messaging votes towards their pro-life position...why do you assume pro-life voters won't expect him to do that and punish him?
We can't win people's votes by tricking them with plans we publicize in the national media. If we want to win pro-life votes, we're going to have to offer them the opportunity to get substantive gains for the pro-life position. Otherwise they'll probably continue voting for the party they trust to be pro-life.
Since I have no interest in the pro-life position making substantive gains, it makes no sense to me to try to win pro-life votes.
Some women are pro-life. Some pro-life women are democrats, and to some independents that is a big issue. We can't win in some places with pro-choice candidates, at least not in this landscape. Have candidates that play to the populace they represent. It doesn't mean we're going to have radical pro-life positions shoot there way to the top of our agenda.
AnotherNils
Member
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
My instinct would be that if the Democrats don't take the house (or state house) back, then it doesn't matter what their position is on abortion because they won't control the agenda and can't block TRAP laws; while if they do take it back, the Speaker is never going to allow a vote on a law restricting access to abortion, so it doesn't really matter what the right-most portion of the caucus thinks. Likewise, no Democratic president is going to nominate an anti-abortion justice to the Supreme court, so it matters little what an individual Senator thinks.
I'm not arguing "I think economic issues are more important than reproductive rights", I'm arguing that "given that 20% of your caucus is going to be conservative on either economic issues or reproductive rights, it's less likely the reproductive rights conservatives are going to be able to gum up the works legislatively." Like it seems to me that Donnelly or Manchin or Zell Miller or whatever is less likely to be able to pass a TRAP law by rolling their entire caucus and trying to vote on legislation coming from the minority and more likely to derail card check or the Iran deal or expanding access to healthcare
My other guess is that in many cases the candidates are not actually anti-abortion, they are posturing because they perceive their district as being anti-abortion. So the question becomes how do Democrats pick candidates who won't vote to restrict abortion (or will only do so when their vote isn't decisive), but tell the public they will, but who can be trusted to do the right thing. I think that's difficult and necessarily cynical about how politics is conducted. But there is this classic strategic thing where, like, Presidents ask their allies to beat them up to gain cover so it looks like their position is more moderate so they have leverage when negotiating with the other party, and that presumably applies a little lower down the chain. Perhaps the right thing to do is to have party leadership vet the candidate with a litmus test, have groups that support access to abortion sit in on those vetting meetings, and then have everyone agree to have the candidate publicly posture as anti-abortion and be beaten up enough for it to look convincing but not enough for it to really mobilize people against them. Like, you don't want to cut out the groups that make up the core of the Democratic party, you just need to make them comfortable enough with the leadership's position to be able to have candidates who outwardly appear at odds with the leadership's position but can deliver in the end.
The other thing in terms of credibility is that I think it makes sense to look at the emphasis a candidate places on issues. A candidate who comes out of the gate and says "Now, I may be a Democrat, but I am pro-death penalty, pro-guns, anti-gay, and anti-abortion" might be an odd fit. A Democrat that deliberately avoids engaging the issues and gives a mealy-mouthed anti-abortion answer in response to being badgered and then qualifies it a bit seems like someone you have to tolerate to elect people in Indiana or South Carolina.
I actually think the math on abortion is such that there's almost nowhere in the country where the establishment D "Safe, legal, and rare" line is going to be super alienating -- nor the establishment D line on Planned Parenthood ("It does a lot of good work for women's health in general, including prenatal care, disease screening, basic women's health, etc. *whispers* and a tiny portion of its work is abortion and we support a woman's right to choose"). That's not to say it's my opinion, and I support the Clinton campaign and the Obama presidency's decision to go to the mats in a more full throated way on the issue. I'm just saying that if a Texas Democrat needs to circumscribe their words a little bit, I'm not too concerned about that.
I'm not arguing "I think economic issues are more important than reproductive rights", I'm arguing that "given that 20% of your caucus is going to be conservative on either economic issues or reproductive rights, it's less likely the reproductive rights conservatives are going to be able to gum up the works legislatively." Like it seems to me that Donnelly or Manchin or Zell Miller or whatever is less likely to be able to pass a TRAP law by rolling their entire caucus and trying to vote on legislation coming from the minority and more likely to derail card check or the Iran deal or expanding access to healthcare
My other guess is that in many cases the candidates are not actually anti-abortion, they are posturing because they perceive their district as being anti-abortion. So the question becomes how do Democrats pick candidates who won't vote to restrict abortion (or will only do so when their vote isn't decisive), but tell the public they will, but who can be trusted to do the right thing. I think that's difficult and necessarily cynical about how politics is conducted. But there is this classic strategic thing where, like, Presidents ask their allies to beat them up to gain cover so it looks like their position is more moderate so they have leverage when negotiating with the other party, and that presumably applies a little lower down the chain. Perhaps the right thing to do is to have party leadership vet the candidate with a litmus test, have groups that support access to abortion sit in on those vetting meetings, and then have everyone agree to have the candidate publicly posture as anti-abortion and be beaten up enough for it to look convincing but not enough for it to really mobilize people against them. Like, you don't want to cut out the groups that make up the core of the Democratic party, you just need to make them comfortable enough with the leadership's position to be able to have candidates who outwardly appear at odds with the leadership's position but can deliver in the end.
The other thing in terms of credibility is that I think it makes sense to look at the emphasis a candidate places on issues. A candidate who comes out of the gate and says "Now, I may be a Democrat, but I am pro-death penalty, pro-guns, anti-gay, and anti-abortion" might be an odd fit. A Democrat that deliberately avoids engaging the issues and gives a mealy-mouthed anti-abortion answer in response to being badgered and then qualifies it a bit seems like someone you have to tolerate to elect people in Indiana or South Carolina.
