Spintested: 11/06/11

2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Sunday, November 6, 2011

what are your suggestions for improving the situation, or are you saying we truly are already too far gone?

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I've laid out the options as I see them here.

We stand no chance whatsoever unless people open their eyes, become better informed, and realize that very few politicians are in it out of a sense of humanitarianism. They are there because of the opportunities to amass wealth and power.

The few who did go into it out of a sense of altruism quickly learn the futility of bucking the system and try to convince themselves that they're staying in it for "incremental change for the better" (it's only gotten worse).

Unless and until a president and bipartisan leadership agrees to real campaign finance reform (publicly financed elections), real election reform, ending corporate personhood, and outlawing the revolving door between lobbying and working in government, and all of it on a fast track, everything else they're doing is BS corruption to feather their own nests.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

What the compromise position on Social Security, Medicare, a woman's right to choose, gays' right to marry, clean safe water and food, a safe workplace, living wages, etc? You either believe in those things or you don't.

What's the compromise position on ending ~~Bush's~~ Obama's tax cuts? Do Obama's 'most ardent supporters' know that Obama offered in these negotiations to make those tax cuts permanent?

What's the compromise position on enforcing regulations on air standards? Not enforcing them?

What's the compromise position on a woman's right to choose? Make it impossible for her to actually obtain an abortion?

What's the compromise position on Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and veterans' care and SCHIP, etc.? Empty out the trust funds to pay bond holders and war profiteers so that there's nothing left for those who paid into into the trust funds?

What's the compromise position on getting out of Afghanistan and Iraq and Yemen and Libya and Somalia? Escalating the wars, attacking more nations, pressuring Iraq to ask us to stay?

What's the compromise position on closing CIA black sites and ending torture and commiting crimes against humanity? Prison Ships, Ghost Prisoners and Obama's Interrogation Program? Ending habeas corpus and a president indefinitely detaining anyone he believes might be thinking about committing a crime, American citizens included, and killing them with no due process, no oversight?

There is no 'center' on most issues. We're 'centered-out'.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

The nation is circling the drain because the left has done more than 30 years of compromising.

Real Democratic policies aren't that hard to sell to Americans. When most Americans want Medicare and other government programs which they've benefitted from to continue and teabaggers shout "No government control of healthcare; Get your hands off my Medicare", the answer is EDUCATION.

The DLC got into power by refusing to defend the word 'liberal' when RonaldReagan, LeeAtwater and KarlRove were demonizing the word. Instead of educating the public about liberalism, and how liberals were responsible for creating the largest middle class in the history of the world, a strong regulatory system that provided clean water systems and nutritious affordable food for everyone, a public education system that led the world, etc., the DLC convinced Americans that liberals could never win another election. The DLC attributed to ideology what is more accurately explained by lousy campaigns outgunned by election dirty tricks and fraud.

When informed of the issues, most Americans agree with liberal policies. Neither they (nor I) would characterize themselves as far-anything or extreme, but mainstream. For example, nobody likes the idea of abortion, but most Americans do not want the government involved if they find themselves in the predicament of an unwanted pregnancy. And if you frame it as, "You like to k!ll babies?!?! ?!?!", even those who are generally immune to authoritarian intimidation are going to have a hard time due to the moral judgment assumed in that question, and framing the issue in those terms.

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that Bush and Rove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; Bush and Rove were just more ruthless doing what politicians had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks, don't take 'no' for an answer and never back away, you will wear the opposition down.

But Obama only does that to progressives.

KEEP READING
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Marcospinelli/2012-election-barack-obama_n_1077655_116668616.html
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Why don't you lay out what you think it takes to fix our predicament, that takes so long?

While you're at it, why don't you describe what it is that you ultimately want to see done, and how what politicians in Washington have accomplished toward that goal. Get specific.
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Keystone XL: Thousands Gather Outside White House In Culmination Of Protests

Why can an international company sue for eminent domain over land that doesn't even rest within their own borders? ========================= That's due to NAFTA. In addition to that, if a foreign corporation wants to conduct environmentally destructive business in some US state and that state doesn't want that corporation's business in their state, that corporation is entitled to the amount of profits that corporation believes it's losing by being denied being allowed to open its business in a US state. Paid by the US government (taxpayers).
About White House
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

DingDingDingDingDingDingDingDingDingDingDingDing!
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

What good are Boxer's votes when she works to get candidates into power who cancel out her votes (on a whole array of Democratic groups' interests, not just reproductive choice)?
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

If you believed what you say about Obama, what did you think when after he got into office he limited the number of troops for the surges, not giving the generals what they wanted? Like I've said before, Obama led different groups to believe whatever they wanted in order to get their votes, but overall it was with a wink and a nod to the left that he really would return the nation to the rule of law and make government accountable and transparent.

