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: