Those of us who are pro-life Democrats have long known that NARAL does not have the best interests of the Democratic Party at heart. Now, despite the fact that their President, Ilyse Hogue, lost her aborted campaign for DNC Chair, NARAL thinks it runs the Democratic Party and Hogue has appointed herself chief enforcer of an abortion litmus test for Democratic candidates.
Last year, as a close confidante of Hillary Clinton, Hogue jammed through a change to the party's platform, removing the words safe, legal and rare from its abortion plank. Hogue followed that up by giving a speech which celebrated abortion as a good thing to the Democratic National Convention.
Now wanting to ensure that the party does not appeal to the 70% of Americans who favor either a ban or restrictions on abortion, Hogue and NARAL are attempting to impose litmus tests on Democratic candidates for even local offices. NARAL issued a press release that attacked Bernie Sanders and Keith Ellison because they campaigned for the pro-life Democratic nominee for Mayor of Omaha. Hogue then attacked Bernie Sanders and Tom Perez in an epic tweetstorm. My favorite tweet of Ms. Hogue's tweetstorm was the one where she declared, without primary elections or state Conventions, exactly who is and is not welcome in a Democratic Party where NARAL apparently rules by Fiat.
.@BernieSanders @TomPerez If new Dem party ignores difference btw *being* pro-life (Tim Kaine, Mario Cuomo) & being arrogant enuf 2 foist views on us, count me out /3
It seems to have never occurred to Ms. Hogue that she was, in fact, foisting her own views on our party. Democrats for Life of America runs a thriving Facebook Page where long time pro-life Democrats and former Republicans who were alienated by Donald Trump discuss their whole life agenda, which includes progressive priorities like expanded access to health care.
It also never occurred to Ms. Hogue that the values she encounters on the Washington, D.C cocktail circuit are not values shared by the rest of America. Before Ms. Hogue appointed herself the conscience of all Democratic candidates for elective office, DNC Chairman Tom Perez was arguing that a successful 50 state strategy required a big tent and accepting that some parts of the country would produce candidates that disagreed with the party's abortion platform.
“If he were running in the People’s Republic of Takoma Park, the voters might do it differently,” Perez, a former Montgomery County Council member in Maryland and a past U.S. secretary of labor, said in an interview from Kentucky, the second stop on his speaking tour with Sanders. “If we have a one-size-fits-all requirement for every Democrat who seeks office, that’s a formula for a filibuster-proof majorities in the Senate; that’s a formula for failure in many areas of this country.
“In order to execute a 50-state strategy, we need to understand what’s going on in all 50 states, and attract candidates who are consistent with their messages but perhaps not on 100 percent of the issues,” Perez said. “If you demand fealty on every single issue, then it’s a challenge.”
After Ms. Hogue and NARAL issued a press release attacking the Democratic Nominee running against the incumbent Mayor of Omaha, Chairman Perez backed off supporting a big tent, fifty state strategy and entered damage control mode.
Unfortunately, this approach where Washington, D.C. power players anoint candidates and tell rural communities what to think has been tried before. The Hillary Clinton for President campaign was the best top-down presidential campaign that was ever run; it lost to Donald Trump because the campaign ignored the exurban and rural parts of swing states. In those exurbs and small towns, Donald Trump crushed Hillary Clinton. The poor decisions, and arrogance, that led to this result is documented in the book Shattered, which I highly recommend.
Still, Ms. Hogue is determined to double down on a failed strategy. She issued a press release that defines the values of the Democratic Party as the values of NARAL.Ironically, after imposing her views on a matter of conscience on the rest of the Democratic Party, Ms. Hogue tweeted that imposing views on others was wrong.
For Chairman Perez, who seems to have outsourced the consciences of Democratic elected officials and candidates to NARAL, the events of the past week raise profound questions. Will Democratic nominees for state legislatures and municipal offices like Mayorships and County Commission seats be subject to the NARAL litmus test? If they don't accept the NARAL abortion platform will those candidates have access to the VAN and be included in coordinated campaigns? What about incumbent pro-life Democrats in marginal Congressional seats, like Joe Manchin and Collin Peterson? Do they, and the pro-life Democrats they represent, still have a place in our party? Or have we become a single issue abortion-rights party controlled by Ms. Hogue in the role of a modern day Boss Tweed? These are questions that Chairman Perez needs to answer promptly.
When I first started working in rural communities a mentor of mine told me, "Take the time to listen and whatever you do, don't tell them what to do, you're new here." What I took from that is that to have a lasting and functional majority, we have to be in touch with our communities. On the abortion issue in particular, the Democratic Party should understand that 70% of Americans disagree with Ms. Hogue's views on abortion, and that people who fall anywhere on the spectrum between outright bans, restrictions on some abortions, and the legal at all times up to and including birth viewpoint of Mrs. Hogue and NARAL, can agree with us on other issues critical to our nation's future, like health care, infrastructure spending, and the environment. And that many of people would make excellent Mayors, County Commissioners and State Legislators. I hope that this week's NARAL-led fiasco is the end of our party's experiment with litmus tests on abortion for candidates for municipal offices.