More on the Democratic flap over Heath Mello's candidacy in Omaha

Here are a few more items on the odd corporate Dem/progressive Dem dust-up over the mayoral election in Ohama, Nebraska, in which Bernie Sanders came under criticism for endorsing Heath Mello, who in the past had supported antiabortion positions.

Here are The Young Turks talking about this story, Establishment Concerned About Bernie's "Strange Behavior" 04/21/2017

Joan Walsh calls attention to the oddity of this controversy in The Unity Tour Was Kind of a Mess — and That’s OK The Nation 04/24/2017

Daniel Marans gives a good overview of the controvery in How Democrats Got Mired In A Nasty Internal Battle Over Abortion HuffPost 04/28/2017. He points out a couple of very relevant points. One is:

Now even the DNC is clarifying that it never meant to suggest it would not back Mello or other anti-abortion Democrats.

“Tom does not believe in litmus tests and he never said that he didn’t support pro-life candidates,” a DNC official told HuffPost.

In fact, the DNC invested in Mello’s race and in “candidates up and down the ballot” in the May 9 general election through a contribution to the Nebraska Democratic Party, the official said.

And then, there are the other candidates in this way:

Recently, Mello has cast votes that were consistent with some of Planned Parenthood’s priorities, including a vote to expand Medicaid in 2015. As a candidate, Mello touts his opposition to efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.

In addition, his boosters note, Jean Stothert, the Republican incumbent Mello is challenging, is an even stauncher opponent of abortion rights. (None of the other candidates in the April 4 jungle primary were pro-abortion rights either.)

This controversy also brings new light on NARAL, the prominent pro-choice group:

Meanwhile, progressive analysts more sympathetic to Sanders speculated that NARAL might be taking a tougher line against Mello than other anti-choice Democrats because the group wanted to stick it to Sanders.

NARAL enthusiastically endorsed Clinton in the presidential primary, these critics noted, and it later approved of her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), despite his personal “pro-life” views and past support of some anti-abortion policies. The organization also endorsed Ted Strickland’s 2016 Senate campaign, notwithstanding his vote to ban so-called partial-birth abortion in 2003, the same year NARAL gave him a 30 percent rating.

As I've said before, if this is a sign that the Democratic base and activist groups are going to be more demanding that their candidates support abortion rights, that's a good thing. Too many Democrats for too long have been trying to Mugmump their way around touchy but important issues, including abortion rights.

The intraparty battles among Democrats, Omaha edition

These two pieces present useful perspectives on the intra-party Democratic feud over the candidacy of Heath Mello for Mayor of Omaha, Nebraska.

UltraViolet, Women are Watching, Bernie. Don’t Let Us Down Huffpost 04/25/2017

D.D. Guttenplan, Why Was Heath Mello Thrown Under the Bus? The Nation 04/24/2017

Despite the implication of the headline on the first, the Ultraviolet editorial is actually arguing for both of the two major Democratic Party factions today to take the right to abortion as a basic principle, a litmus test in punditspeak.

Guttenplan also notes the evidence suggesting that the corporate Dems played the progressive wing on this one:

Instead, on April 19, The Wall Street Journal ran a story noting that Mello, a practicing Catholic, is pro-life. The story also falsely claimed that Mello had co-sponsored a bill “requiring women to look at an ultrasound image of their fetus before receiving an abortion.” A similar error was made by The Washington Post, which claimed that Mello had “previously backed a bill requiring ultrasounds for women considering abortions,” and then again the following day by David Nir, political director of Daily Kos, who announced the site was withdrawing its endorsement of Mello — a move applauded by Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, who’d launched a 12-part Twitter storm linking to the WSJ article and accusing Sanders and Perez of kicking off their tour with the message “shame women; we’ll support u anyway.”

Here’s the truth about Mello’s record: Back in 2009, he co-sponsored a bill requiring a physician performing an abortion to tell a woman that an ultrasound is available (as most already did). It neither mandated that the ultrasound be performed nor, if performed, that it actually be viewed by the woman — although it did require abortion providers to position the screen in such a way that the ultrasound was easily viewable. Daily Kos member Nova Land — a Tennessean who had never heard of Mello before the controversy—posted a comprehensive, well-sourced correction to this effect the same day. That didn’t lead Nir to reconsider. Nor did it stop Perez from issuing a statement announcing that he “fundamentally disagree[s] with Heath Mello’s personal beliefs about women’s reproductive health,” which was worded in a way that appeared to cast doubt on the sincerity of Mello’s pledge that he “would never do anything to restrict access to reproductive health care.”

