Hating Bart Stupak isn’t really my thing, but I realize there are those who feel differently. Anyway, we won’t have him to kick around anymore.
Stupak out
by DougJ| 58 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Good News For Conservatives
Stupak out
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lamh31
Other than hating the dude, is this really a good or a bad thing. From what I’ve read, this sit is probably gonna go republic now, right?
Mike Kay
Hopefully Rachel will continue her investigation into his C-Street kickback. Really, IRS needs to shank his ass.
The Grand Panjandrum
I guess he doesn’t see any other legislation on the horizon that will put him in the spot light. What a blow to the cause of middle aged men interfering in the private lives of women. Roman Catholic Bishops and Tony Perkins must be devastated.
Redshirt
If he’s resigning because of death threats, then this is an ominous sign. The wingnut teabagging nutjobs will only get one message from this: MORE HATE.
eastriver
He’s quitting to spend more time with the fetuses that will one day be his family.
Mike Kay
Stooopak had to go.
All he did was run to every tee vee camera and undercut the Dems.
someguy
You’ve been drinking the tea if you think the teabagger candidate – who has the Republican nomination more or less in hand – is going to win in the general election. I assuming you’re getting your news from right wing media sites that are actually boosting the Republicans, right?
djork
All kinds of awesome.
MattF
Well, Stupak did the right thing in the end. And if, now, this focuses some Democratic Party attention on saving the seat, it could work out. But we shall see.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Michael Moore is from Stupak’s district. Democrats could ask Moore to run as a bi-partisan candidate that both parties could agree on. I’m sure the MI GOP would be behind the pick.
Napoleon
Well one thing from the HCR debate should make it perfectly clear that if you are from a purplish district it is a really bad idea to take high profile stands in controversial legislation, regardless of what that stand may be, since it makes you a lightning rod. Just look at Lincoln, Stupak and Nelson and compare them to, say, Tester.
Matt
For nearly singlehandedly derailing the signature piece of legislation his party has fought for decades to pass, he’s treated as a hero within that party. Gotta love these people.
kid bitzer
i really don’t have any personal feelings about him.
when he was pulling his tricks against hcr, i dropped a good chunk of change on connie saltonstall, mostly to tell stupak that he was not going to be able to hold the country hostage and get off scot free.
he caved, probably more for other reasons than because of the challenge, but in any case, he came around.
now i don’t really care what he does. i want the seat to go dem, and i’ll be happy if that means saltonstall.
kay
@lamh31:
I don’t know. It’s a conservative place. There is anti-incumbent fever though, and that isn’t limited to Democrats (although I know we’re supposed to ignore that there are, in fact, incumbent Republicans all over the country), so maybe it’s better to have a fresh face, on the “D” side, to go along with the fresh face on the tea bagger side.
Ash Can
Bye, Bart. Don’t let the screen door whack you in the ass on your way out.
Go Connie!
Alex S.
Weird… I dreamed of reading this thread, including the first 2 comments.
kid bitzer
also, doug–
i’m really sorry about your troubles keeping a job.
seems like just yesterday you had a position of high rank in the hutaree militia, then that fell through i guess. then you got hired by a well-respected branch of the federal goverment, but i guess that didn’t work out, either.
and now you’ve lost all your job titles. I’m really sorry, dude. maybe we could hold a bj raffle to buy you cat food? maybe we could ask tunch to share?
BB
I understand the arm-flapping rage at Stupak, but I don’t actually want him out of the House. I know such calculations don’t carry water with some folks, but it will be really hard to hold his district, and Stupak folded and voted yes in the end. His district is extremely pro-life. I think his biggest mistake was deciding to put himself out front on this.
You know who I’m really mad at? Dan Lipinski, who succeeded his father after daddy played with the filing deadlines. Lipinski is a from a solidly Democratic district in Cook County and he actually voted against HCR, ostensibly because of abortion.
I’m mad at Stephen Lynch, who utterly screwed us for no coherent reason. Who has been, IMO a much more vicious opponent of choice in a district where we shouldn’t have to tolerate it.
