The Missouri Democratic Party state committee stepped in it on abortion. That’s the most charitable way to put it.

Oh, and it gets worse.

Pre 1973 medical instruments.

Democrats for Life of America Super PAC had one contribution over $200 in 2015:

ROBERT, JANET WAYZAA, MN 55391 SELF 06/04/15 $500

Interestingly, the President of Democrats for Life of America has the same name:

DFLA Board of Directors
on 14 June 2007Posted in DFLA General.
Janet Robert, President [….]

Also interestingly, in 2017 Democrats for Life of America issued a press release defending one of Donald Trump’s (r) radical nominees to a federal court of appeals:

Democratic Senators Use Religion to Discredit Pro-Life Judicial Nominee
September 8, 2017
STATEMENT OF KRISTEN DAY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
OF DEMOCRATS FOR LIFE OF AMERICA
Democrats For Life of America (DFLA) expresses its disappointment with Democratic senators and interest groups who are attacking federal court of appeals nominee Amy Barrett for her personal religious views on the dignity of human life at all stages….

Amy Barrett, Amy Barrett, Amy Barrett…that name seems familiar. Oh, yeah:

Battle lines drawn over abortion ahead of Trump’s supreme court pick
In the increasingly acrimonious dispute the two political sides took to talk shows at the start of what promises to be an epic tussle over seat
[….]
…Of those, Barrett is considered to have the most hardline record opposing abortion rights…
[….]

Okay, where does this all lead? Democrats for Life of America have a post on their site from 2013:

Proposed Platform Language to Unites Democrats Around Historic Democratic Principles

“We respect the conscience of each American and recognize that members of our party have deeply held and sometimes differing positions on issues of personal conscience, such as abortion and the death penalty. We recognize the diversity of views as a source of strength, and we welcome into our ranks all Americans who may hold differing positions on these and other issues…”

Sound familiar?:

Missouri Democrats Vote to Welcome Pro-Life Members, Angering Others
Posted By Sarah Fenske on Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 7:29 AM

“…We respect the conscience of each Missourian and recognize that members of our party have deeply held and sometimes differing positions on issues of personal conscience, such as abortion,” the amendment read. “We recognize the diversity of views as a source of strength, and welcome into our ranks all Missourians who may hold differing positions on this issue…”

The Missouri Democratic Party State Committee voted to amend its platform using the exact language of a lunatic fringe anti-abortion group. The same anti-abortion group has gone on the record to defend the nomination of a radical anti-abortion judge to a federal appeals court by Donald Trump (r). The same individual who also happens to be under consideration by Trump for the current opening in the U.S. Supreme Court.

It took us less than thirty minutes to do the research to make the connections. You’d think the leadership and membership of the Missouri Democratic Party state committee could attempt to do a little bit of the same when they vote to amend the party platform.

That “…differing opinions…” language in the template was and is just so much bullshit. The anti-abortion right wants to and is going to ban abortion in the United States. So much for respecting differing opinions, eh?

The Missouri Democratic Party got played. If they are willing to accept the fact that they got played they can fix it. If.

Previously:

The elephant in the room (July 3, 2018)

Against abortion? Don’t have one. (July 6, 2018)

Pre 1973 medical instruments.

We received word via social media from Pamela Merritt, from Reproaction, on doings at the Missouri Democratic Party state committee meeting this past weekend:

I served on the MO Dem platform cmte for several months. We drafted a pretty good platform. It could have had more teeth, but it was way better than the Republican lite mess they had been working with.

Today, the party amended and voted on the platform.

I’m going to need someone from the Missouri Democratic Party to explain to me how a diversity of opinion on abortion rights is a strength, and how that positioning doesn’t make the party look like incoherent moderates in an age that demands articulate leadership.

Is diversity of opinion on voting rights a strength? Is diversity of opinion on immigrant rights a strength? Is diversity of opinion on civil rights a strength? Is diversity of opinion on LGBTQ non-discrimination laws a strength?

This is the very definition of bullshit.

But hey, message received.

I’ll have more to say about this in the next few days.

For now, I’ll just say that agreeing to disagree on core values is how we ended up with a battle to save Roe, families separated and children in cages, Muslim bans, a former Dem Governor and labor leadership organizing a fundraiser for racist police union spokesbigot Jeff Roorda, and a country where guns have more rights than women.

That’s not strength. Those are the predictable consequences of weakness and appeasement toward a core group who will never support you the way Black women did.

Past tense on purpose.

*spits*

Great. Someone(s) in the Missouri Democratic Party found a way to alienate the most loyal part of its base.

And, again, from Pamela Merritt:

…still disgusted with the MO Dem Party’s platform fail. Missouri needs more prolife Dems like we *need* another earthquake. We don’t. Dems who do not support access to abortion and the conservative voters they will allegedly attract are the shiny object that distracts from building a platform that appeals to the thousands of voters who stay home because Republicans are regressive bigoted fiends and Democrats are obsessed with appealing to moderately regressive bigoted anti-women fiends.

