Dems won a House majority, probably a Senate majority, a gubernatorial majority, and a majority in state legislatures. But one of the more common far-right arguments I’ve seen quite a bit today is that the electorate was rejecting the Republican Party, but not conservative ideas. The GOP got corrupted, the argument goes, but the inherent merit of the right-wing agenda remains obvious and popular.
Except that’s not quite right either.
In a triple setback for conservatives, South Dakota rejected a law that would have banned virtually all abortions, Arizona became the first state to defeat an amendment to ban gay marriage and Missouri approved a measure backing stem cell research.
Nationwide, a total of 205 measures were on the ballots Tuesday in 37 states, but none had riveted political activists across the country like the South Dakota measure. Passed overwhelmingly by the legislature earlier this year, it would have been the toughest abortion law in the nation, allowing the procedure only to save a pregnant woman’s life.
South Dakota isn’t exactly known for its progressive attitudes on reproductive rights, but when presented with and up-or-down choice on endorsing the conservative line on abortion, it wasn’t even close. The measure lost 55% to 45%.
This vote probably won’t get nearly the attention the congressional vote received — it’s understandable, of course, Democratic “revolutions” are rare and exciting — but it’s nevertheless a fairly startling statement. The conservative dream of a ban on abortions, with protecting the life of the pregnant woman as the only exception, is now considered so extreme, it can’t even pass in one of the nation’s most socially conservative states. Indeed, it suffered a double-digit loss.
The Arizona anti-gay measure, backed by John McCain, who was featured in statewide television advertising, was another milestone.
Arizona bucked a strong national trend by refusing to change its constitution to define marriage as a one-man, one-woman institution. The measure also would have forbidden civil unions and domestic partnerships.
“We knew all along that once voters were informed about the true impact … they would oppose this hurtful initiative,” said Steve May, treasurer for Arizona Together, which organized opposition to the measure. “They made the right decision.”
The right always took great pleasure in noting that every anti-gay statewide vote put before voters in recent years has passed. This year, several passed (but by smaller margins) and one failed. Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, suggested that “fear-mongering around same-sex marriage is fizzling out.” I’m inclined to agree.
Missouri, meanwhile, passed its stem-cell measure despite opposition from religious conservatives, and minimum wage increases passed in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, and Nevada.
This is not to say that every ballot initiative/referendum went the left’s way — Michigan’s vote on affirmative action, for example, did not — but by and large, yesterday’s results weren’t just an example of voters moving away from the Republican Party; they also moved away from some of the party’s key ideas.
It couldn’t have happened to a more appropriate group of folks….