I’m mad at John Tanner, John Barrow, Mike Arcuri and Mike McMahon.
Stupak made a huge mistake by deciding to put himself front and center on this, but I don’t think his retirement is a positive development. The Michigan 1st, especially this year, is likely to send a serious nutbag warrior (in the mold of Pete Hoekstra) who will never be gettable on a vote like HCR. There are much more serious offenders whose absence I actually cheer for.
I do get a bit of happiness out of the fact that everyone in Congress who tried to play games with this bill got burned. Ben Nelson tried his usual gimmick of holding out for a nonsense deal his state doesn’t deserve, and holy man did he get screwed. Max Baucus rode the merry-go-round with the Republicans and watched his numbers collapse while Jon Tester stayed low and did fine. Blanche Lincoln went from a quiet, slightly leftist posture to pissing all over the base and now she’ll never recover. It’s not a good outcome in all circumstances for the Democratic party, but I love watching congressional bs blow up on them.
That said, Stupak was clueless on PR, but don’t be mistaken. We’re going to get a worse congressman from this district whose name most progressives will probably never know.
lamh31
@someguy:
a no, I’m going by the fact that the district voted for bush 2x and Obama only won with 50% of the vote.
PaulW
This is all good for the Modern Whigs.
litbrit
One of our commenters at Cogitamus–Prup–had the perfect analogy for Stupak: he’s the guy who everyone is cheering for after he rescued people from the burning building, despite the fact he was also the arsonist who started the fire.
I don’t hate anyone (who didn’t have it coming /scarface), but I certainly do harbor intense ill will toward people who tell me or any other woman what to do with our own bodies, especially when they’ve never been pregnant and given birth themselves.
Violet
@Matt:
Only very briefly. They gave him his moment in the sun. But he’s hardly a hero now. If he were a hero, they’d have his back and tell him they were going to funnel tons of money into his district and send lots of key people to campaign for him. That’s how you treat a hero. Guess that isn’t happening.
No idea how this will play out in the end. Hopefully Connie Saltonstall is a credible candidate.
Bill E Pilgrim
From attention hound to shy and retiring.
Go figure.
litbrit
Or, as my Mum (a pro-choice Republican) likes to say: “Was that a masculine pronoun there–his, him? Well then, that person’s opinion about abortion, pregnancy, and other matters concerning female reproductive health in which he has absolutely no experience is completely irrelevant, isn’t it?”
kay
@lamh31:
The conservative side will be really fired up. It’s just an ideal win for them because it’s a repudiation of health care and a repudiation of the mean liberals who “drove the moderate Stupak out”. Media will love that, too. In that sense it’s high stakes for both sides, but I think the advantage clearly goes to conservatives, just because of the make-up of the district.
Luckily, they’re lunatics, so maybe the conservative candidate will be too far Right, or just an idiot.
Liz
@litbrit:
I like your mom. She sounds like one smart lady.
I don’t know how I feel about this. I hate to see just about any Dem leave an opening for Republican gains. But I don’t really like this guy.
Nick
@litbrit: and yet she’s still going to vote Republican, isn’t she?
kay
@lamh31:
“The surprising announcement that Congressman Bart Stupak is abandoning his campaign for re-election shows the power of the tea party movement,” the Tea Party Express said in a statement. “Stupak was not longer able to hide his betrayal of conservative principles because the tea party movement was determined to educate the voters in his district of his vote of betrayal for Obamacare.”
Well, we can count on them to celebrate too early, right? :)
Pigs & Spiders
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS…FOR BART STUPAK!!
phastphil
The Stupak conundrum: Except for abortion his voting record is pretty damn progressive. I really don’t understand the so called pro-life position on reproductive rights and how that same mind can hold liberal progressive values on all the other issues.
artem1s
I get the sentiment but I have had it with GOPers in DEM clothing who are taking advantage of anti-government, throw-the-bums-out sentiment that they created in their districts. Putting a D behind your name doesn’t make you a democrat. It may get you some union votes and some funding you wouldn’t normally get at least for a while. Stupak beat the issue to death that got him enough cross over votes to get elected in a R district. It was his choice (see what I did there).
