Why pro-choice Dems have nothing to like about John McCain

June 10, 2008

I can’t understand it, or relate to it on any level, but I realize there are probably a few pro-choice Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton and are looking for some rationalization to justify voting for a conservative Republican who opposes abortion rights and has vowed to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Columnist Froma Harrop seems anxious to help. A Clinton backer, and a Democrat who purports to have a “libertarian streak,” Harrop now inexplicably plans to support McCain, and devoted her most recent column to explaining why McCain probably won’t be a disaster on abortion rights after all.

A big sticking point for wavering Democrats will be McCain’s position on reproductive rights. Clinton’s backers are overwhelmingly pro-choice, and they’ll want to know this: Would McCain stock the Supreme Court with foes of Roe v. Wade? The 1973 decision guarantees a right to abortion.

The answer is unclear but probably “no.” While McCain has positioned himself as “pro-life” during this campaign, his statements over the years show considerable latitude on the issue.

In a 1999 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board, McCain said, “I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America” to undergo “illegal and dangerous operations.”

As Harrop sees it, McCain has reversed course, but the new McCain doesn’t really believe what he’s saying; he’s just moving to the far-right for political purposes. Americans concerned with women’s rights and reproductive freedom can take a gamble, assuming that once he’s in office, we’ll get the old McCain instead of the new McCain.

Harrop concedes that Obama actually is pro-choice, but complains about some of his “present” votes in the Illinois state Senate on abortion issues (an attack that has already proven baseless).

This entire line of argument is hopelessly misguided. It’s so wrong, I’m hard pressed to know where to start.

First, Harrop is willing to gamble, but pro-choice Democrats have to know better. Consider how the conservative Weekly Standard described McCain last year:

Arizona senator John McCain, currently a bit behind Rudy Giuliani as Republicans’ favorite presidential choice for 2008, is far and away the most consistently anti-abortion of all the top contenders. During his 20 years in the Senate (plus four in the House), he has never failed to cast his vote in favor of whatever abortion restrictions are arguably permitted under Roe v. Wade: bans against partial-birth abortion, abortions on military bases, transporting minors across state lines to obtain abortions behind their parents’ backs, and government funding for abortion both in the United States and abroad (all but the transporting-minors bill have become federal law). In addition, McCain has voted to confirm every “strict constructionist” judge (that is, disinclined to find, à la Roe, a right to abortion and related activities enshrined in the Constitution) appointed by the various Republican presidents who have served during his tenure, including Robert Bork for the Supreme Court.

Harrop considers this and concludes that McCain’s voting record of complete and total opposition to reproductive rights for nearly a quarter century is insincere, and once in the White House, he’ll suddenly transform into a moderate. This is sheer fantasy.

Second, McCain is going to great lengths to prove how completely wrong Harrop really is. Indeed, McCain is telling anyone who will listen that he’d be even further to the right than Bush on this issue, subtly criticizing Griswold, and by extension, the very notion of a right to privacy. “Might he really be a ‘maverick’ when it comes to the Supreme Court? The answer, almost certainly, is no. The Senator has long touted his opposition to Roe, and has voted for every one of Bush’s judicial appointments; the rhetoric of his speech shows that he is getting his advice on the Court from the most extreme elements of the conservative movement.”

And third, it’s utterly foolish to narrowly focus the inquiry to the Supreme Court. McCain is practically desperate to stack the court with more far-right justices — his active support for Bork wasn’t an accident — but if we take a more general look at McCain and women’s issues, we see that McCain will maintain the global gag order, supports the court’s ruling on Ledbetter, has expressed no interest in civil rights protections for women, and has voted against everything from requiring health care plans to cover birth control to international family planning funding to public education for emergency contraception. And don’t forget, McCain will not only replace Supreme Court justices, but also lower-court judges and entire executive-branch bureaucracy with conservative Republican officials.

If your concern is for women’s rights and reproductive freedom, McCain is a nightmare.

Don’t make a reckless and irresponsible gamble when so much is at stake — especially when a progressive Democrat who agrees with Clinton on practically everything is right there on the ballot next to the conservative Republican who disagrees with Clinton on practically everything.

This isn’t a tough call. It’s not even close.

