With Friends Like That...
The GOP is evidently worried that the South Dakota freaks will be a problem for them. They're no fools, they realize that most of the country wants to keep abortion legal and they're worried that the Democrats could capitalize on something like this.
Which means, of course, that DCCC brain trusts like Rahm Emanuel will do no such thing:
"Republicans are going to be the ones who look like extremists," says former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who lost his seat in 2004 after being beaten up on the abortion issue for years. That does not mean, however, that Democrats are rushing to call attention to the Republicans' dilemma. In the upcoming midterm elections, the Democrats don't plan to spend a dime on ads highlighting the abortion issue, according to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the savvy Chicago pol who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He wouldn't spell out the reasons, but a top party staffer (who declined to be quoted out of deference to his bosses) told NEWSWEEK: "These guys are gun-shy because they're used to getting clobbered on the issue."You really have to wake up early in the morning to be that stupid. Nobody's saying you should run ads in Alabama, but Christ on the cross why aren't they using it to consolidate their blue state base? Lincoln Chafee should be wearing his Alito vote around his fucking neck, as should Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, and Emanuel should be making the South Dakota law de rigeur attire for Congressional Republicans in solidly pro-choice districts. The rapist rights bill should become emblematic for everything the GOP stands for, especially in progressive states where the Republicans are quite rightly afraid of being associated with the forced birth extremists.
Howie Klein has been doing great work over at Down With Tyranny covering Emanuel and his tactics to drive progressive candidates out of Democratic races by putting DCCC money behind centrist tools. It takes a special kind of craven cynicism to try and outdo the GOP in supporting the forced birth lobby, a position that even Ken Mehlman has the good sense to try and distance himself from.
For everything we do trying to back progressive candidates, Emanuel and the DCCC seem to be doing everything they can to undo it. It's bad enough to fight the GOP machine without having to fight the DINOs who eagerly do their work for them.
posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/12/2006 05:29:00 PM
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