And I’ll ask again, how is diversity of opinion on abortion a strength but diversity of opinion on right to work an abomination. I’ll add that I am firmly opposed to right to work, I’d never ask any political party to welcome members or politicians who support it because it is horrible policy that will harm workers and damage communities.

See how easy that is? Didn’t hurt a bit.

*spits again*

I’ve always used the term “anti-choice” to describe those single issue voters and politicians.

I was born before Roe v Wade. I was a teenager when the then U.S. Supreme Court made the ruling. And before you ask me or criticize me, as a male, about anything in my past experience that would prompt me to or give me the right to comment on reproductive health and choice for women, know that my first response would be, “It’s none of your god damned business.”

It’s a personal medical decision. Period.

Against access to adequate health care for all? No way you’re “pro life”. Against Medicaid expansion in Missouri? No way you’re “pro life”. I can go on and on. There’s decades of this kind of right wingnut policy and behavior. I’ve always asked the anti-choicers (and believe me, I have), “Are you against the death penalty and war?” One memorable response, “Oh, no, it’s about the babies.” I have nothing but contempt for that kind of moral emptiness. It’s about nothing other than forcing their power over others. That’s it.

So, this past weekend, of all days, the Missouri Democratic Party state committee voted to alter the party platform on women’s reproductive health – which might allow for so called “pro life” candidates to feel better about themselves.

No.

Does that state party believe that there may be anti-choice voters and politicians who may feel like it’s finally time to abandon the republicans over putting little children in concentration camps because it’s just a tiny bridge too far for them and who also really reflect the values of the Democratic Party and the people that we’ve all been working on behalf of for decades? I’ve got news for you, you don’t abandon your base because you want to attract a few voters or politicians in the opposition party who suddenly become queasy over behavior that’s been going on in their party for decades.

You dance with them what brung you.

Against access to adequate health care for all? No way you’re “pro life”. Against Medicaid expansion in Missouri? No way you’re “pro life”. If you’re that kind of “pro life” you and everyone else like you can go to hell, you already have an oppressive party you can join.

And, if the state party is going down that road I’ve got the new state party logo for you right here.

And, by the way, there already is an inclusive stance on abortion. It’s called “pro choice.”

Does the junior senator from the State of Missouri do this for his party? Not that he has to.

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C000960 10/06/2014 MO DEMOCRATIC STATE COMMITTEE Claire McCaskill 1941 Spring House Dr St Louis MO 63122 United States Senate 10/3/2014 $50,000.00

[emphasis added]

That’s $390,000.00 since February, $100,000.00 in the last week.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: even more (October 2, 2014)

Campaign Finance: All in the family (July 28, 2014)

Campaign Finance: join the party (February 19, 2014)

Duane Graham of The Erstwhile Conservative is disappointed in what he sees as the signs of the times embodied in Tuesday’s off-year elections. He concedes that it’s good that Democrat Terry McAuliffe beat right wing Republican Ken Cuccinelli in purple Virginia’s gubernatorial race, but he’s not too impressed with the margin of victory, 47.8% to 45.3%, especially since the Republican was so extreme that, among other signs of left-brain impairment, he “thought launching a website to help keep Virginians safe from sodomy was a great idea.”

Blue Girl here at SMP is also disappointed about the elections, specifically about the defeat of a sales-tax issue in Jackson County, and I think that she’s getting closer to the reason this election should make progressives uneasy when she attributes the reason for the defeat of Jackson County’s medical tax to “the fact that less than fifteen percent bothered to turn out and vote.”

We now have some verification that the low-margin of victory  in Virginia that leaves Graham feeling worried was the result of the same phenomena Blue Girl laments in Jackson County. As Kos of the DailyKos put it in his analysis of the McAuliffe’s narrow victory in Virginia, “we can’t win big if our people don’t vote.”

Getting Democrats out to vote is the big issue somebody’s going to have to tackle between now and 2014. You’d think it wouldn’t be that difficult. Who wants crazy politicians representing them? And if we’re correct in the belief that Todd Akin handed the 2012 election to Claire McCaskill simply by revealing himself as a radical anti-woman lunatic, it’s equally true that many of the state’s Republican politicians have been working overtime to make the point that there are plenty more like Brother Todd down on the farm. Just ask Vicky Hartzler about what the Chinese are doing with toasters if you doubt me.

There’s certainly no shortage of evidence that GOP lunatics are running the asylum when it comes to Jefferson City. What they have done – or ineptly tried to do – has often served as fodder for the laugh of the day in the national news outlets. A stroll down memory lane dedicated to the last year or so would find such icons of rightwing goofiness as proposed laws dedicated to protecting us from Sharia law and Agenda 21, unconstitutional efforts to nullify federal laws, efforts to suppress access to contraception, goldbuggery, even legislation that would make it illegal to legislate.