“subtly criticizing Griswold”

Hope he keeps it up. As I understand it, even 80% of Evangelicals agree with the result in Griswold (even if they don’t know the case by name). Not much different among Catholics. It’s no way to broaden his appeal.

  • You have to hand it to Froma Harrop. Anyone who trusts someone because they don’t believe he’s telling the truth is truly absurd.

    And perhaps Harrop might think of Harriet Meirs/Samuel Alito as an analogy. The president may live in a bubble, but he’s still surrounded by those he made promises to. I think Harrop needs to ask how high a priority women’s rights are to McCain, not just what he’s really thinking.

  • I think Hillary will explain to her followers that it would be really STUPID counterproductive to vote for McCain, and that most of them will be smart enough to listen.

  • It’s so hard to trust politicians to do what they promise, why in the world does Harrop want to trust McCain to do what he doesn’t even promise.

  • “empty suit”

    My wife is a really sensible person, but she had exactly this reaction to Obama, and preferred Clinton all along (although she thinks that, at this point, those who think like Harrop are nuts — and unfortunately among the elder feminist crowd there seem to be a fair number of them).

    I think somehow, Obama’s relative youth and attempt to disengage himself from the battles of the 60’s-70’s really turns these folks off (Paul Krugman agrees some with this last part, and I feel a little the same). I think they’ll get over it, but not right away.

  • I may have been living under a rock, but I’ve never heard of “Froma Harrop” — sounds like a character out of Harry Potter or something. I agree with Danp, Dale, et al: why believe something a politician (particularly a Republican) hasn’t said, given the recent track record of politicians not doing what they explicitly said they would (“i’m a uniter, not a divider” springs to mind…)

  • As for baby boomers who get upset with Obama for disengaging himself from the sixties, they need to get over it. While the sixties was a good thing, it’s not the end all and be all of everything.

  • I love when a Pundit defines ‘Authenticity’ as ‘He WON’T do what he promises’.

    I’m knashing my teeth here for a lot of reasons (Steve will get one) but really, this person is stupid.

  • Froma Harrop is very much like the beloved and crazed Clinton supporter “Mary” that left her foaming blather here often ……… just the sheer lunacy of these people and the utterly distorted ‘logic’ they use to justify themselves. Beyond the abortion issue McBush also voted against equal pay for women. Maybwe Harrop and ‘Mary’ would like to twist themselves into some distortion of logic to justify McBush because of this ?

  • Hmmm. What’s all this about some baseless smears about Obama’s voting record on abortion? Oh right, that was Hillary’s camp that sent out those mailers questioning Obama’s pro-choice credentials. Thanks again, Hillary.

  • I haven’t heard of this dimwit either, but I have heard this argument. It’s wrong, ironically for the reason she thinks it’s valid: McCain doesn’t care about social issues.

    The guy who dumped his first wife for a gorgeous heiress and basically partied like it was 1976 even when it wasn’t 1976 is no moral crusader. But he also knows that the best way to neutralize the suspicions of the Christianists is to promise to do their bidding within a circumscribed area–and that area is the courts. This has the bonus, from McCain’s POV, of putting corporatist judges on the bench as well, which helps him secure the Norquist faction of the party.

    I remember that when little Christofascist Gary Bauer dropped out of the 2000 race, he endorsed McCain–and he said that the reason why was because McCain–unlike Bush–promised Bauer he would appoint only anti-abortion judges. That’s pragmatic from a Republican electoral perspective, but suicidally stupid for a pro-Clintons feminist to embrace.

  • This sounds like a stages-of-grief thing– bargaining that McCain won’t be as bad on her issue as he says he will be (sounds as though there’s some denial in there too).

  • Anyone who claims to be an avid Hillary Clinton supporter that would choose McCain over Obama is simply stupid.

  • There will be some small percentage of idiots like Harrop who will write this tripe and you can be sure there’ll be no shortage of MSM who will eagerly print it like it’s a huge movement.

  • Nice for Mary and Greg and Impartial to see that they aren’t the only Clinton loonies still left.

    Like AJB said – this is proof that some Clintonistas are simply stupid.