Not for nothin', check out this and this. I'd be interested in your take.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Not hawkish??!

One has to wonder where you actually WERE during the 08 campaign. Like when he proclaimed Afghanistan 'the good war' and promised to send more troops there, and to expand the war into Pakistan, for example.

======================

KATIE COURIC: Should the United States respect Pakistani sovereignty and not pursue al Qaeda terrorists who maintain bases there, or should we ignore their borders and pursue our enemies, like we did in Cambodia during the Vietnam War?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, Katie, it’s a terrific question.
And we have a difficult situation in Pakistan. I believe that part of the reason we have a difficult situation is because we made a bad judgment going into Iraq in the first place when we hadn’t finished the job of hunting down bin Laden and crushing al Qaeda.

So what happened was we got distracted, we diverted resources, and ultimately bin Laden escaped, set up base camps in the mountains of Pakistan in the northwest provinces there…
But I do believe that we have to change our policies with Pakistan. We can’t coddle, as we did, a dictator, give him billions of dollars, and then he’s making peace treaties with the Taliban and militants. What I have said is we’re going encourage democracy in Pakistan, expand our non-military aid to Pakistan so that they have more of a stake in working with us, but insisting that they go after these militants.

And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act, and we will take them out.

We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.

Bin Laden is dead (or so Obama claims). Al Qaeda is crushed.

Don't confuse Al Qaeda with Taliban.

Yes, Candidate Obama conflated Al Qaeda with the Taliban, too, at times, but was sufficiently equivocal, moving back and forth between "depending on conditions at the time (I get into the White House)" and "If I were in office back when 2001 happened", to have voters believing just about any kind of Commander-in-Chief they wanted out of Obama.

The mission never was wiping out the Taliban, nor was that what Congress authorized. And Mr. "Constitutional Scholar/I'll-restore-rule-of-law"-Candidate Obama left plenty of wiggle room for voters who wanted to believe he'd be using carrots, not sticks, to secure Americans.

KEEP READING
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

By any chance, originally a HRC supporter?

==================================

You only display a stubborn ignorance when you make such insinuations. Had you bothered to do any research before commenting you know that I'm no fan of the Clintons (who are NOT liberals).

Better yet, had you complied with comment policy at HP, had you any legitimate argument or defense of Obama, you would have spoken to any of the points I've raised about Obama's very UN-Democratic governing and Democratic politicians' abject failure to accomplish on the People's behalf.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

My "habit" is to provide links that support my opinion. Like these:

Occupy Protesters Down On Obama.

Ex- Obama Staffer, Other Supporters Leading Obama Protests:

PresidentObama will again be in San Francisco Tuesday — but only to take money from the “fat cats” that he said that he said way back in 2009 that he didn’t run for president to protect. No, he won’t be spending any time with the “99 percent.” Not unless they cut him a $7,500 check for lunch. As we know by our story Monday, Obama has had no problem taking money from the fat cats.

But Obama will be greeted by a rainbow of people he’s disappointed — left, right and center during his $7,500-a-plate noon fundraiser right here at the W Hotel in San Francisco. Some will even be chanting re-constituted Obama for Prez cheers — in opposition to the Prez’s policies.

We know that Tea Partiers (protesting Obama’s economic policy) from all over Northern California will be on hand Tuesday as will the 99 Percenters from Occupy Wall Street/San Francisco. California NORML will be there ripping on Obama’s medical marijuana crackdown. AndWorld Can’t Wait (protesting his Afghanistan/Guantanamo policy) will be representing, of course.

But the biggest group — perhaps 500 strong — may be environmentalists fronted by former Obama campaign staffer Elijah Zarlin. The Mendocino native/Oakland resident used to write fundraising e-mails for Obama during his 2008 prez campaign. Now he works for SF-based CREDO Action. And he’s “disappointed” with how the President has “failed to lead” on stopping the proposed 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring highly polluting oil from Canada’s tar sands to the United States...

Wall Street Still Gives More To Obama
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

As I said at the beginning of my reply to you, READ THE THREAD. I already addressed the Supreme Court argument in it. But I'll be only to happy to not only cook your steak, but cut it up and spoon-feed it to you. Here and here.

