Reply #35: Democrats woo abortion opponents for Senate [View All]

[MelissaB]

Democrats woo abortion opponents for Senate

Party denies 'positioning' as it selects Casey for Pennsylvania

By Tom Curry
National affairs writer
MSNBC
Updated: 9:25 a.m. ET March 11, 2005

WASHINGTON - The indefatigable senior senator from New York, Charles Schumer, has spent a career crusading for abortion rights.

Now as the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Schumer’s job is to chip away at the Republican majority of 55. Schumer has scored a big success by persuading Pennsylvania state Treasurer Bob Casey, a foe of abortion rights, to be the Democratic candidate against two-term Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, a leader of the anti-abortion movement.

>>>snip

One possible pro-Roe entrant into the race: Chris Heinz, son of Republican Sen. John Heinz, who was killed in plane-helicopter collision in 1991. Chris Heinz campaigned widely last year for his stepfather, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

>>>snip

Pro-choicers disturbed
Supporters of Roe are disturbed by Schumer’s recruitment of Casey and Langevin.

“It is a problem when leading Democrats publicly recruit candidates who do not share the core values of the party," Democratic consultant Kate Michelman, the former head of the abortion rights group NARAL, said Thursday. "I don’t think you ever win in the long term by sacrificing core principles. The right wing has never done that.”

Michelman asked, “Can you imagine recruiting people to run for the Senate with a record of opposition to affirmative action or to Brown v. Board of Education (the 1954 school desegregation decision)?”

More: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7150734/