Now that the Senate has rejected the crazy Blunt/Brown Amendment, Elizabeth Warren is well-positioned to declare victory on that issue and move on. She would be well-advised to do so, as Joan Vennochi convincingly argues.
Democrats are thrilled that birth control is a major issue not only in the presidential election, but in Senate contests across the country.
But be careful what you wish for, especially if you are a woman running for the US Senate in Massachusetts….
Warren’s problem isn’t so much about policy. While Massachusetts has a large Catholic population, the general population is socially liberal. It’s more about the danger of morphing into the “woman’s candidate” in a state that has big problems electing women to higher office, whether they are Republicans or Democrats.
Warren entered the race with a purely economic message. She was the consumer protection angel who would fight Wall Street and protect middle-class interests and values. Not to sound like an alarmist – although it’s hard to resist, given the weight of political history in this state – but there’s risk in allowing the public to start viewing her primarily as the Bay State’s protector of reproductive rights in Washington.
It didn’t help Martha Coakley, the last woman to run against Brown….
Warren should reclaim the economic turf. That’s what the election is really about.
I think this is generally good advice. The Blunt Amendment is dead. It will remain a problem for Brown (his foolish embrace of it was, as I’ve already said, a “political own-goal”), but Warren needn’t and shouldn’t overplay it. It’s fair game to remind voters where Brown stood, but it’s much more important to keep the race focused on which candidate is the more effective advocate for the middle class, and who is the candidate of Wall Street.
mski011 says
Elizabeth Warren’s campaign never wanted this to be an exclusively birth control issue with the Blunt Amendment. I think this statement further.
STATEMENT FROM THE ELIZABETH WARREN CAMPAIGN REGARDING TODAY’S VOTE ON THE BLUNT AMENDMENT
BOSTON, MA – Today, the Senate narrowly defeated (51-48) an extreme proposal co-sponsored by Scott Brown to allow employers and insurance companies to refuse to cover any health care service, for any reason, based on a vague “moral objection.”
“Elizabeth believes the Senate did the right thing in stopping Scott Brown and his extreme amendment that threatened health care coverage for women and families. Senator Brown took sides with Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and the right wing of his party, against the people of Massachusetts, who in tough economic times rely on insurance to get the health care they need.”roves that & suggests a pivot back to the broader issues.
johnk says
the economy is Warren’s wheelhouse if you will, social issues were the unknown. Brown stepped in it with Blunt and Warren was there to contrast her knowledge and handling of the issue in comparison to Brown who I think lost this in many fronts. Debating the economy will likely be welcomed by Warren.
Well, until Brown steps in it again (which he will).
Christopher says
…but I don’t think so-called “women’s issues” are a loser in MA, nor am I convinced that we have a problem electing women per se. After all, the last few women who’ve lost statewide races (Coakley, Healy, O’Brien), have also won statewide races, and their losses could easily be explained in ways that don’t involve gender.
oceandreams says
No, Martha Coakley didn’t lose because she’s a woman. But at what point do we admit it’s a problem that women are a majority of the population but this state has never elected a woman as governor or senator, and there’s only one woman in the Congressional delegation? How is it that women are a majority of the population but I have never in my life been represented by a woman in Washington?
sue-kennedy says
Though I’m sure Christopher could explain it all away.
dont-get-cute says
Look there are two ads on here right now:
and they link to her webpage that says:
I suppose that copy will be updated, since Blunt has been defeated in the Senate now, but it’s clear that she’s in lockstep with every single women’s issue there is. Even her “consumer protection” strength is basically focused on women, now that they don’t have a man around the house to nag, the answer (again) is “more government, rules, and protections.” I think she’s exposed her true colors and poisoned the image she had as a straight housewife who happened to know some economics and could stop the madness of growing entitlements and wasteful spending. Now we know she is not going to stop the madness, she’s going to make it impossible to stop.
lynne says
but maybe it’s like eyeballing a car crash as you drive by.
“but it’s clear that she’s in lockstep with every single women’s issue there is”
First, no, that’s not clear, just from being anti-Blunt amendment. But thanks for playing. This says nothing on what she’d say about equal pay, sexual harassment legislation, equity in college sports, etc. You’d have to be a totally ignorant person to state that this one stance on access to birth control dictates how she’d vote on ANY other woman’s issue.
