Each morning, as we read our ColoradoPolitics newsletter, we chuckle a little because of an ad right at the top of the page that issues a warning from ProgressNow to a group of pro-life Democrats – “you’re not welcome in our party.”
When one clicks on the ad, viewers are taken to a ProgressNow landing page that says this:
“Democrats for Life of America (DFLA), an anti-choice organization claiming to be the ‘pro-life voice and wing’ of the Democratic Party, is hosting its inaugural conference in Denver, Colorado on July 20-22, 2018.
“We’re not buying it.
“The Progressive platform is CLEAR: Upholding the legal right for anyone to access a safe abortion is essential, not negotiable. Ensuring that folks have control over their own reproductive lives is fundamental to achieving the kind of gender, race and economic equity that progressives have been fighting for, for decades. Progressive values are not up for debate.“
Wow. So, conform to ProgressNow’s version of “values” or you can’t be a Democrat. These kind of hardline sentiment puts ProgressNow even to the left of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, as reported by The Atlantic last year:
“Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer recently said the party is ‘strongly pro-choice,’ but remains a ‘big-tent party,’ while House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said ‘of course’ it’s possible to be ‘pro-life’ and a Democrat, and have the support of the Democratic Party.”
In fact, according to a July 2017 Pew Research poll, 22% of Democrats believe that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. That’s not an insignificant number. Are Democrats in Colorado willing to cede nearly a quarter of their members?
This ad campaign seems unnecessarily heavy-handed, but, hey, if Democrats want to alienate a quarter of their voters, we’re not going to get in the way.