The larger danger I see here is that there is a growing group in the D-party that thinks it can either ignore the issue of reproductive rights (Lee Fisher, the presumptive nominee to run for Voinovich’s seat in OH doesn’t even mention abortion on his website) or have jumped on the GOP incendiary band wagon. They have got too many leaders in the DNC believing they don’t need women voters to keep Congress or the WH or to pass legislation. BIG MISTAKE.
Nick
@artem1s:
And outside of the DNC, there are too many people who think the women’s vote hinges merely on abortion.
Litlebritdifrnt
@kay: “His betrayal of conservative principles?” WTF isn’t he supposed to be a Democrat? I can imagine them celebrating that a moderate Repub was retiring because of his “betrayal of conservative principles” but a democrat? These people really make no sense.
ericblair
@Napoleon:
It sure as hell looks like the Blue Dog instincts are all wrong about how to keep their seats. They undercut Democratic bills, which weakens the party, which lowers Democratic voter enthusiasm, which makes the Blue Dogs lose elections since they have the slimmest margins.
They’re trying to poach conservatives instead of trying to get more liberals on board, and it doesn’t work since the conservatives are all about tribalism and basically don’t give a shit about policy. You can’t meet halfway people who are obsessed about purity, and the sooner these geniuses figure out that selling the Democratic brand instead of Republican Lite works better the better off they’ll be.
Pococurante
Stupak’s not retiring – he’s running for governor. That was the entire motivation behind this stunt. Wait and see.
r€nato
@BB:
Oh my. Now you’re on Hamsher’s Enemies List™. You’re an O-bot™.
But seriously, this is what the circular firing squad gang doesn’t get. Blue Dogs like Stupak don’t answer, ultimately, to Jane Hamsher nor Glenn Greenwald nor the House Democratic Caucus. They answer to voters in their district, and since they usually want to keep their jobs, I’m reasonably certain they have a much more finely-tuned sense of where their constituents are on the issues than the Hamsher/Greenwald ‘burn it down if I can’t get my way’ axis.
If you’re going to replace a Stupak by primary-ing from the left, you’ll need to find someone who has the skill and/or charisma to finesse difficult issues like reproductive choice and gay rights, delivering the right votes and support while keeping the voters back home on their side. For instance, a congressman who brings home a lot of pork can get by with voting against his constituents’ beliefs on certain issues. Otherwise, it’s a fool’s game to run a candidate who will promise to delivers solid pro-choice votes in a district which generally leans anti-choice.
What I would like to know, is if Stupak had decided to retire already before he demagogued the HCR vote. If so… what was the payoff for making an issue out of abortion on HCR? Easily understandable if he’s running for re-election in the fall; more opaque if not. Perhaps he’s going to lobby for the pro-life lobby and wanted to prove his bona fides?
…and Pococurante answers my question.
r€nato
@phastphil:
my aunt and uncle are both committed liberals, Democratic… and ‘pro-life’. It springs from their Catholicism. Abortion and homosexuality are hot-button issues especially with those who are religious. They simply see abortion as wrong. They may not be able to articulate answers to questions like, ‘should women who have abortions be considered murderers?’, but they know what they believe and they likely will never change their minds.
It would be foolish to throw away their support on so many other issues where they line up with progressive values, simply because of disagreement over this one issue.
Cerberus
Call me vindictive (because I am) but fuck ‘im. I’m glad to see the back of the fucker. I don’t even really care if we get one more no vote getting teabag Michelle Bachmann character.
The fact is that Bart Stupak decided to be an asshole above and beyond the call of duty. Not only that he decided to be an open misogynist psychopath with his whole abortion debacle (not to mention his “I need to hear from a man that my opinion is awesome” bs with Obama), but just how stupidly he did it. He took the single most important bill in this session of congress and actively tried to make it worse and stage a revolt with a bunch of bs divide and conquer crap that didn’t even need to be brought up. No one on the pro-choice side was going to even bother with the hideous Hyde Amendment or anything else and he decided to try and turn the whole bill into a referendum on abortion.
