M. Charles Bakst: Abortion roils Senate contest
01:00 AM EST on Sunday, March 6, 2005
Through the bitterly cold darkness, the voices rang out:
“Right to Life, your name’s a lie,
“You don’t care if women die.”
Dozens of men and women who support abortion rights marched outside as fans of Rep. Jim Langevin, a Democrat who appears poised to run for Republican Linc Chafee’s Senate seat in 2006, gathered Monday for a fundraiser at the Rhode Island Convention Center.
The protesters carried signs that said, “Keep abortion legal.”
And, “I think, therefore I am pro-choice.”
Langevin is “pro-life.”
The pickets want to keep him out of the Senate. After all, there are “pro-choice” alternatives: Secretary of State Matt Brown in a Democratic primary or Chafee in November.
Melody Drnach, president of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Organization for Women, told me, “Rhode Island has a long tradition of sending pro-choice senators to represent us in Washington, D.C., and that’s a tradition that we don’t want to see stopped.”
That same day, a New York Times story said a group of wealthy Hollywood donors was raising money to fight a Senate candidacy by Langevin, “the Democratic leadership’s first choice,” because he opposes abortion rights. A letter of theirs, which sought donations to Brown, said, “This is even more important than one precious Senate seat; it is a fight to protect women and families, and a fight for the core and soul of our party.”
When I asked Brown if he agreed with that assertion, he said that it’s important for the party “not to give up on things we believe in” and that Democrats must fight “harder, smarter, more effectively.”
At my request, Brown supplied me a copy of the full text of the letter.
It said Rhode Islanders support women’s reproductive rights, but Langevin and Chafee “do not represent them.”
Actually, Chafee does favor such rights. Indeed, his voting records in the last three years got scores of 100, 90, and 100 from NARAL Pro-Choice America. But the Hollywood letter says that, among other things, he supported Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist “and other anti-choice ideologues to lead the Senate.”
More interestingly, in terms of the Democratic jockeying, the letter says the “radically anti-choice” Langevin opposes abortion “even in cases of the mother’s possible death.”
Actually, Langevin repeatedly has said he would make exceptions to save the mother’s life or in cases of rape or incest.
Brown told me he knew that the Hollywood letter would be going out but he had not seen the text in advance.
Inside the gleaming Convention Center, Langevin had a nice affair that featured beef Wellington, honey Dijon chicken, and two pasta bars.
Though careful to leave himself an out, indications grow that he aims for Senate. That was his mother, June, telling me he’d make a great senator. “As far as I know, he’s running,” she said, but added that he was smart to give himself 30 more days to check out support.
If you listened to Langevin’s speech, you’d have to be a dolt to avoid concluding he hopes to join his close colleague, Democrat Jack Reed, in the Senate: “We can do better for Rhode Island and better for America . . . Rhode Island deserves a senator with the experience, the integrity, and the knowledge to best serve Rhode Island’s working families.” In the congressman’s view, Reed already does that, but, Langevin kept saying, Rhode Islanders deserve two senators who do it.
(Just wondering: What pol is going to say he’s not for working families or he lacks smarts?)
The Senate candidates will debate furiously. Is the liberal Chafee, 51, to be praised because he has the guts to break from the GOP party line? Or condemned because he helps the Republicans control the Senate? Is Langevin, 40, to be lionized because he has experience, or Brown, 35, to be welcomed as a fresh face?
I had some animated conversations at the fundraiser, including a chat with the AFL-CIO’s George Nee, a Democrat.
He said, “My presence here is based on Jimmy [Langevin]’s record as an endorsed AFL-CIO candidate and his record in Congress, with a superb voting record.”
As for Brown, “I think he is way over his head. I don’t think he has any record of accomplishment.”
And Chafee? “I think Senator Chafee has done a very good job in Congress. He’s been very supportive of a lot of labor issues. He’s shown a lot of courage.” Nee loved Chafee’s vote against the Bush tax cuts.
Still, Nee said it’s worth thinking about the fact that Chafee helps the Republicans maintain control of the Senate. “This country is being run in Congress by a bunch of right-wing anti-labor nuts,” Nee said.
So, parroting Nee’s words, I asked, “If the choice is between Matt Brown, who’s in over his head, and a senator who contributes to a lot of right-wing anti-labor nuts running the Senate, who would you support?”
Nee replied, “I don’t know.”