The link I provided to you earlier was in response to your idea that Obama has governed differently than McCain would have. The article makes a case for a Democratic Congress would have been the result of a McCain win, and keeping his more extreme tendencies in check.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Check this thread here and be sure to follow the links for the complete story:

Outgoing Democratic congressman Paul Kanjorski is one of several witnesses (4 or 5 other congressmen who Kanjorski hasn't specificallly identified, but has stated were present with him at a meeting in the White House) who can directly place George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice at the scene of the conspiracy to deceive Congress into backing the attack on Iraq with evidence falsified by the CIA.

It's through Kanjorski's account that we learn the Bush-Cheney administration's scheme, which included the CIA's fabricating photographs for the explicit purpose of deceiving Congress into authorizating the use of military force in Iraq.

You'll also learn in the thread just how Cheney's expertise, his knowledge of Congress and the subcommittee process from his firsthand experience as a member of Congress, was the vehicle for hiding the torture from Nancy Pelosi and Congress, and most interesting is how John Murtha was utilized.

The only thing that Obama and Democratic politicians are cleaning up is the crime scene while continuing and collaborating with the corruption.

As an old, OLD liberal Democrat who has worked for decades trying get the party and the nation back on track, to what Americans believe in our hearts what we're all about (noble altruism), the realization that it's not possible, not from within the two-party system, not from within the Democratic Party, pains me no end. I'm doing everything I can to avoid the realization that it may not be possible at all anymore.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

There's plenty to rail against Democrats for and call into question their real political bent and intentions, beginning with those who refused to read the NIE that was made available to them in a locked and guarded room in Congress. Hillary Clinton, even after being advised by Bob Graham to go to the room and read it before she voted, didn't. She also claims that she didn't talk her vote to authorize Bush to use military force in Iraq over with her husband, who as a former president got the same daily intelligence briefing that Bush got, and knew that it was trumped up twattle.

But here's the real smoking gvn, about the true nature of Democrats, and their not being any different than Republicans:

Obama and Democrats ran on putting the wars on the budget, with no more supplemental emergency spending bills to pay for these wars. Funding the wars through supplementals was how BushCheney managed to avoid congressional oversight and public scrutiny.

After close to two years of controlling both Houses of Congress and the WhiteHouse, Democrats are continuing the funding of the wars through supplementals.

What's significant about this?:

When the funding of wars goes 'on budget', congressional committees and subcommittees then hold hearings and investigations into US policies, about US interests around the world, from which the UnitedState's overall foreign and military policies are derived. That's how civilian-control over the US military takes place: Through the citizens' chosen representatives choosing weapons systems ahd overseeing US military operations and installations, plans and policies, etc.

This doesn't happen with supplemental spending bills.

The nature of them is, "It's an emergency, we're running out of money, give us $80 billion now (that's the magic sum, invariably $80 billion) or you won't be 'supporting the troops'...We'll talk about it later".

"Later" doesn't happen.

The $80 billion ploy is so the American people think they're always talking about the same $80 billion.

I know, I know, "How is that possible that the average American wouldn't realize it's not the same $80 billion when it's year in and year out?" The average American is just barely keeping it all together as it is and fighting for his life(style).

Committees in both Houses of Congress have either never begun investigations into fraud and abuse, or dropped investigations (both on what happened during the Bush administration and afterwards), yet Congress is doing no oversight, and thieving criminal private contractors are still being awarded government contracts.

But that's not even the half of it.

KEEP READING
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Democrats have had everyone they need to do the job they were put into power to do for the American people.

During the Bush years, Democrats said if the People wanted change, they had to put Democrats in the majority in Congress. So in 2006, we did.

Nothing changed.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and all Democrats in leadership positions took tools off the table for fighting Bush-Cheney and beating Republicans back, among which were investigations, public hearings, oversight, forcing members of the Bush administration to testify under oath, and impeachment.

They said, "You have to give us more Democrats -- 60 in the Senate".

In 2008, we did. We gave them 60 for the Democratic Caucus. And we gave them the White House.

Obama came into office with the wind at his back. More people voted for him, a black man in good old raclst America, than ever voted for any other presidential candidate in the history of the US. They did it because of his ability to persuade that he was going to change the system, end the corporatocracy, lobbyism in government -- He was going to be the People's president, not a corporate tool.

And no sooner did Obama get elected than he slammed the brakes on the momentum of his election and a filibuster-proof Senate (tentative yet, with 2 senators, Kennedy and Byrd, at death's door), Obama did a 180-degree turn on his promises and sloooooowed everything down. To "work in a bipartisan manner with Republicans", after Republicans had already announced they were going to block everything Democrats wanted to do, vote no on everything, in lockstep.

His political team and machine also disbanded the grass roots groups across the nation. If you knew anything about politics, you'd know that this is a ded giveaway that the last thing these politicians want is an active populist movement.

