Still Waiting

First, here is an example of why I love liberals. 4500 roses? Can you really imagine conservatives doing something like that?

Now to less heartening news. There appears to be some more evidence for Thomas Frank's thesis that cultural issues trump economic ones, and will continue to complicate any Democratic strategy. Bull Moose (commenting on Judis & Teixeira) notes that abortion is cutting into the Democrats' Latino vote, and Teixeria's analysis of poll data that Kerry's failure among white working class women was grounded not just on Security concerns, but the failure of his economic message. That failure may be because Kerry was an ineffective messenger, but this is still a cause for concern. This jibes with what a friend has told me about campaigning in the South. He said that people were ready to vote for the likes of Max Cleland, but his pro-choice position made it impossible.

You can certainly put me in the camp of people who think that cultural issues generally, and abortion in particular, is perhaps THE achilles heel of the party. What I am STILL waiting for is a useful strategy for dealing with the problem. Bull Moose has said repeatedly, as his latest article does, that Democrats need not change their positions. His quote of an Hispanic organizer suggests that Clinton's recognition of the regrettable fact of abortions ("safe, legal, and rare") certainly points towards one approach, one that Hilary Clinton has embraced herself.

What I fear is that by accepting the tragic quality of abortion, we only advance the anti-choice narrative, setting us up for further defeats down the road. I think what we really need to discover is whether there is a moderate, persuadable constituency on the abortion issue that doesn't like abortion but doesn't want it illegal, and whether that constituency is contained within the swing voters we are after (working class, Catholics). If there is, maybe I can be persuaded to shift our rhetorical approach and embrace the "abortion reduction" strategy.

But I want to be clear about one thing: this can never, never mean that any woman who wants an abortion can't have one. So this means that we have to change the cosmetics of the issue without changing the substance. If anyone can figure out a way to thread that needle, sign me up. But I remain sceptical.