And if she is “in lockstep with every single women’s issue there is,” then she’ll be lined up with pretty much EVERY Dem and pretty much EVERY independent and even some Republicans, thank goodness, and I look forward to watching Brown peg himself as the anti-woman candidate. And it’ll be icing on my cake, watching you types twist your way into defending him on it, too. Entirely more entertainment than we really deserve, really!
petr says
… so there it is:
michaelbate says
was disappointing to me because she framed the Blunt amendment entirely in terms of women’s health care issues. In fact, that amendment went much further, and attacked health care coverage for all of us, women and men alike, as has been shown repeatedly on this forum.
dont-get-cute says
The idea is to use birth control coverage to deflect criticism that ObamaCare means that people have no choice but to contribute to every far-out thing they decide to mandate now and in the future. By singling out contraception, they can then portray opposition to forced mandates as being a war on women (who ironically men have been raised to defend and protect), rather than opposition to government-run open-ended mandated health insurance.
lynne says
such a waste of pixels.
thinkliberally says
The list of reasons why Coakley lost now include her gender? Does anyone think Hillary Clinton would have lost to Scott Brown?
Vennocci gives yet another excuse to the Warren campaign to avoid talking about issues besides the economy. Economic issues do matter, but can we really be saying that we want Warren to be attacking economic issues from the left at the same time that the President is defending himself on economic issues from the right? And this in the state that is touting positive economic news?
Is it possible that these recent poll numbers are less about her being a woman and more suggest that she’s hit the wall on economic issues and needs to connect on more topics?
mski011 says
The Warren campaign did not want to make it a birth control argument. I am almost certain of this. However, I think ultimately it became impossible to get public attention about the broader issue. How do I know? Many senators talked about this as birth control but most noted the other implications. True, the media did note the Blunt Amendment’s broadness, but took great pains to avoid the very real consequences beyond birth control. It was not because the anti-Blunt Amendment people were not talking about it.
fortleft says
Yes, it was about birth control but it would have allowed any employer with a moral or religious objection to and medical procedure or medication to decide not to provide it. This could include vasectomies, cancer treatments, or blood transfusions. But that said, I don’t think Warren needs to or should continue to campaign on the issue contraception.
http://www.mhasegawa.com
Christopher says
Not so fast. What I’m hearing tonight is that this was not a vote on the amendment itself, but on a motion to table, which means it can be taken “off the table” and resurrected anytime. Plus Speaker Boehner has said the House will take up a similar item. I almost wish there had just been a straight vote to really kill it. This is about ObamaCare, and for some of course, moralizing, but I think anyone who objects to employers paying for insurance that covers something to which they object should be asked when they will get on board to support single-payer, which of course will take employers off the hook entirely.
It’s going to continue to be a red meat issue for the GOP as well. I’m used to refighting Roe v. Wade, but I never thought I’d see a refighting of Griswold v. Connecticut. With the President’s compromise any argument that this is about religious liberty is completely discredited. Rush Limbaugh has made some absolutely outrageous comments about Sandra Fluke and so far nobody in the GOP has denounced him.
lynne says
The amendment is dead. Don’t kid yourself – it might have been a close vote to table, but there was no where near 60 votes to help it overcome a filibuster should it be brought up for real.
This vote was a strategic one on both sides so that there was a record of who was for what, so people can use it as a tool for reelection.
Plus REED would have to let it come up again, lest we forget, the Dems control the Senate, technically at least.
petr says
The amendment was tabled so as to move forward with the actual bill, which is a highway bill. Once the highway bill is either passed or killed, which will now happen without this amendment, a whole host of procedural motions will have to be made in order resurrect and then to attach this amendment to another bill. It’s dead. “tabling’ something is sometimes a way of killing it without having to suffer an actual defeat over it.
The GOP thinks that they have a winning issue here so they are going to bring it back as often as they can get away with.
David says
yeah, it’s dead, at least in its current form, for the reasons lynne and petr have already stated. Also, don’t get carried away – this is *not* the same thing as Griswold. Santorum wants to go there, but he’s crazy, and at least in MA, nobody is on board with that.
petr says
When I hear a pundit like Vennochi warn against ‘overplaying’ I automatically hear ‘don’t make me waggle my finger at you for something I don’t want to hear.’ Vennochi, by and large, is just a scold. Always has been. Doesn’t much know anything else. She’s no different, in this respect than Friedman, Brooks, Jacoby, Will and Douhat, and the tens of dozens of others… Only here, she doesn’t want to have to scold Warren, so she’s warning her first.
