The Choice on Choice

As best I can tell, the Clinton campaign's attacks on Barack Obama's record on abortion rights and their attacks on his counterattcks are, as Dana Goldstein reports, basically false.

In a larger sense, though, efforts to even raise this issue ring a bit hollow to me. After all, what's the beef here supposed to be? What is it that's supposed to make me, as a pro-choice voter, worry about the prospect of an Obama administration? To the best of my knowledge, Obama, like Clinton, would appoint pro-choice judges, repeal the global gag rule, sign a Freedom of Choice Act, veto abortion restrictions that don't adequately safeguard a mother's health, etc., etc. If that's not true -- if Obama has some meaningful policy disagreement with Clinton -- then that'd be a great issue to raise. But if there isn't, then there isn't.

Comments

Uh, I think I am guardedly in favor of a global gay rule.

Posted by Dix Hill | January 7, 2008 3:01 PM

I think you mean "gag rule."

Posted by alkali | January 7, 2008 3:02 PM

To the best of my knowledge, Obama, like Clinton, would appoint pro-choice judges, repeal the global gay rule

Whoa! Sullivan will not be pleased.

Posted by Daniel Munz | January 7, 2008 3:03 PM

Clinton's trying to make the case that when the chips are down, Obama's not going to stand up and make his voice heard.

Posted by Clark | January 7, 2008 3:06 PM

Clinton's trying to prove that she has the sort of experience needed to hand out smears.

Posted by otto | January 7, 2008 3:11 PM

Global gay rule? I guess Larry Craig's a loyal Bush soldier after all.

Posted by phil | January 7, 2008 3:14 PM

I think Clinton is desperately throwing as many accusations as she can at Obama at this point and hoping one sticks. It's really her only play.

Posted by right | January 7, 2008 3:15 PM

I'm not sure what Matt doesn't understand. It isn't about abortion, its about Obama taking the easy way out when under political fire. Now Clinton giving this is rich, but thats the attack.

Posted by Rob | January 7, 2008 3:15 PM

This is just another example of how lame Clinton's attacks against Obama have been.

I think, going back the last couple months, she really would have been better off keeping the campaign almost entirely positive. The only negative things she should have raised is the experience issue, and perhaps a little "where's the beef" type of questions.

The attacks really seem to be backfiring against her.

Posted by Jim W | January 7, 2008 3:17 PM

Go to Obama's issues page and look for choice, it isn't there. You have to go to a separate (but equal!) site, http://women.barackobama.com/, to find his women's issues page: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/womenissues

Obviously Obama is pro-choice, but this and his history show where choice ranks among his priorities.

Posted by tib | January 7, 2008 3:17 PM

Wasn't he doing what Planned Parenthood wanted by voting present?

By default, he has shown he is more supportive of choice than Hillary, because her stupid robocall stunt shows that she was just using all this as a gimmick to get attention and votes. That the rights of women really are that meaningless to her.

Posted by Carl | January 7, 2008 3:21 PM

Actually Matt, if you looked into it you would see that Obama's defense just does not make sense.

He ducked out of the all the votes on a tough issue because he basically wanted to save his supposedly 'pro-choice' seat. But without voting pro-choice that is a logical fallacy. It cannot be a pro-choice seat unless the person occupying that seat votes pro-choice, which Obama refused to do.

That is plain cowardice which is a stronger word than what Senator Clinton calls it but it is the truth nevertheless.

Actually, I do not expect anything more from Matt than his parrotting whatever the latest hit piece on Hillary claims. He has been conditioned over the last fifteen years to react that way. He just cannot shake it off and think for himself.

Posted by ken | January 7, 2008 3:27 PM

Yes, Carl. Yes, yes, yes. He was acting in concert with Planned Parenthood and the Democratic leadership in voting present.

Sleazy.

Posted by P | January 7, 2008 3:32 PM

She's trying to create a gender wedge.

Or the campaign is.

They are completely wedded to Mark Penn micro-constituencies during a change election.

Change^2, actually, because the voters didn't get what they voted for in 2006. Clinton is coming to personify that failure to deliver.

Posted by jayackroyd | January 7, 2008 3:34 PM

I think the Charge that Obama has shown himself to gutless when it comes to voting his talk has merit, particularly coming from Hill & Bill, who both talked a good game and did little over eight years...I look for Obama to do more of the same triangulation. And Hillary has seen this up close with Bill so she's on solid ground to see it in Obama.

To be fair Obama does give great speeches and if you're in need of "inspiration", "audacity" and "hope" he's the goto man.

Posted by S Brennan | January 7, 2008 3:37 PM

The Hillary trolls are pathetic.

If you'd read the links you'd see that he was voting present becasue Planned Parenthood asked him to as part of a strategy to provide cover for Dems in Conservative districts who needed to vote present, not to protect his own seat.

This is standard legistlative jockeying, which Hillary and her team know, that they are stooping to Rovian style smears like this of a fellow Democrat is outrageous, and yet one more reason she needs to be beaten.

The bottom line is Planned Parenthood gives him a 100% rating and is working to get the truth out.

Posted by Eric K | January 7, 2008 3:48 PM

Ken,

Please READ up on this issue so that you can better understand the facts involved.

See Eric Zorn's (from the Chicago Tribune) article from December 7th, 2007 in which he explains this issue very clearly.