The Nova Land post of 04/19/2017 with an update the following day is at Daily Kos here, Heath Mello, abortion, ultrasound -- and Bernie Sanders. It's clear that Mello's policy position on abortion has evolved over time toward a more pro-choice position.

To be clear, it was the DLC position of the "New Democrats" that Democratic needed to blunt their stands on "social issues" like abortion rights. That gave us Democrats discretely bragging about the anti-abortion postures of politicians like Tim Kaine and using formulas like Hillary Clinton's longtime stance that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare." The safe, poll-tested position for Democratic candidates was, "I'm personally opposed to abortion but I support women's right to choose."

As I said in the earlier post linked at the beginning of this one, if the Democratic Party is now at a place where Mugwumping on abortion rights is no longer acceptable, I'm glad to see it.

At the same time, my initial reaction to Guttenplan's article was:

Would corporate Dems rather lose than win with a progressive? Sometimes it looks like that. https://t.co/QOFPqqpsqG

— Bruce Miller (@brucemillerca) April 26, 2017

Because it was the Wall Street Journal that initially put the mayoral race in Omaha front-and-center in the intra-party contest between the corporate Dems and the prolabor progressives.

Here is a recent report from The Real News on that struggle. First, a short teaser, Temporary Truce in a Democratic Party Civil War 04/24/2017:

And the full 16-minute discussion, Temporary Truce in a Democratic Party Civil War: The Sanders & Perez Unity Tour 04/23/2017:

Good news/bad news: Heath Mello/Bernie Sanders edition

The good news is that the corporate/DLC Dems seem to think that no Democrats should run who aren't definitively pro-choice on abortion.

After years - excuse me, decades - of the DLCers talking about the "big tent" and taking the edge of the culture wars, and blah, blah, it's a pleasant change.

One of the things that impressed me about Hillary Clinton adjusting to a more militant Democratic base in 2016 was that she defending abortion rights straight-up as a women's rights issue. This was a fairly recent development for her. Jessica Valenti wrote in Hillary Clinton must reject the stigma that abortion should be legal but 'rare' Guardian 07/09/2014:

"Safe legal and rare" first became a pro-choice rallying cry during the Clinton administration, and has been invoked by media-makers and politicians like – even President Obama has called the mantra "the right formulation" on abortion. It's a "safe" pro-choice answer: to support abortion, but wish it wasn't necessary.

And it's a framing that Hillary Clinton – perhaps the next president of the United States – supports.

But "safe, legal and rare" is not a framework that supports women's health needs: it stigmatizes and endangers it.

In a 2010 research article, Dr Tracy Weitz, Director of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) program at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote that "rare suggests that abortion is happening more than it should, and that there are some conditions for which abortions should and should not occur".

"It separates 'good' abortions from 'bad' abortions", she added. [my emphasis in bold]

This is one of many examples of Democrats taking a liberal position (supporting abortion rights) while framing it in conservative terms (abortion is bad but we should put up with it). That's one instance of the project that linguist George Lakoff has been scolding the Democrats over for the last decade or so.

Even in 2016, Hillary wanted to hedge on the issue, old-line DLC style (Myriam Renaud, Hillary Clinton’s Moral Conflicts on Abortion The Atlantic 08/06/2016):

For the most part, Clinton’s stance matches the official stance of the United Methodist Church, or UMC—the tradition in which she was raised and remains a faithful member. Clinton, who calls herself an “old-fashioned Methodist,” told a Newsweek interviewer in 1994 that abortion is morally wrong. One of her biographers, Paul Kengor, notes that she has turned to the UMC’s Book of Resolutions when she has wanted help reaching a decision or when grappling with a moral question. The Book accepts abortion but only in a qualified way. It professes “the sanctity of unborn human life” while allowing that certain circumstances—“conflicts of life with life”—may warrant terminating a pregnancy. This may explain Clinton’s recent comments on NBC’s “Meet the Press” during which, to the dismay of many pro-choicers, she described the fetus as an “unborn person.” She has also declared her support of some “late-pregnancy” restrictions that would go into effect perhaps as soon as the “unborn person” is viable, except in cases of rape or incest or when the life or mental or physical health of the mother is at risk.