  • This is the second old Republican presidential nominee without full use of their arms (Dole). Is this some sort of physical symbolic manifestation of their inability to “embrace” change?

  • FLASHBACK:

    “Bush probably won’t enact tax cuts for the wealthy – he’s just saying that to win votes from his base”

    – Democrats for Bush, 2000

  • As someone who posted to this over at RealMuddyPolitics pointed out, Froma Harrop has been the poster girl for what Limbaugh means with the term “feminazis” for going on forever. She is to feminism what Farakhan is to civil rights,.

  • “As for baby boomers who get upset with Obama for disengaging himself from the sixties, they need to get over it. While the sixties was a good thing, it’s not the end all and be all of everything.”

    The truth is for 99.9% of the baby boomers the most “radical” thing they did during the ’60’s was eating Screaming Yellow Zonkers.

    I turned on NPR the other day and a woman was being interviewed about the clinton campaign. I didn’t catch who she was. She was asked if Bill Clinton had done more harm than good. “Oh No! He’s the kind of husband EVERY woman wants! He was just defending his wife.” Its occurred to me that the most rabid Hillary Clinton supporters don’t care about policy or issues. I don’t think they even care all that much about the notion of a female President (would they have gotten so inflamed if Nancy Pelosi had run and lost?). They’re a combination of the Dynasty/Dallas crowd and hard-core manhaters. For some reason they’ve obssessed on a woman who’s life has been like shaby night time soap, who’s been publically humiliated by her husband for years…yet that husband is still the knight in shining armour. They’re not a very rational group…and I suspect, not a very large group, but you know, the weird ones always get the camera pointed at them.

    Someone left a comment on the Huffington Post that summed it up (if painfully). the said Clinton’s supporters are “Like my mother, a woman who took any offence no matter how slight or imagined and dragged it on for months. A bitter woman who made life miserable for everyone arounf her.” That even made me wince, but I’m afraid its probably true.

    Most of the women I know voted for Obama.

  • I wonder if HRC supporters who threaten to vote for McCain understand that doing so would only work to tarnish Clinton, making her the 2008 version of Ralph Nader.

    Like I told my Mama, an HRC supporter who is wary of Obama for what amounts to purely racial reasons (hey, she’s living in Kentucky, where that kind of thinking is more common than not): If HRC supporters don’t get behind Obama and really work to elect a Democrat to the White House, then this country is full of so many Crackers that we deserve another 4 years of Bu(ll)sh(it). There’s nothing like learning the hard way – and McCain is offering us a *very* hard way indeed.

  • Roger Stone came up with an anti-Hillary group called C.U.N.T.! Therefore, I have to vote for Stone’s candidate, because Obama didn’t drop everything to denounce Stone and Hillary didn’t win!

    Argh — I’m trying to let go of my anger at thew Clinton end-timers, but I really think it comes down to (il)logic like that for them.

  • Well, that site, realclearpolitics.com, has no commenting.
    That means it is a member of the Old Media, regardless of its presence on the internet at 216.75.16.196.

    Fewer and fewer of us take anything the Old Media has to say seriously because they refuse to accept comments. Without comments, factual and other errors rarely come down & never in a timely manner. I won’t even comment on how ridiculous their links are (if even present).

  • I can’t understand it, or relate to it on any level, but I realize there are probably a few pro-choice Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton and are looking for some rationalization to justify voting for a conservative Republican who opposes abortion rights and has vowed to overturn Roe v. Wade.

    And they are all attention whores who should all either be viciously mocked or completely ignored. Alleged feminists (of both genders) voting for McCane is 110% loonier than Log Cabin Republicans.

    Don’t get me wrong, I think it is every American’s right to vote for whoever they want to vote for, just like it’s every American’s right to pray to who or what ever they want to pray to. I just find the prostelytizers annoying as Hell.

  • It really is frightening to watch some of these women twist themselves into hopeless knots trying to find ways to justify voting for McCain–pretty much an open enemy of women–over Obama. Over at Washington Monthly, Mary has been busy working herself up into the indignant avowal that Obama telling Clinton she’s “likable enough” is sexism rather than garden-variety snark, that Obama uses code words only angry women can understand maligning menstruation, that his merit-pay-for-teachers proposal is an explicit slam at women, etc., etc., etc. Clearly he’s a world-class misogynist, and so we might as well have McCain.