I actually think the math on abortion is such that there's almost nowhere in the country where the establishment D "Safe, legal, and rare" line is going to be super alienating -- nor the establishment D line on Planned Parenthood ("It does a lot of good work for women's health in general, including prenatal care, disease screening, basic women's health, etc. *whispers* and a tiny portion of its work is abortion and we support a woman's right to choose"). That's not to say it's my opinion, and I support the Clinton campaign and the Obama presidency's decision to go to the mats in a more full throated way on the issue. I'm just saying that if a Texas Democrat needs to circumscribe their words a little bit, I'm not too concerned about that.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Yeah, this is kind of where I'm at. The people voting for anti-choice candidates KNOW what they're doing, and they know that ultimately any Democrat is going to be, at best, less capable of restricting abortion rights than the equivalent Republican. Single issue abortion voters aren't winnable by us unless we substantively shift our policy platform to favor them, which I don't think anybody's actually willing to do (or saying we should do, for that matter). Meanwhile, soft anti-abortion voters (assuming there is such a thing) are probably more easily appealed to in other areas, and the traditional Democratic base will understandably give the side-eye to anybody really pushing for it.
Do I think we should turn away people who want to run in the Dem primary for nearly any reason, no. If these people were to win the primary, somehow, should we deny them funding, also no. But we shouldn't encourage them, either, because having them as candidates is likely to be more of a hindrance than a help. Also, this was a dumb stance to take publicly because it led into a really easy trap that we're watching play out right now.
For a lot of people in red states, being Pro-Life is basically "non-negotiable" but is also a position that they don't inherently care about (if that makes sense). For example, I personally know a lot of people that can't even comprehend the concept of voting for someone who is pro-choice ("didn't you know they just kill babies for fun?"), but would happily vote for a Democrat when it comes to other social or economic issues. However, as soon as the Democrat says they're pro-choice, they become LIEberal DEMONcrats. Now that doesn't mean that the Democrats have to support anti-abortion laws at all. It just means they have to not be so strongly pro-choice as to be labeled and stigmatized to the voters. TBH I don't think it really matters to the voters here how their congressmen vote in congress.
Box of Kittens
Banned
I don't endorse the Rahm playbook but I also think it's a bad idea to throw up our hands and say "we can't win in Kansas and even if we do we'll only hold onto those seats for a few years." There are no permanent majorities. If we get a DDD setup in 2020 then yeah we'll lose seats and possibly one or both houses in 2022, but in the meantime we can pass legislation with those majorities, like we did in 2009-2010. And given that we strongly overperformed in KS-04 with a Bernie-supporting civil rights lawyer and there are two seats in Kansas that are less Republican, yeah, we should make a real play to win those seats (recruit the best candidates we can find and give them some funding). There's real value to holding a seat for two to four years.
Where I disagree with the Rahm playbook is the idea that you need to run so far to the right to do it. Amy McGrath in Kentucky I think has the right idea. Establish that you understand the people of the district and their concerns and culture, and then make the best case for Democratic ideas that you can (and health care is something we should be running on hard in 2018).
I mean, I think it's cynical, but I also just think it's wrong. There's plenty of evidence of this I had to look up during primary arguments last year -- when politicians make promises, they generally do their best to follow through on those promises. Unsurprisingly, that's mostly because voters remember those promises and react when they are broken or ignored.
If we run Democrats who say they will vote to restrict abortion, we should assume that they will actually vote to restrict abortion. That's what they promised their voters, so that's what they will attempt to do. Nor does controlling the agenda provide ironclad protection -- there are plenty of opportunities for poison pills to get added into various must-pass bills.
This all leaves aside my original argument, which is that it fundamentally handicaps the Democrats to have to say "we support reproductive justice except for Heath Mello" or "we oppose white supremacy except for Joe Manchin". These are not positions that convince listeners that the argument being made is in good faith and has moral authority behind it. Since my goal is to actually convert voters to believe in social justice, I think we'll be more effective at achieving that goal if we demonstrate that we actually believe in social justice.
Isn't this actually an argument that we should not be afraid to run pro-choice Democrats in every district? I am a little confused here.
Emerson
May contain jokes =>
This is absolutely correct, these people exist and I know many of them.
Abortion is a 100% dealbreaker issue for a lot of people. They'll look past a soft pro-choice stance on it, but once you make it one of your main issues they are never voting for you no matter what else you say. This is just a fact. Spend any time talking to youngish people in conservative areas and you'll know that.
The problem here is that the left has convinced itself that abortion is 100% a healthcare or economic issue and everyone opposing it is a sexist. It doesn't even matter if you're right. To conservatives and a non-negligible number of independents it is not an economic issue, it's a moral one, and you will never win them over with economic arguments.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Its gonna be a clean lift.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
I think your mistaking, politicians try follow through with MOST of their promises vs. politicians attempt to try to follow through with ALL of their promises.
And the US only has about 66% of promises kept
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trust-us-politicians-keep-most-of-their-promises/
This is an example of the creeping victory of the right wing.
Yes, opposing abortion rights is a sexist position to take. Abortion is a moral issue. Opposing it is not moral.
Yes, giving women agency and the freedom to do what they want with their bodies is not a moral argument.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Does she pick her ear and eat it?
http://gawker.com/watch-a-congressman-pick-his-ear-and-eat-it-live-on-csp-1575602830
Good.
Randolph Freelander
Member
Using incompetence as a defense. Let's see how far this one goes.
Beer Monkey
Member
If you're too dysfunctional to run a campaign you shouldn't be running the country.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Anti-abortion people like Kaine, Biden, etc. got into power just fine and abortion rights were not damaged, were they?
If the health care vote was good for Americans, I don't care what party they are with. Thats my whole point--I have no issue with politicians saying, "Here's what I believe. However, I vote for what is best for Americans."
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