I'll cut to the chase:

Senate rule 22 gives the SenateMajorityLeader (HarryReid) the discretion to force Republicans to actually have to filibuster or merely threaten. Reid lets them merely threaten. Still. All that talk about changing filibuster rules, and nothing has come of it.

KEEP READING
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Then read this.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Read this thread.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Ralph Nader? The guy who made a big to do at Cisco shareholder's meeting because his dividend wasn't big enough.

He's a closet corporatist.

=======================

This is one of the best examples of the ignorance that exists on the right is echoed on the (supposed) left.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate. His complaint with CISCO doesn't make him a hypocrite or a "closet corporatist", whatever the heck that means. He (like me and most others on the left) is not anti-corporation or anti-capitalism: We're for mixed economies, regulations and fair markets. The nation and the world works better for everyone then.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

It's you that's buying into the DLC's "The devil (Republicans) made us do it"-propaganda.

There's no denying the step-by-step actions that have gone on for the last 30 years, how Democrats have been complicit in the corporatization, the deregulation, the privatization, of government.

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama and Democrats want what they want.

The DLC-controlled Democratic Party gives lip service to all populist issues (like living wages, civil rights protections, restoring habeas corpus, ending the wars, public healthcare, Wall Street reform, environmental and energy issues, etc.).

If the Bush years taught us anything, it's that anyone can sell anything and ANYONE to Americans, if you're stolid and relentless in your sales pitch and tactics. It's not that BushCheneyRove were geniuses and knew something that nobody else knew; BushCheneyRove were just more ruthless in doing what politicians and the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans -- If you keep at it, escalate your attacks, don't take 'no' for an answer and never back away, you will wear the opposition down.

Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the nomination) and the oldest, most experienced politicians in US history (including the Rove machine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching BushCheney off the table, have us still reelecting them and not marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks?

Obama and Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it.

The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but "those mean, corrupt Republicans prevent our good intentions".

Republicans, with the smallest numbers, smallest minority in decades, have been able to thwart what the great majority of American citizens want, yet Democrats, with the greatest numbers, can't achieve what Republicans did (obstructing the other side) when Republicans took over the House.

Democrats could have (and can) changed the filibuster rules but didn't. With Senate rule 22, Harry Reid could've actually forced Republicans to filibuster at any time (and did when it suited the DLC, and saw Republicans crumble), but didn't.

The challenge for Democratic politicians has been to try to convince us that they're merely inept and to get us to keep voting for them despite their failure to achieve our alleged shared objectives.

Getting Democratic voters (and Obama's 'most ardent supporters') to understand that Democratic politicians have been taking us all for suckers and patsies is the most immediate problem and the challenge.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Actually, he didn't (make very hawkish foreign policy claims).

Obama ran to the left of Hillary. What he had to say about expanding the war in Afghanistan was always couched in the rhetoric of the past. Had he been president at the time of 9/11. How he wouldn't have taken his eye off the ball (Al Qaeda in Afghanistan) by attacking Iraq.

His foreign policy would not be the expansion of the war, secret wars, going to wars in new countries. And let us not forget how closing Guantanamo, ending rendition and torture, this shift in the paradigm of how the US engages in the Middle East would take the targets off all Americans' backs. Not only have we been disappointed that Obama's rhetoric and promises turned out to be empty, but so have people around the world who had great expectations of him. The audacity of hope.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Read the thread; I've already addressed the Supreme Court. And as far as McCain goes, read this.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

I don't vote for Republicans, no matter what initial is after their names.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

BHO is now cleaning up the mess the Republicans made and is fighting Far-right conservative extremism trying to prevent them from finishing their destruction and taking us into another economic depression.

=========================

No, he isn't.

Obama's been dodging and weaving and caving, kicking the can down the road, and delivering on what Bush and Norquist and conservatives were up to: Ending the New Deal and Great Society programs the only way you can when the People overwhelmingly want them and won't agree to the frontal assaults on them for 30 years -- By bankrupting the nation.

Obama's just the next chapter in the corporatization of the US government. Obama's in the Oval Office to mellow-talk us into accepting that which we'd never stand still for if we had contentious, fire-in-the-belly real Democratic leaders actually fighting on our behalf. Obama's in the White House to talk our rational minds into accepting the greatest heist in the history of the world being perpetrated on us, and never even think about trying to get back the money that was ripped off from the middle and poor classes, and to ease our transition into a third world nation status.

Obama is the grifter leading off the second half of the con game, which is to squeeze the rest of the dimes from the poor and middle classes. It began in earnest (and on steroids) with part 2 of Bush's Medicare Reform Act of 2003 (high-priced junk health insurance that has no cost controls), and has continued with his push for more NAFTA-like treaties (outsourcing more Americans' jobs) and the Deficit Commission and now with this 'Super Congress'.