    If you start from the proposition that you don’t like Obama and work backward from that, no attempted rationalization is too outlandish, I guess.

  • @ 22. On June 10th, 2008 at 11:30 am, SaintZak said: The truth is for 99.9% of the baby boomers the most “radical” thing they did during the ’60’s was eating Screaming Yellow Zonkers.

    During the summer of ’68, i personally partied with orders of magnitude more than 0.01% of all boomers. I don’t know where you celebrated the ’60s but apparently you missed out on the sunshine.

    And, besides that, regarding the blog, what’s your point?

  • the type of citizen who would embrace a totally anti-feminist man like McSame because her female candidate lost to a feminist man like Obama, is politically naive in the extreme and unlikely to vote when the time comes.The evil that has been done to women worldwide in the name of anti-choice politicians is huge and ongoing and even worse than their assaults on choice here in the US

  • Further proof that the” Mary wing” of American feminism is composed of morons. Day-to-Day on NPR had some idiot saying pretty much the same things, that if there’s a Democratic majority in the Senate it won’t matter what McCain could try to do with the Supreme Court. How this bimbette was ever smart enough to pass the bar exam (she’s a lawyer) is beyond me, but as I recall from the year of law school I self-inflicted in myself, half the class were morons and idiots, and in a class that was 50 percent female it was marvelously clear that morons and idiots come in all shapes, sizes, genders, races, ages and religions.

    For these die-hards, Bugs Bunny was right: whatta buncha maroons!

  • “During the summer of ‘68, i personally partied with orders of magnitude more than 0.01% of all boomers. I don’t know where you celebrated the ’60s but apparently you missed out on the sunshine.”

    I “celebrated” the 60’s with the Velvet Underground crowd smirking at your “sunhine.”

  • @ 22. On June 10th, 2008 at 11:30 am, SaintZak said: The truth is for 99.9% of the baby boomers the most “radical” thing they did during the ’60’s was eating Screaming Yellow Zonkers.

    You’ve just managed to lose the credibility you have been building with the stupidity of this Generation Y-bother comment, Zak (a generation Y-bother name if there ever was one, up there with Jared for ridiculousness).

    While no more than about 20% of the Baby Boom generation were in fact active politically in the Sixties, were it not what we did, morons like you would be voting Republican after serving in Vietnam.

  • Would all of those HRC women who are planning a vengeance vote for McCain please identify yourselves. Should McCain get into the office of President, I would like my eleven year old granddaughter to know who to thank since it is her generation that will most sharply feel the consequences.

  • Olo (#25) – Real Clear Politics has pretty easy commenting, you don’t even need to register. I’d be pretty embarassed if I couldn’t figure out how easy it is.

  • 24. Steve M. said: Roger Stone came up with an anti-Hillary group called C.U.N.T.! Therefore, I have to vote for Stone’s candidate, because Obama didn’t drop everything to denounce Stone and Hillary didn’t win!

    It’s even worse than that. If you look through the recent archives over at No Quarter, one of them (I think SusanUnPC) had a diary which approvingly linked to Roger Stone because he made a comment affirming the existence of the “whitey” tape. There was even somewhat complimentary language about Stone himself (sure he’s a little slimy but you have to respect him type of stuff). I think that says it all about Larry Johnson and his crew, they are Republican dirty tricksters masquerading as Hillary supporters.

  • How about, “Why Dems who care about anything that Democrats care about shouldn’t like him”?

    John McCain: Your retirement is too secure as it is, don’t you think?
    John McCain: Can’t poor sick children just get a job already?
    John McCain supporting our troops by keeping them uneducated.
    John McCain: Here’s to you, OH, PA, MI!

  • Olo @ #25: Click the “comments” link at the top of the article. That takes you to the comments section and you can post there.

  • This is from Firedoglake yesterday, and I think it says it all:

    John McCain has received a ZERO rating on women’s issues every single year from NARAL from 2001 to 2007. A zero. He’s against emergency contraception and funding for teen pregnancy prevention programs. He thinks Roe should be overturned. He voted against having health insurers cover birth control. And, as Joe Conason points out, he’s not exactly Mr. Candor, including about sex education and contraception use to prevent the spread of AIDS.

