Tom Miller endorses Blouin

Tom Miller endorses Blouin

And the steamroller rolls on. Those with long memories know that Tom Miller was the anti-choice candidate in 1990, and though he had a "conversion" in `94 when he got his old job back, it seems he hasn't converted too darn much.

The thing I hear from Blouin supporters is "he's smart" followed by a beat in which one is supposed to hear an unspoken "and Culver is dumb." If Blouin were really smart, he'd start using the word "veto" in public.

And even if he does, that won't get me for the primary. I don't want a candidate who says "I'm pro life but." I want a candidate who says "I'm pro choice." I don't even like the "safe legal and rare" language Hillary Clinton's been using. When are we going to hear "safe, legal, and accessible"?

And the arguments that "we gotta go this way to win" doesn't work for me. Unlike most lefties, I've actually run for office in a conservative district. Granted, my success was incomplete. But I knocked on several thousand doors and almost no one mentioned abortion. Of the hot button, argue with the relatives issues, know what I heard about? Guns. And in the ensuing decade, we've pretty much conceded that one.

I have a visceral distaste for guns. I cope with that by not owning one, and not by telling other people they can't. And perhaps fiftysomething men like Mike Blouin can best deal with abortion by not getting one and keeping their nose out of young women's business. That's my problem with anti-choicers: ultimately, they're coercive, not persuasive. Americans have a deep libertarian streak: we may hate abortion, or guns, or gambling, take your pick. But whet we REALLY hate is someone, especially someone from the gub-mint, telling us what to do.

The Democratic Party has no credibility with the theocratic right on abortion. Anyone whose voting right to life (sic) as a single issue is already cemented to the GOP. So there's no strategic advantage in nominating Blouin to go after votes we won't get anyway. All it's going to do is alienate lefties like me. Of course, the Democrats have been doing that for ages.

Political Forecast has good analysis and scooped me while I was unstuffing caucus packets.