Frnakly, I don’t see how Warren can ‘overplay’ this… The entire GOP is, essentially, hammering a wedge between an individuals conscience and the faith to which they belong. That’s a highly discomfiting position to be in for people who take both seriously… and they are not going to get mad at the candidate who is giving them space to breathe.
The reason the GOP think they can get away with hammering this wedge? They think it mirrors the 2004 gay rights fight… where some 11 odd states put various anti same-sex marriage amendments on the ballots to draw out the religious vote; and much discussion, similar in tone and tenor to the present contraceptive debate, filled the Courts and the House and the Senate and the airwaves at the time: it was a wedge between public faith and heretofor illegitimate private actions that required many people to make a concrete choice. However, relatively few people have to make the personal choice between same sex marriage (or even same sex sex) and religious teachings… all the heteros in fact… and so the wedge was that much more easy to enforce: it was already socially proscribed behaviour and people who didn’t feel actual pain over the issue were likelier to vote against same-sex marriage. The heteros may have had to decide to be accepting, or not, of GLBT but were rarely closer than the abstract in the fight.
The demographics in this instance are completely switched up: every last hetero voter who is sexually active (and that’s a clear majority of people) has dealt with the issue of contraception, not in the abstract, but in concrete terms… and a majority of those people who are sexually active are either legally married, living together or actively seeking a long-term mate. The pitting of their legal and socially legitimated actions against their faith is actively painful to them… (in much the way that the anti-same-sex marriage wedge was actively painful to homosexuals, only they were a de-legitimized minority who couldn’t articulate this pain to the majority.)
That’s what the GOP does, it hurts people until it gets what it wants. Or until it’s own defeat is painfully obvious to itself.
That’s not even taking into account non-sexual, but entirely legitimate, reasons for contraception. I know of one woman who was prescribed ‘the pill’ not to prevent conception, but to help regulate her menstrual cycle.
So i don’t think that Warren can ‘overplay’ this… I think the GOP have already overplayed it.
Christopher says
…I can explain it away. Women have been far from the majority of candidates for public office and I for one choose the best person, regardless of party. The proportion doesn’t bother me so long as there are no laws prohibiting women from running, which of course there are not. It happens I HAVE been represented by women at all levels for much of my life. I’ve had women as my state representative and state senator for 10-15 years and I do live in Tsongas’ district. The Commonwealth has had three women LGs, one TRG, one AG, and one Senate President. The Senate comparison is especially unfair as we have had only one open race in the past quarter century, and there are of course many reasons Coakley lost that had nothing to do with gender. Nothing to see here.
oceandreams says
I supported Obama over Hillary Clinton because I thought he’d be the better president, and you have no idea how much it pained me to lose the only credible chance for a female president in my lifetime.
As for your statistics, the only one that impresses me is having a woman president of the Senate. That’s a powerful position indeed, although one that does not require winning statewide office. The fact that we’ve had 3 women LGs and zero elected governor may do more to speak to the problem of electing women in Mass. than to prove your point, could it not? And while it’s great that you have a female Congressional rep, most of this state does not and never has. Calculate the number of Congressional openings in the last quarter century, then calculate what the odds are of having all but one of them filled by a minority of the population, and that tells me there’s an issue. Whether that’s due to the electorate or something else, the data don’t say. But they do show that women have not had much success in this state winning elections for governor, Senate or Congress, whatever the reason.
I too have had female state legislators, which is great. But I’m curious: Is there a single county in Mass with a majority of female reps? Given that women are a majority here, shouldn’t there be several at least?
I generally don’t spend my days obsessing about gender in politics. But now that we’ve got a bunch of conservative male Republicans nationally trying to tell me what I do and don’t have the right to do with my own body, I feel the dearth of female voices speaking up for me in Washington rather more keenly, even as I appreciate the male representatives on the side of women’s health issues.
By the way, I don’t support Elizabeth Warren because she’s a woman. I worked for Obama against a woman and I volunteered for Deval Patrick against a woman. I am volunteering for Elizabeth Warren because I think she’ll be a great senator. But she damn well doesn’t have to apologize for being a woman speaking out on a “woman’s issue.”