    A reporter followed up by inquiring whether McCain supports sex education that candidly discusses contraception and preventing the spread of AIDS and other disease, or whether he backs President Bush’s abstinence-only education program. After a long pause, he said, “I think I support the president’s policy.” Does he believe that contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV? After another long pause, he replied, “You’ve stumped me.”

    The words blithering, pandering moh-ron leap to mind here. Equal pay? McCain opposed it, saying Congress shouldn’t pass any laws that hold corporations accountable for screwing their female employees. Hell, he didn’t even bother to show up for the last vote on this issue. I guess Lily Ledbetter had it coming, eh, Maverick?

    Instead, McCain think he’s going to appeal to women voters with a new approach. In a new blog on his Web site, he says, “Attention, disaffected Hillary supporters. John McCain is a huge ABBA fan. Seriously.”

    So to all the Clinton voters out there: This is what you’re going to get if you vote for McCain.

  • All Things Considered just had an interview with a middle aged feminist lawyer who parroted the same talking points– Obama is just an empty suit who hasn’t accomplished ANYTHING, says he doesn’t have any ideas or plans (because she can’t take the time to research them, clearly) and then when asked about reproductive choice she said she believes that McCain won’t do anything about it and that 2-3 NEW SUPREMES AREN’T A BIG DEAL BECAUSE THE COURT ALREADY LEANS CONSERVATIVE. She also said that Obama’s willingness to talk to bad people makes him too naive to be president.

    (primal scream)

    I wanted to reach through the radio and shake her. I also wanted to write Hillary a letter congratulating her for setting this Dem-approved narrative up for the GOP. Nice work.

    After 8 years of absolutely disasterous GOP/Bush policies a staunch, pro-civil rights feminist is publicly admitting that she wants to vote for McCain over a young, idealistic progressive democrat?

    I just don’t get it. More importantly, what can and should we do about it?

  • Do we need to remind them that Bush’s first act of business was banning abortions on military bases overseas? McCain’s stance on reproductive rights isn’t JUST about the supreme court or court appointments in general– it’s about all of the other things that he can do to continue the GOP’s agenda. I just hope that McBush is forced to start talking about his opposition to a whole host of reproductive rights– not just abortion– to woo the unimpressed right-wing.

  • @ 34. On June 10th, 2008 at 12:34 pm, Tom Cleaver said: Olo (#25) – Real Clear Politics has pretty easy commenting, you don’t even need to register. I’d be pretty embarassed if I couldn’t figure out how easy it is.

    I’m never embarrassed, ever.

    Here’s the link to the instant piece:
    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/prochoice_democrats_and_john_m.html
    You’re right. There is a speck of a comment slink, Way up near the top, on that skinny black menu bar, the word comment is jammed between video and sports, the issues and links. Yummy, Nothing grabs MY attention like a scrawny black menu bar.

    …not at all embarrassed by not instantly locating a link to the intermediate not-a-comments page, on my first visit to what is not trying to be a very scary website.
    I was therefore not annoyed by that aforementioned intermediate not-a-comments page which merely listed the pieces open to comments.
    I did not believe it was because of either bad manners or bad programming, that the RCP tube so easily forgot what story I had just come from. Of course – it was not bad manners as I was not forced to peruse a gauntlet of spittle spewing titles from the likes of Buchannan, Praegar & Condi before finally locating the slink to the Harrop crarrop.
    And how could I not be moved by the chic Red & Black motif. Where have I not seen (and run from) those bold, inspiring and usually not well armed colors?

    I could not go on, (The reading list is certainly lamentable enough) but ….it’s not nice out today. I’m not gonna stand in the rain.

  • zoe, I can’t hear you. I have my fingers in my ears and I’m singing “Dancing Queen” really loudly.

  • I just don’t get it. More importantly, what can and should we do about it?
    zoe kentucky

    Nothing. If you can’t bring yourself to poke fun at these asshats, ignore them. Some big babies have just found a new way to get lots of attention (Waaah! Pay attention to me or I’ll vote for McCain!) but once the MSM gets bored with democrats who’d vote for McCaniac and they’ll come to their senses.

    Or they won’t. Either way, there’s nothing that can be done about it short of de-programming.

  • “The truth is for 99.9% of the baby boomers the most “radical” thing they did during the ’60’s was eating Screaming Yellow Zonkers.”

    Jealousy speaking, there. As Wordsworth put it, “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!”

  • Just one comment Steve.

    Not all the women who voted for Clinton are actually Pro-Choice. Therefore, they actually have no reason not to vote for McCan’t, even if he doesn’t share any of Clinton’s policies, because they were voting for the Person to be President and not the Policies he/she would bring to the Executive Branch.

    For them, Obama has to make a case that he’s the Person to be President and not McCan’t (not really that hard a case) rather than he’s the one to push Clinton’s policies while McCan’t won’t.

  • Lance…They have every reason not to vote for McCain. Just to make that statement means they don’t know McCain but only what they have been told about McCain. He’s 100% disabled and receives $55 thousand + in disability from the military. How he manages to get paid disability when he makes more than 3times that amount from his jobs is beyond me. Being 100% disabled means you can’t work yet he makes 3times that from working as a senator. He’s manged to suck on the government teat(paid by our taxes) for 30yrs now. There is so much information to debunk everything McCain is and stands for that I’m Hard pressed to find a reason ‘to’ vote for him. He used his chair as committee chairman of Indian affairs etc, to subpoena 70 thousand + documents on the Abramoff affair just so he could then bury them from the public and release only 2% of the files he was forced to release as they related to Indian affairs just to protect all the republicans involved in the corruption.
    He was responsible for burning up sailors on the USS Forrestal by showing off a “wet burn” starting of his plane after being warned not to do this and immediately torched the plane and pilot behind him.(you can google this stuff) which caused bombs to drop from the jet and a huge fire resulted. Like I said, any respect you show for this guy is out of ignorance of who and what he is. Someone on this site said he had one year out of the ’70s he’s repeated for 30yrs and that is his “experience”. Putting on a uniform does not make one an expert on military affairs. So does a lying manipulating show off hot head without a conscience who refers to his woman in public as a lying c nt or a bitch really sound like the “person” to be president?

  • While the view that you can trust McCain because he’s lying about abortion rights is absurd, there are people on the left who are making the same argument regarding Obama and free trade. It’s kind of an uncomfortable truth that’s run in the background behind BO since Ohio.

    Note: this excuses neither from the deception.

  • I think that the Republicans have more to lose than women and their abortion rights.

    I think this is a sneaky attempt to get the GOP to change their party abortion platform. Once the platform is changed, it cannot be reversed this cycle. And if McCain loses with a pro-choice platform, the GOP will be in shambles.

    I’m sure that once the platform is changed, this columnist and a bunch of the Hillary crowd will find some lame excuse not to vote for McCain.

  • zoe #39 –

    when that female lawyer suggested Obama had never accomplished anything, someone should have asked her if her law degree was from Harvard and if she was editor of the Law Review while she was there.

    what has she ever “accomplished” to judge him?

  • We supposedly have a government of checks and balances. Who McCain nominates to the Supreme Court is immaterial IF the presumed majority in the Senate are Democrats. The Senate confirms a president’s nomination and the Senate CAN stop that justice from being appointed.

    BUT will the Democants grow a spine and do that–fight off a bad, conservative, pro-life appointee?

    I doubt it.

    Not even Obama can change that piece of business in our government.

  • I think it’s clear that Harrop comes from the Tammy Bruce faction of the feminist movement. Those are the women whose racism is so deeply ingrained that it trumps all issues related to feminism and reproductive rights.

  • Harrop has also been fond of incoherent screeds against those vile internet people saying mean things about her. She really is a caracature of a 70s feminist.

  • If women in America would have it impossible under McCAIN, then the women of the world would really be at total risk as they have been under the Bush Administration. I am cofounder of 34 MIllion Friends of the United Nations Population Fund supported by 181 countreis but not our own. http://www.34millionfriends.org Please take a stand.

  • I am hoping we have at least 1 candidate who is pro-life. Abortion kills more than 1 million a year, more than any war in history!

    • Comments are closed.