I’ve heard a lot of liberals object to supporting Kucinich because he switched on abortion – he used to be pro-life, now he’s pro-choice. We must not reward such behavior by voting for it, we are told.
Pardon me, but isn’t switching to pro-choice exactly the sort of behavior we want to encourage? “Don’t bother switching, because we’ll never support you” isn’t a good message to send pro-life Democrats, in my view..
His old position also reflected his Catholicism, IIRC. Kerry is another pro-choice Catholic running, and both are anti-death penalty (with Sharpton, and that’s it). That’s a Catholic tenet I agree with.
I don’t understand people who won’t let others in their political party stray from traditional party thought lines… I respect people who make their own decisions based on the information/experiences they have regarding the issue, not blindly follow party lines.
Who’s been saying this? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say this, about not rewarding switching.
I have heard people say (in other cases) that they didn’t trust someone who’d switched on some position, that they figured he’d just switched for political expedience and might switch back later. But that’s not the same thing.
We’re no longer talking here about choosing the mayor of Cleveland or even a member of Congress. We’re talking about choosing the person who will have the absolute maximum power of anyone in America to influence, positively or negatively, a woman’s right to choose. I believe that gives me the right to consider the totality of Kucinich’s career, noting his switches and the timing of same. My evaluating Kucinich’s record and deciding not to support him would not constitute “punishment” for his past, any more than my endorsement of him now despite his past voting record would constitute a “reward” for his switch. In the context of choosing a president, the issue is too serious to play such games with it.
FWIW, I am uncommitted at this point in the Democratic primary process, though I am committed to the eventual nominee. I am approaching every other viable candidate, not just Kucinich, with the same critical eye.
BTW, your comments mechanism apparently still fails to remember the email address entered after a submission failure, even if “Remember info?” is checked in the original attempt to post a comment.
Count me among those unconvinced that Kucinich’s switch is more than expedient. But then again, abortion isn’t a make-or-break issue for me, and in normal times I wouldn’t write off a Democrat who opposes abortion if he’s solid on otehr more important issues, ones where the President’s influence matters more (such as the economy and national security). But these aren’t normal times, and it’d be just like Nixon going to China if Kucinich changes opinion again just in time for the next Supreme Court reconsideration of Roe v. Wade. I’d rather not risk it.
First of all, Chris and Steve – did you have the same worries about Gore’s commitment to abortion? (Gore also had a pro-life voting record, and switched around the time he first ran for president). Maybe you did.
Expedience doesn’t bother me much, in Gore’s case or in Kucinich’s. No Democratic president can ever afford to be anything but pro-choice; to be pro-life is political suicide for any Democrat who wants to operate on a national level. It’s politically unrealistic to imagine that Kucinich (or Gore) would re-reverse themselves and go pro-life.
Just as George Bush Sr. was staunchly pro-life while he was president – even though he was pro-choice in congress, and only switched out of political expedience. Political expedience is at least as powerful a force as conviction when it comes to Presidents.
Yes, I guess if you’re worried about candidates just being expedient, it’s worth considering. But you know, I used to belong to a pro-life advocacy group fer crying out loud, but now consider myself firmly pro-choice, and have been for years. I would hate to think I am forever considered a pariah because I *once *held views someone disagrees with…my reasons for believing what I did made sense to me then, and were honest if too simplistic.
If anything, people who once opposed your cause but switched can be some of the best-informed and most articulate supporters…they know all the opposing arguments inside out, after all.
I’ve always thought, “I don’t approve of this, but I don’t think my disapproval should be turned into law” was an admirable position. I’m delighted that that’s the position Kucinich has taken. And for those who doubt him, he’s taken that position vehemently; it’d be a lot harder for him to go back on his word than it was for Clinton to wimp out on health care or gays in the military.
Maybe part of the reason I like that position is that’s where I’ve always been: I want a world where no one would ever choose to have an abortion, but the only way to get there is to keep abortion legal and safe.
Will
I do feel that, when someone switches, it would be good to see a coherent explanation of why they changed their mind. I’m all for people learning and growing and stuff like that, but when the timing is a bit too perfect, I do want them to say something to make it ring true for me.
I’m not sure how anti-choice Gore was. I don’t honestly remember his votes, but I always thought of him as being anti-choice because in those days it was safe to lump the anti-free abortion (welfare abortions) group together with the just plain anti-choice bunch. I’m pretty sure Gore voted against state money paying for abortions, but I don’t recall him ever having a vote on abortion itself. I mean, that was a court decision, not a legislative one. The funding issue was up for federal vote, as I recall, and that’s the only area where I remember seeing Gore on the record either way.
Kucinich has provided an explanation of his switch in several places. The best one I’ve seen so far was in an NPR interview. He says that he feels the pro-life Republicans are getting so extreme that they want to criminalize abortion and that they are trying to pass types of bills that have already been declared unconstitutional.
He also says that he spent a lot of time talking with women in order to understand the pro-choice position better and how the abortion issue affects women’s equality in society.
He had apparently been voting “present” (i.e., abstaining) on pro-life bills for some time before he came out and stated that he had come to support a woman’s right to choose. I should also note that he did that more than a year before he decided to run for President.
Since I have seen no evidence that Kucinich is someone who always changes his views to suit whatever is most popular or that he flips back and forth on the issues, I choose to take him at his word. Others may differ from me on this, of course.
I am very carefully checking out Kucinich’s voting record on choice issues. I recall reading somewhere that he voted to support the U.S. veto of U.N. family planning funds for women in third world countries as recently as summer of 2002. I now can’t recall where I read it. I’ve checked the Vote Smart site and cannot find any info on that. Does anyone know about that vote? Also, I understand that the vote is coming up again soon. Any info on that one?
Thanks.
What I think the point is that Kucinich in his heart is still probably pro-life (as evidence by the fact he voted for banning theraputic cloning of stem cells even after his abortion flip flop). He might have no compunction about appointing a supreme court justice who was liberal but also pro-life.
If Kunnich had a change of heart–and if he sticks with it–then great. For me, it’s not about rewarding or punishing someone for their opinions as much as it is about voting for someone who will represent my interests.
As someone who has been faced with an unplanned, and unwanted, pregnancy, reproductive rights are a very big deal to me. And it sticks in my craw when so-called progressives tell me that I should (yet again) compromise on this issue, that there are “more important” issues, and that this isn’t a big deal. I know your entry/this thread isn’t about that, but I’ve run into it enough, and I heard quite a lot of it after Katha Pollitt’s column about Kunnich ran.
If you want to read details about his prior voting record, go to:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020527&s=pollitt
I also just wanted to say that I’m fairly confident Kunnich will stay pro-choice–so I don’t have any current reservations about him. He’s too savvy to reneg on the issue. I will have to give him his props–he did reconsider his position after the Pollitt article.
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I’m disgusted by Kucinich’s switch on abortion. I’m vegan myself, and would be inclined to support him (if I thought he stood a snowball’s chance in hell given today’s uber-conservative climate) because I agree with much of the rest of his platform, but I believe in a consistent life ethic–like Kucinich used to claim to. He only pulled an about-face because it he knew abortion “rights” are an article of faith among the most vocal liberals and it would be politically expedient to be pro-abortion–excuse me, “choice.” Hypocrite. He’s lost my vote on that account.
[snicker] Harry Reid In 2008. [snort]