Of course Brown, whose main job prior to becoming secretary of state in 2003 was running the City Year program, doesn’t concede that he’s in over his head. “My experience is working 10 years directly in communities, working with people, taking on the tough problems that they are facing and solving them,” Brown says.
The backdrop of the abortion pickets and the Hollywood letter put a distinctive stamp on the Langevin event. He rejected the idea that the divisiveness of this issue could dissuade him from running for Senate. “Never!” he told me.
Indeed, it was striking, in interviews at the event, to listen to pro-choice Rhode Islanders warn against litmus tests.
Edna Mattson, Democratic state first vice chairwoman, said, “Langevin is a tough hombre that’s paid his dues and gone the route and he’s more than a single-issue candidate.”
Barbara Tannenbaum, who teaches at Brown University, said, “I support a lot of people whose views I don’t entirely agree with.” She called Langevin “honest and caring,” with “great values,” praise she also lavished on Chafee, who once was in her public-speaking class. (She said she doesn’t know Matt Brown.)
Langevin, a quadriplegic, has been criticized by some abortion foes because he backs stem-cell research. But U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, a Democrat who favors abortion rights, enthusiastically cited Langevin’s stem-cell support and said the congressman’s opposition to abortion makes him very valuable in this regard.
Kennedy declared, “If a pro-choice candidate were to come out and say, ‘I want stem-cell research,’ it won’t have half the weight of a pro-life candidate coming out and saying, ‘I want stem-cell research.’ ”
Former Providence Mayor Joe Paolino, who is helping Langevin raise money, voiced impatience with those who argue that the Democratic Party must mass behind abortion rights. He said of the anti-abortion Langevin:
“It would help the national Democratic Party to have somebody with that background to be in the United States Senate. I think what the national party needs to do is start moderating a lot of their positions and show that, although they may have one belief, they don’t close the door on people who have other beliefs. And I think that’s a problem they’ve had in the past, and that’s why we can’t win red states.”
Brown told me later, “This is one of the bluest states in the country, and I’m running for Senate in Rhode Island, where most people are pro-choice. I also think that the way to win elections is to fight for the things that you believe in.”
Langevin, while embracing the pro-life label, portrays himself as reasonable and pragmatic. After pro-choice Hillary Rodham Clinton called on the two sides to work together to reduce unwanted pregnancies, Langevin wrote to her in agreement.
As he put it:
“When basic sex education, information, and birth control are not available to women, we have failed. When society cannot offer the necessary supports for a woman to keep her baby, such as access to educational opportunities, employment, and child care, we have failed.”
Langevin tells me people don’t come up to him and ask, “What are you doing about the abortion issue?”
Instead, he reports they say:
“What are you doing to help solve the health-care crisis? I can’t pay my health care.”
“Am I going to have Social Security? What is the president trying to do to Social Security? Why is trying to privatize it?”
“How am I going to pay for my prescription drugs?”
“Why isn’t there enough support for education?”
It is not clear how hard Brown will press the abortion issue if Langevin joins the Senate race. “It’s something we disagree on,” Brown says, but, “In the end, like any campaign, it’s going to be about the problems people are having day to day and who can best solve them.”
Fine. So is abortion an issue or isn’t it? “The voters will decide,” Brown says.
Well, will he make an issue of it? “I just told you: It’s something we disagree on.”
Senator Reed, who favors abortion rights, told me the overriding issue facing Rhode Islanders in the 2006 election will be settling on a candidate who advances such issues as health, education, and so on.
Reed said he respects Chafee for often voting with the Democrats, but insisted, “Until we have a Democratic Senate and Democratic House, we are going to have policies that are not helpful to the state of Rhode island.”
And that was Langevin’s line of chatter in his fundraiser speech and in interviews. He told me, “Linc [Chafee] is a nice guy, but I don’t believe he’s done enough to promote the interests of working families.”
In the months ahead, I’ll be curious to see how Chafee, who has been fuzzy about the value to Rhode Island of Republican control and who could face a primary himself, stakes out his territory. How will he demonstrate his concern about the everyday problems of average Rhode Islanders, and how will he document his effectiveness in dealing with them?
And, yes, I’ll be watching to see which candidates decide to bring up abortion and which ones shy from it. Sure, it’s a matter of principle, but it’s also politics, and you can win votes or lose votes on this.
M. Charles Bakst, The Journal’s political columnist, can be reached by e-mail at mbakst [at] projo.com