He basically decided to play chicken on the issue of treating women like shit and otherwise making women feel like the Democratic Party doesn’t give a shit about them again after they had been all placated with the Lily Ledbetter Act. He did so without understanding what the hell he was arguing or what the current laws were, refused to listen to any woman who tried to explain to him that he didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about, and there’s some evidence that he might have only done it to begin with because he got played by the vile anti-democratic institution known as The Family which he was a member of.
Someone that stupid and that toxic to country-wide Democratic Party stability, not to mention that manipulatable by a right-wing theocratic society is not a reliable ally. At least a Bachmann nutcase gives something to rally the base around.
Stupak just keeps away people like litbrit’s mom.
someguy
@ litbrit
So where did your mom draw the line – do male MD’s count, seeing as their experience with female reproductive matters is decidedly secondhand? And does this foreclose women from having an opinion on viagra or the coverage of particular types of prostate cancer treatments by insurance companies? Seems to me if experience is the thing that permits us to offer an opinion, then most of us should shut the fuck up just about all the time. Or is women’s reproductive health just a special case?
Chyron HR
Of course! That was what the noose thing was about–telling Stupak that they “noose” he betrayed conservative principles.
Cerberus
@artem1s:
Yup.
Women are an important voting block and there’s been this feeling that they are so safely “in-camp” for the dems that there’s no longer any reason to fight for basic level women’s rights. Pro-choice, sex education, women’s healthcare, etc… are all things that have not only fallen by the way-side but have actually had unsettling number of “Dems” jumping on the wrong side of the bandwagon.
No one’s jumping ship, but there’s some nasty rumbling that could end badly in turnout.
@Nick:
It’s more of a hint.
You can’t be pro-woman and anti-choice. Period.
You can call that unfair, you can stretch for a counter-example, but reproductive rights are so critical to a number of other women’s rights including bodily autonomy (critical for rape awareness), sexual freedom, job equality (if you can’t control when you reproduce, it’s really hard to push for a reliable career), that it’s really non-negotiable. Especially in this day and age.
Not to mention that most anti-choicers don’t stop there. Many “pro-life” groups, especially the “mainstream” ones have already begun attacking women’s health in general including prenatal care and HPV vaccines as well as contraceptive access including Plan B, condoms, and the pill.
And that’s before we even get into the fact that most of the “pro-life” positions are also connected to really backwards views of women. Bart Stupak basically threw a tantrum over Nancy Pelosi thinking she ran the house rather than a proper penis bearing man (this attitude really prominent in his response to the nuns), the Catholic Church (we don’t need to say more than that), and most of the “pro-life” organizations are well-connected to groups that fought against ERA and rail against “feminism”.
Women’s votes are a lot more closely related to pro-choice positions than men seem to think.
Cerberus
Blargh, pen1s triggered moderation. Damn you bon3r pllz. Damn you.
Cerberus
@ericblair:
This.
I mean, I think about a counter-example in Arlen Spector. His numbers actually went up because he stayed relatively low-key and supported the no-duh big dem legislation.
He’s in a pro-life leaning state. He could have easily tried to play the Stupak route to try and shore up his Conservadem creds with the Mainstream Media Talking Head Base. He went the opposite route and he’s coming out smelling like roses while everyone who tried to worsen the bill so the Talking Heads would love them all look like they’ll probably lose their seats.
Basically the lesson is, the Dems are factional, so don’t actively try and piss off various sects just to shore up your asshole cred.
Especially since that just ends up hurting everyone in the party not only yourself. Every Dem is going to be in a more fragile position about the woman vote thanks to Stupak’s BS. A fragile position which was completely unnecessary, because women were relatively happy with the Dems about Lilly Ledbetter and Sotomayor and outraged over Dr. Tiller and the support on the right.
Now the stories are all “Fuck Stupak” and “Dems selling us out. Again”. Not good tactics.