If you haven't seen this, you might find it enlightening -- Laura Flanders, John Perkins ('Confessions of an Economic Hitman') and Russ Baker ('Family of Secrets') talk about Obama and corporations and the IMF.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

The "lesser of two eviIs" argument just doesn't work anymore.

Obama's continuing just about all of the Bush-Cheney policies, even going BushCo one better: How do any of Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to kiII American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detentlon' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret? Pure Kafka.

As a Democrat, I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this.

At this point, I would argue that Obama and Democrats are worse. Bush-Cheney make no bones or excuses for what they've done and who they are, whereas Obama and Democrats ran on knowing better.

In his speech before Congress just 6 months ago, Obama left EVERYTHING on the table for cutting, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. He left everything except the People's Budget which is the only sensible, smart and people-friendly method for dealing with our budget problems.

Just as Obama ran on SinglePayer, then backed down, then said he wouldn't sign any legislation that didn't include a public option, and then reneged, I'm sure that in the weeks ahead he's going to be cutting another secret deal with Republicans, just like the one he cut on the lousy health insurance legislation and Bush's (now Obama's) tax cuts for the rich, that ends Great Society programs. It's Obama's MO. It's how he operates. HE'S A REPUBLICAN-IN-DEMOCRATS'-CLOTHING. Obama is not a man of the People; he's a tool of the Corporations.

Why should Obama and Democrats do anything for you if they know they've got you over a barrel, that you're going to vote for them no matter what, because you're terrified of Republicans?
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

I've already addressed that here. And here.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

Even the most pro-choice of Democrats in Congress, alleged stalwarts who've spent entire careers, decades in public office, have failed miserably to protect women's rights and have let it get to this point. One example would be Barbara Boxer.

In 2006, Democratic senators and the Democratic machine publicly supported Democratic candidate NedLamont who was running for senator in Connecticut against newly independent JoeLieberman. Privately, working behind-the-scenes, Democratic senators and former president BillClinton were working to help Lieberman raise money to beat Lamont, and Republican AlanSchlesinger. Before Lamont won the primary, when Lieberman was still a Democrat, Boxer stumped for Lieberman. She was asked how she could support him given that Lieberman supports hospitals receiving public monies refusing to give contraceptives to rape victims. And instead of dropping her support of Lieberman, instread of dropping him like the bad character he is, she dodged the issue.

During the Bush-Cheney administration, she wrote two murder mysteries, because "It was always something I wanted to do if I had the time."

In the 2010 midterm campaign, I asked rhetorically, "If Republicans win back control of Congress, do you think Democrats will be as effective at stymieing Republicans' agenda as Republicans have been the last two years at stymieing Obama's/Democrats' 2008 agenda?" Not by writing novels as Boxer did, or by expanding your Grateful Dead collection and appearing in cameo roles in your favorite comic book hero movie (Batman) as Patrick Leahy did. All on the public's dime, while collecting government salaries.

And we're just talking about the pro-choice plank of the party's platform.
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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

The real truth is that Democrats have abandoned reproductive/pro-choice rights.

The Democratic Party is out of the business of being pro-choice because it's trying to turn the Democratic Party into the old Republican Party, grow the Democratic Party by attracting into the party anybody it can. It hasn't actually announced it publicly, but it only goes through the motions of seeming to be champions of women's reproductive choice. When it comes to actually championing the issue, Democratic politicians are AWOL, not only at the top, at the party organization, but absent also are the politicians whose talk as women's champions don't match the walk.

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 Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, 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'. 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

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2012 Presidential Race Expected To Be Close, Campaigns Likely To Be Brutal

the DEMS have always supported it.

=============================

Democrats used to but don't any longer. Not for a very long time.

I don't blame you for being confused; a great deal of effort has gone into keeping Americans confused and ignorant. And nowhere is that obvious than when it comes to the pro-choice plank of the Democratic Party's platform which commits Democrats to opposing attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade. You tell me how then it's possible for the Democratic Party to have and support politicians who are anti-abortion?

The Democratic Party's National Platform is the written policy which determines the policies and legislation that Democrats in public office shall put forward and advance. It's what party members work to achieve and it's reviewed and renewed, rewritten every four years.

Nobody has been as ineffective at holding back incursions into abortion rights and access as Democrats, and that's because it's one of the methods that they use to keep pro-choice women and men showing up on election days (just as Republicans use threats of gun regulations, and tax hikes, etc., to keep their voters turning out for them election after election).

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