And, oh yeah, there was this: Danielle Paquette, Why Tim Kaine can oppose abortion and still run with Hillary Clinton Washington Post 07/26/2017.

The bad news is that now Bernie Sanders' support for a Democratic mayoral candidate in Oklahoma City has the corporate Dems shocked, shocked! I tell you, shocked! that any Democrat would support a candidate for any office who wasn't clear and all-out in favor of abortion rights. Roseann Moring reports for the Omaha World-Herald (Bernie Sanders stumps for Heath Mello in Omaha, stirs national debate about definition of a progressive 04/21/2017):

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders told a cheering crowd in Omaha on Thursday that he thinks mayoral candidate Heath Mello is part of the Democratic Party of the future.

But some Democrats don’t agree, and Sanders’ appearance at a rally for Mello at Baxter Arena sparked a national debate about whether the party needs to focus on progressive policies and reject Democratic politicians like Mello who are opposed to abortion. ...

During his 45-minute speech, Sanders touched on positions that would be familiar to those who followed his presidential campaign: expanded access to health care, paid family leave, free college tuition and a pathway to citizenship for those who entered the country illegally. And, of course, he devoted much time to economic inequality. ...

Earlier Thursday, however, abortion-rights advocates argued that Sanders and the Democratic Party shouldn’t support those who favor restricting abortion. They pointed to Mello’s co-sponsorship of a 2009 bill in the Nebraska Legislature that gives a woman seeking an abortion the option to see an ultrasound, if one is done.

“The actions today by the DNC to embrace and support a candidate for office who will strip women — one of the most critical constituencies for the party — of our basic rights and freedom is not only disappointing, it is politically stupid,” said NARAL Pro-Choice President Ilyse Hogue in a statement.

Her criticism was part of the national backlash after a Thursday article in the Wall Street Journal that pointed out Mello’s opposition to abortion.

In 2009, the version of Legislative Bill 675 that became law, on a 40-5 vote, was viewed as a compromise measure. As first introduced, the bill would have required a woman to look at the ultrasound image.

Mello’s campaign said he signed on to the bill to support the compromise version.

Bernie's critics in the Democratic Party see this as a particular outrage. Imani Gandy writes in Bernie, There Will Be No Revolution Without Reproductive Rights 04/21/2017, "Bernie Sanders and many of his supporters seem perfectly content to categorize reproductive rights and abortion access as a social issue — a distraction from economic justice and reforming Wall Street, which they deem the so-called real issues."

I must have missed the change in the standard Democratic vocabulary in which "social" issues were considered to not be "real" ones. The "distraction" bit echoes the 2016 Democratic primary fight, in which Clinton once seized on Bernie's criticism of Donald Trump saying that women who get an abortion should be punished to criticize Sanders for being insufficiently pro-choice. Or something. (Dan Merica, Hillary Clinton uses Trump's abortion comments to hit Sanders CNN 03/31/2017)

Bernie's campaigning for Mello has prompted jabs like this:

Sanders needs to reverse this retro stand on reproductive rights and apologize sincerely -- or recede fast into political oblivion. https://t.co/qkLhDWUNwm

— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) April 22, 2017

And rejoinders like this:

So Bernie shouldn't support pro-life Democrats, says former staffer to pro-life Democrat Harry Reid? https://t.co/Uai97hRc5G

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) April 20, 2017

Now, I love hair-splitting ideological debates as much as the next Democrat. But if everybody in the Democratic Party can agree that the only acceptable position for a Democratic candidate is a straighforward defense of women's right to abortion, I'm all for it.

Tom Perez' DLC will no doubt start withholding party support for any candidates who stick with a Mugmump position.

Although, given the DLC's performance the last few years, having them threaten not to support you probably isn't a very scary threat!