NARAL is making a big mistake backing pro-choice Republicans

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NARAL is making a big mistake backing pro-choice Republicans

By KATHA POLLITT
GUEST COLUMNIST

I'm writing this column in Clinton, Conn., where I live part of the year and hope to vote in November. I'm abandoning the antiquated voting booths of New York City because I want to do my bit to help the Democrats take back the House and Senate. Connecticut is a major battleground. Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont gets most of the press attention, thanks to his surprise upset of Joe Lieberman, now running on the Egomania ticket, but for the balance of power in Congress, the House races are the ones that count:

If Joe Courtney beats Rob Simmons, and Diane Farrell beats Chris Shays, and Chris Murphy beats Nancy Johnson, little Connecticut will give Democrats three of the 15 seats they need to take back the House. That's quite an opportunity! Or maybe not:

NARAL Pro-Choice America wants Nutmeg Staters to vote for Lieberman, and for Republicans Simmons and Johnson. (They haven't made up their minds about Shays, who blotted his pro-choice copybook in 2003 by voting to ban so-called partial birth abortion.) Just north, in Rhode Island, they're supporting Lincoln Chafee for the Senate against Democratic challenger Sheldon Whitehouse. All these contests are close. NARAL's money, volunteers and stamp of approval could make a difference -- perhaps even the difference.

With all due respect to NARAL, an organization I've supported faithfully for years, are they out of their minds? "We're not a partisan organization," NARAL President Nancy Keenan told me when we spoke by phone. "Party politics are not where we get involved." But for the pro-choice agenda to have a shot, Congress must change hands. It's that simple. The dwindling number of pro-choice Republicans are the party's useful idiots, permitted to cast futile votes against the "partial birth" abortion ban or right-wing Supreme Court nominees such as Samuel Alito and John Roberts, or in favor of federal funding for birth control and sex ed (while casting hundreds of other votes along party lines) because their function is to hold on to seats that a more reactionary candidate -- an anti-choice hard-liner, say -- couldn't win.

more:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/286036_naral24.html

[Le Taz Hot]

1. But NARAL answered this assertion

in the article: "We're not a partisan organization . . ." While its true NARAL usually endorses Democratic candidates its only because Democratic candidates are the ones who are almost always pro-choice. NARAL has never given claim to partisanship.

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3. That ain't the point

First, who has suggested that Lamont is anti-choice? or the opponents of the repuke representatives? What NARAL should state is that they support the Incumbent pols, unless they prove themselves unworthy.

In the case where 2 candidates are pro-choice, secondary considerations should be taken into account, such as, do they support a pro choice leadership? Or they should just not endorse. But by doing this they just support the status quo.

[Toots]

6. Penny wise --Pound foolish

:shrug: cut off your nose to spite your face..I'm sure there are a hundred of these to describe this nonsense type behavior..

[Cobalt Violet]

2. Well then their emails are going to go straight to my spam box then.

I'm done with them. I'm done with anyone who thinks republican is okay. I've never been a one issue voter anyway.

[NOLADEM]

4. But isn't that short sighted?

If there is ever to be consensus on an issue, both sides have to agree.

Blackballing Repubes insures that your goal just gets further away.

You say you aren't a one issue voter. Fine. But they are a one issue organization.

So, when there is someone who is pro-choice, they support them.

Having a problem with this seems to demonstrate an adolescent understanding of how political issue war is waged.

If you oppose everyone who doesn't do exactly as you want them to, you will quickly find yourself unrepresented.

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5. So why don't they support Lamont also?

Is he, or is he not, pro choice?

[NOLADEM]

7. you ask an interesting question

I don't know.

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8. Well, FDL has the answer

http://www.firedoglake.com/category/pro-choice/
quote:
The curiously dissociative actions of national NARAL head Nancy Keenan and the organization’s November endorsements only seem to get worse and worse.

Local Connecticut NARAL head Carolyn Treiss is well aware of the limitations of Joe Lieberman and his positions with regard to reproductive rights — his comment telling rape victims to take a "short ride" if they want emergency contraception was no doubt one of the factors (along with his critical cloture vote for the ragingly anti-choice Samuel Alito) that led her to buck the national organization and vote for Ned Lamont when she was a delegate to the CT Democratic Convention in May of this year. She then went on to join Conncticut Choice Voice, an organization of pro-choice women supporting Ned Lamont and vigorously opposing Joe Lieberman for the lipservice he pays to women’s issues that he quickly abandons whenever it’s crunch time.

Nancy Keenan, on the other hand, went out of her way to defy local Connecticut choice groups and give the national NARAL endorsement to Lieberman.