The Nov. 14 edition of the "New Yorker" provides more evidence of the growing Democratic strategy of running closer to Republicans on social issues such as abortion. It's not online, but the article "The Right to Choose: The Democrats Compromise on a Core Issue," covers the Pennsylvania senate race, in which Republican Rick Santorum faces pro-life Democrat Robert Casey, Jr.
I've noted before how Democrat Tim Kaine, newly elected as Virginia's next governor, opposes changing that state's law in order to allow gays to adopt, and now favors adding an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state's constitution. His mentor, outgoing Democratic Gov. Mark Warner, signed a bill outlawing civil unions. Democrats are heralding Kaine's victory as a sign of the party's renewal.
In the Pennsylvania race running against vile homophobe Santorum, Democrat Casey explicitly favors abortion restrictions. On gay marriage, National Review Online reports "he's also against gay marriage but doesn't want a constitutional debate over it," which is certainly preferable to Santorum's anti-gay demogoging. Unfortunately, Casey has himself been demagoging against Social Security reform (which he characterizes as a "scheme" to undermine, rather than save, the program) and against Bush's lowered tax rates (which probably headed off a depression, following the bursting of the worst stock market bubble since the Great Depression). In all of this, Casey, while a social conservative, is lamentably acting in traditional Democratic fashion.
I'm not sure what to make of this new Democratic trend of trying
to woo Red state voters on the "moral" issues. A Casey victory (and
yes, against Santorum, he's clearly the better of two evils) would
further the push for Democrats to hew closer to social
conservatism. It will be interesting to see how far they feel they
can go with this.
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