What they haven’t done is equally nuts. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted earlier this year in an effort to explain the “party of no” label it had been emphasizing, Missouri’s Republians are nothing if not consistent: “No to health care. No to reasonable gun laws. No to cutting tax credits. No to equal rights. No to ethics reform.”

So, given these high levels of the crazy combined with ineptitude, you’d think 2014 and 2016 would be a waltz for Democrats, wouldn’t you? But maybe not. Democrats will still have to contend with gerrymandered districts made up of those die-hard GOPers who have bought lock, stock and barrel into the story about the Kenyan black man in the White House who wants to take their guns and stick them in concentration camps where they’ll be brainwashed until they’re willing to Sieg heil the communist overlords.

There are, however, sizeable pockets of sanity. I’m willing to bet that sprinkled throughout the state there are lots of reliable Republican voters who may not pay much attention to politics but have stayed with the GOP because it’s a personal or family tradition and they haven’t yet realized or they’re in denial about how crazy it has become. And finally there are all those citizens who would vote Democratic if they only ever made it to the polls. If there’s going to be any changes for the better in Missouri, somebody’s going to have to get the good word out to all these groups in a forceful enough fashion to get them all revved up to trash the crazy by, dare I suggest, next year.

Senator Claire McCaskill and Governor Jay Nixon, the top of the Democratic hierarchy in Missouri, may be fine people and are certainly preferable to their past Republican opponents, but they are, to put it kindly, somewhat lackluster and instead of helping to energize Democrats in Missouri, have concentrated on not poking the Tea Party wingers with sharp objects lest they bite. Good for them, but doesn’t do much to raise the kind of enthusiasm about the issues that brings folks out to vote.

Roy Temple, the new Chair of the state Democratic Party may – just possibly – offer some grounds to hope that a nearly moribund party can get it going again. Word is that he is aggressive and professional with lots of  hard-core experience – although some of it, like the inept Missouri Kerry campaign, may be a bit questionable. He does, though, seem to understand the need to address the dynamics of what he correctly identifies as 20 years of Democratic decline in Missouri.

There’s lots to do. Money to be raised. Effective, targeted, non-stop messaging machines to construct. The unions have worked well with the Democratic party in the state. Are there other organizations where joint efforts can be coordinated better? What about all those Democratic clubs and organizations? I can think of several in the St. Louis area alone – just teeming with Missourians who want to help, but don’t necessarily know how to do it in the most effective way. If Democrats in the state get going now, maybe they can begin to help pull Missouri out of its GOP doldrums. And then we can all sit back and watch pigs soar through the empyreum.

*Slightly edited for clarity.  

The New York Times today chronicles Governor Nixon’s smart tactics in the battle over whether or not his veto of HB253, the GOP’s rope-a-dope tax cut bill, will stand. While it’s not a done deal, the Governor has at least put up a fight and has a strong chance of prevailing:

As a Democrat facing a State Legislature with veto-proof Republican majorities, Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri has not claimed big victories lately. So when he began stumping the state against a deep Republican tax cut that he had vetoed, he might have seemed to be on a political fool’s errand.

But over the summer, Mr. Nixon has turned the debate away from the Republican argument that lower taxes bring jobs and recast the tax cut as one that would hurt education and mental health services. The state’s school boards have rallied to his side. More than 100 of them have passed resolutions supporting the veto. And with a veto session set to begin on Wednesday, it is the supporters of the tax cut who are now pessimistic.

The most interesting part of the Times article, however, involved a comment from the brand new Chair of the Missouri Democratic party, Roy Temple:

“Democrats are often far too timid to stand up and call them [i.e., Republicans] out when they’re doing something that’s destructive,” said Roy Temple, the chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party, who spent several years in Washington as a political strategist. “There’s no political risk for pointing out when they’re doing things the wrong way.”

Welcome words after years of watching our state’s leading Democrats quake and quail in the wake of the Tea Party rout of 2010. Maybe it won’t only be the Governor who has discovered that he actually has a spine (although it may be the term-limited Nixon’s political ambitions that have lead to that belated discovery). Wouldn’t it be great to see Claire McCaskill shut-up about budget caps and come out swinging for measures to combat climate change?

Dream on you say –  and you’re probably right. The more important point, however, is that Temple’s remarks may signal a change in the state Democratic Party strategies and tactics which have been the very definition of timid – when they even exist. Maybe Temple will be the man who can not only build a strong, efficient organizational structure to serve the state’s Democrats, but can help to articulate a smart, aggressive strategy to help revive the party’s fortunes in Missouri.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into a few casual words. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking – God knows there’s been little to nothing in the state to be positive about apart from Jay Nixon’s veto pen. But we have seen remarkable politicians emerge in the midst of red-state deserts – just think of Wendy Davis in Texas. Whether she runs for Governor next year or not, and whether or not she wins if she does run, she has established a beach-head for change. Here in Missouri we also have some thoughtful and articulate Democrats in our state legislature and elsewhere – but what we lack is a strong party organizational structure – something other than a lapdog for prominent state Democrats – to recognize and support their talents.