Politico:
But [Democratic activists] do express concern that, in his efforts to build a larger majority, Reid might pull back from fights over gay marriage, abortion rights, gun control and spending on social programs.
Memo to Jim VandeHei and John Harris: this is 2007, not 1992.
The gay marriage fight is currently being waged at the state level. The only federal role in that debate is to prevent an anti-gay marriage amendment to the Constitution and all Democrats have to do to prevent that is bottle up the legislation in committee. Indeed, Rep. Musgrave didn't even bother to go through her annual ritual of introducing that Hate Amendment. There is no "gay marriage" fight going on at the federal level, so it's nothing Reid has to worry about.
Gun control is dead at the federal level. There's nothing happening on that front, and nothing will. What abortion fight is currently in the Senate?
And "spending on social programs" means what, exactly? Yes, there's a desire to fund the programs Democrats care about as opposed to the programs Republicans care about. Don't forget that Bush presided over the largest expansion of our government since FDR LBJ (and you throw out defense and homeland security spending, and Bush is second only to Nixon, with LBJ coming in third). So yeah, this one is a "concern", but one so vague and universal as to be pretty meaningless in the context of that article.
If VandeHei and Harris wanted to update that paragraph to reflect the proper decade we happen to live in, it would've read like this:
But [Democratic activists] do express concern that, in his efforts to build a larger majority, Reid might pull back from fights over habeas corpus, electoral reform, global warming, domestic spying, rescinding Bush's tax cuts, and the undue politicization of the Justice Department, EPA, and other government agencies.
But I guess we're stuck with the political press we have, not the one we wish we had.
Comments are closed on this story.