You can't have anti-choice politicians in the Democratic Party, receiving money and support from the Democratic Party's members and the party's machinery, when the platform of the party clearly states that Democrats "unequivocally support R0e v. W@de and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal ab0rt!on, regardless of ability to pay, and oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right".
Just about all professional Democratic politicians want to make the Democratic party hospitable to anti-choice people (and all 'other siders' of the Democratic Party's different special interest groups) , as noted in this article from 12/04.
The only way to do that is for the party to not take a stance on abortion, to remove any reference to 'choice'. That's certainly true of Howard Dean. During Howard Dean's tenure as chairman of the DNC, he indicated in several interviews that the intent was to move the Democratic Party from referring to abortion at all in its platform. Here's one of those interviews, from 11/1/05: Video | Transcript
January 14, 2005 - Dems May Waver on Choice, Repro Rights
Howard Dean's a nice guy, but he's not a liberal and definitely not 'married' to what I would say are sacrosanct Democratic Party positions, like pro-choice and public health care. Most voters judge politicians by their personalities and mistakenly assume politicians' ideological positions for their own when they've decided they personally like the politician.
Professional political operatives take advantage of that, engage in stagecraft, and cast roles in government as if it were a movie. Who looks/sounds like a president/senator/congressman/etc.? Who has the countenance, the gravitas?
Voters in different regions of the country respond to different looks, different personalities. Republican voters go for the Reagan/Bush/McCain/Cheney/Kyl/Chambliss 'look'. Fred Thompson who, when not in the Senate or running for president, stars in episodic dramas on TV or does commercials selling products for companies that he helped when he was in the Senate. Democratic voters go for the Kennedy/Clinton/Obama look (neither of whom are or were liberal).
All of these politicians were and are pro-corporate, pro-military industrial complex. The only differences have been on social issues, and on the Democratic side, they have proven to be, let's say, 'less committed' to their party's stated values, ideals, and goals, i.e. the People's issues.
And yet we do.
KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
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