Mitch McConnell is now the Republican Senate leader. On choice issues, this is how he stacks up:
2006 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the Planned Parenthood 0 percent in 2006.
2005-2006 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the National Right to Life Committee 100 percent in 2005-2006.
2005 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 0 percent in 2005.
2004 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 0 percent in 2004.
2003-2004 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the National Right to Life Committee 100 percent in 2003-2004.
2003 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 0 percent in 2003.
2001-2002 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the National Right to Life Committee 100 percent in 2001-2002.
2001 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the Planned Parenthood 0 percent in 2001.
2001 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 0 percent in 2001.
And so on. I think the point is quite stark. The dude hates choice and is one of the Senate's fiercest critics of it. And McConnell's ascension to Republican leader status wasn't a surprise. He was the number two guy beneath the retiring Bill Frist in this outgoing Senate. His promotion to the top spot in his caucus was preordained.
So it's quite shocking that NARAL would endorse a Mitch McConnell-led Senate this past cycle.
How's that, you ask?
Had NARAL gotten it's way, and had their endorsed candidate in Rhode Island (Lincoln Chafee) won his race, Republicans would've held the Senate and Chafee would've voted for Mitch McConnellfor majority leader.
Chafee's seat was the difference between a Choice-friendly Democratic majority, and a Senate led by one of the most anti-choice demagogues in D.C. That's the calculation NARAL made, and thankfully, their gambit failed. The people of Rhode Island bailed NARAL out of their own stupidity.
It's no thanks to them that we are where we are today.
And it's not just NARAL. Let's look at McConnell on the environment:
2005 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the American Wilderness Coalition 0 percent in 2005.
2005 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund 0 percent in 2005.
2005 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the League of Conservation Voters 0 percent in 2005.
2005 Senator McConnell supported the interests of the Republicans for Environmental Protection 0 percent in 2005. Points for significant non-voting actions were added to or subtracted from percentages calculated from voting records. Thus, the rating may be less than 0 or greater than 100.
And so on... You get the point.
Yet if it was up to the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters, both which endorsed Chafee, we'd have a viciously anti-environment senator heading up the Senate. If they'd had their way and Chafee won, the environmental agenda would remain under siege by a hostile Republican Senate.
There's no better way to illustrate the self-centered myopia of today's progressive interest groups. That's not to gloss over their many contributions to the cause, but we lose if our interest groups remain in their silos, focused on their own narrow agenda to the exclusion of the broader progressive movement.
Those groups have serious power if they choose to work with us. In CA-11, with the DCCC AWOL until the very end, it was environmental groups working alongside the people-powered movement that gave us one of the cycle's most spectacular upsets -- the Jerry McNerney victory over powerful committee chair Richard Pombo.
Together we can move mountains. Divided, we can help Republicans get back into the game. And no matter how great a guy Chafee might be, and how friendly to progressive causes he could be at times, fact is he enabled a reactionary and destructive Republican leadership.
We were one seat away from a Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. And if the Sierra Club, LCV, and NARAL had their way, that's where we'd be at today.
Update: NARAL played dumb 'till the bitter end. On November 5, 2006:
I asked Donna Crane of NARAL Pro-Choice America, a Chafee backer, which she’d prefer: a reelected Chafee in what probably would be a GOP Senate, or Whitehouse, who also favors abortion rights, in a Democratic Senate. She said, “We don’t look at party affiliation at all.”
Thank god the rest of us knew better.
Update II: from the comments:
Not only would a Chafee victory have made McConnell majority leader, but it would have also kept James Inhofe as Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The Sierra Club's Chafee endorsement would have ironically kept Barbara Boxer, one of more environmentally-minded senators, from being chair of the senate's most important committee.
I can't believe I forgot about that neanderthal Inhofe heading the Committee on Environment and Public Works. That's this guy:
In an interview with Fox and Friends this morning, outgoing Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works James Inhofe (R-OK) argued that the current wave of unprecedented warming is due to “natural changes.” “God’s still up there,” Inhofe said, and to the extent there is warming going on, it is “due to the sun.” He added, “George Soros, the Hollywood elitists, the far left environmentalists on the committee that I chair — all of them want us to believe the science is settled and it’s not.”
If it was up to LCV and the Sierra Club, this is who would still be in charge of that committee.