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2007/12/disparagement-o.html

Obama was ASKED by Planned Parenthood to vote "present" in order to provide political cover for other State Senators from competetive districts who were also voting "present."

Again, this was Planned Parenthood's strategy, not Obama's; he was simply trying to help get these pieces of legislation passed.

From the Zorn article:

"Anyone who says that a `present' vote necessarily reflects that someone is ducking an issue doesn't understand the first thing about legislative strategy," said Pam Sutherland, Planned Parenthood's chief lobbyist in Springfield. "People who work down here and know how things get done are hearing these accusations and saying, `huh?'"

Posted by Aaron M | January 7, 2008 3:57 PM

Defending Obama's non vote, to save his pro-choice seat, just does not make logical sense.

He copped out of though votes because it would have made his re-election more difficult. Ok. A lot of politician do that. We call it cowardice. We try to encourage them to stick to principles, to stand up for what we believe, to make a difference. We don't demonize someone who has a better record on the issue. Yet that is what a lot of so-called liberals are doing.

I think it sad that so many Democrats cannot think for themselves when it comes to Hillary Clinton.

Posted by ken | January 7, 2008 3:58 PM

Clinton's trying to make the case that when the chips are down, Obama's not going to stand up and make his voice heard.

Clinton's trying smear Obama with anything that will stick that is *remotely* plausible. Nothing more, nothing less.

Posted by Joe Strummer | January 7, 2008 3:58 PM

Also note, that Obama (as the Zorn article explains) was in a very safe district and had no problem voting "no" on these bills.

AGAIN, he was ASKED (by Planned Parenthood) to vote "present" (even though he did not have to) so that it did not appear as if ONLY the Senators from the more conservative (competitive) districts were doing so.

From the Zorn article:

"Obama, however, was in a safe district and never faced a serious challenge for his legislative seat. He had no need to shy from hard-line stands on gun control and abortion rights. He actually took such stands frequently and is now highly praised by advocates for both causes."

"Why would he then vote "present" instead of a resounding "no" on certain bills advanced by lawmakers opposed to abortion rights?"

"'To provide cover for other Democrats who were shaky on the issue in an effort to convince them not to vote `yes,'" Sutherland said. "'The idea is to recruit a group to vote `present' that includes legislators who are clearly right with the issue.'"

Posted by Aaron M | January 7, 2008 4:08 PM

I see that the best defense Obama has is that he found a way to make sure his voice was never heard when it came to a very important issue for progressive voters. He did this by hiding behind Planned Parenthood. Too bad he couldn't have let some other legislature have the honor of this defense and actually voted as he should have. But he was looking for higher office at the time so that wouldn't have worked.

Posted by ken | January 7, 2008 4:11 PM

Ken,

Read Aaron M's post really slowly.

The only pathetic thing in this thread are you Hillary trolls prenteding to not understand how legislative process works.

Posted by Eric K | January 7, 2008 4:14 PM

sign a Freedom of Choice Act,

It is unclear to me what the purpose behind such an act would be. If the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe on federalist grounds, they would certainly oveturn any Freedom of Choice Act that didn't include a constitutional amendment.

Posted by Shinyk | January 7, 2008 4:35 PM

The issue she could have had better success with was the dozens of other votes that he skipped, which were not part of the Planned Parenthood campaign. That, combined with missed US Senate votes, and a lack of any kind of call to action against the Bush agenda (he said "words do matter" in the debate), paints Obama as a poor leader.

Posted by GreenVTster | January 7, 2008 4:41 PM

Just weighing in to second jayackroyd. The phony choice issue seems like dogwhistle gender-baiting.

Posted by Sean Wright | January 7, 2008 4:42 PM

WTF is wrong with this Ken guy? This is a new kind of stupidity.

Posted by Barbar | January 7, 2008 6:48 PM

"I see that the best defense Obama has is that he found a way to make sure his voice was never heard when it came to a very important issue for progressive voters. He did this by hiding behind Planned Parenthood. Too bad he couldn't have let some other legislature have the honor of this defense and actually voted as he should have. But he was looking for higher office at the time so that wouldn't have worked.

Posted by ken | January 7, 2008 4:11 PM"

If he had done so, he would have exposed the Democrats and pro-choice legislaters flank in conservative district. It would have been basically, "screw you, I'm running for president and need the primary votes."

Posted by Reality Man | January 8, 2008 12:04 AM

What is this "ken", an idiot or a smear artist?

Posted by Bengt Larsson | January 8, 2008 12:58 AM

I think jayackroyd got it right. It's all about trying to make a wedge issue to keep women leaders from flooding to Obama. I've followed the campaign pretty closely, and if I remember the sequence of events correctly, the whole issue of the "present" votes on abortion appeared a few days after a NY TImes article describing how Obama was courting women's votes -- holding conference calls with women's activists, etc. The cause and effect was quite clear at the time.

Posted by Rachel Q | January 8, 2008 1:18 AM

ken showed up after Iowa - at least I don't remember him in the threads before Iowa - to single-mindedly (read: trollishly) promote a pro-Hillary anti-Obama agenda. I assume ken's just a sincere Clinton supporter distraught and venting here, independent of any organization.

I just wonder, can we get Petey on ken's case because ken, in his shilling for Hillary, commites the sin of overlooking Edwards?

Posted by Warren Terra | January 8, 2008 7:28 AM

It's ironic that Clinton would attack how anyone voted on anything.

Posted by Reality Man | January 8, 2008 7:48 AM