TooManyJens
@someguy:
I don’t agree that experience with pregnancy and giving birth is necessary to have an opinion on abortion, but I do think that if a person (male or female) doesn’t understand about the history of the oppression of women based on our biology, that opinion is not likely to bring anything particularly enlightening to the discussion.
I would also note that most people who say men shouldn’t have an opinion on this subject don’t actually want to hear anything against abortion from those of us who have been pregnant either, so, whatever.
Will
It’s official. Stevens is retiring this summer:
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/justice-stevens-will-retire-this-summer.php?ref=fpa
litbrit
@Nick:
Actually, Mum voted for Gore, Kerry, and then Obama. She likes our own Charlie Crist and some (not all) of the local moderate Republicans, but for the last decade has been disgusted with the party’s national figures and their craven pandering to fundies and under-the-bus-tossing of a woman’s right to privacy and bodily autonomy.
Don’t make assumptions!
Nutella
@phastphil:
Simple: He hates women more than he loves people.
If he really had a moral opposition to abortion he’d have been pushing for family planning and maternal assistance. But he didn’t.
If he really wasn’t a complete ass he wouldn’t have grandstanded over something that wasn’t in HCR at all.
I hope the door does hit him in the ass on the way out. And the IRS does charge him for all his secret contributions from the C Street sex club.
litbrit
@someguy:
By “experience”, she means having the experience with one’s own body. If you have never been pregnant and given birth, in other words, she does not feel your opinion that she, or any woman, MUST go through pregnancy or birth–or, for that matter, MUST NOT do so–is relevant to her. And I agree.
Obviously mens’ opinions on abortion matter–to varying degrees, depending on how medically well-informed (and free of dogma) said men’s opinions are. But in the end, when it comes down to how to govern the one body that is mine, I’m not going to base my choices on the opinion of someone who has never experienced pregnancy and childbirth. Thus, to me (and Mum), such an opinion would be irrelevant.
TooManyJens
@phastphil:
It’s perfectly coherent, if one considers abortion to be violence against human beings, to oppose it while opposing other forms of violence against human beings, such as war.
It’s the ones who are pro-war and anti-abortion who don’t make sense.
litbrit
@Cerberus:
reproductive rights are so critical to a number of other women’s rights including bodily autonomy (critical for rape awareness), sexual freedom, job equality (if you can’t control when you reproduce, it’s really hard to push for a reliable career), that it’s really non-negotiable. Especially in this day and age. Not to mention that most anti-choicers don’t stop there. Many “pro-life” groups, especially the “mainstream” ones have already begun attacking women’s health in general including prenatal care and HPV vaccines as well as contraceptive access including Plan B, condoms, and the pill.
THANK you, Cerberus. I had to re-post those passages, because they are so important and you described the current situation so well.
We women have indeed watched with despair as the Overton window shifted toward anti-choicers’ positions over the past couple of decades, the last two most notably. The attacks on choice have not been limited to the news-making clinic bombings and murders of doctors. They also include all manner of (somewhat) more subtle legislative trends.
And then there are the traitors.
When an allegedly pro-choice Democrat–Lieberman–sides with an anti-choice hospital who refuses to give Plan B–NOT an abortion, mind you, but an emergency contraceptive–to rape victims, and ices the whole sorry cake by saying the women could simply “walk to another hospital”, you know matters are dire.
phastphil
@r€nato
I was raised Catholic, but I now call myself a retired Catholic. Walking a mile in another persons shoes is at the heart of one my basic values. As a man I can never walk in a woman’s shoes therefor I cannot tell her what she can or cannot do with her own body.
@TooManyJens
Simple solution but you probably won’t like it. It would end all the BS around this issue – define life as beginning at birth.
cleek
this seems smart.
in essence: Stupak, having raised the idea that the bill was all about handing out abortions enraged those who hate abortion and those who know what the bill actually says. then he flip-flopped, which destroyed his cred with the anti-abortion gang, and did nothing to help him with anyone else. he shot himself in both feet.
sukabi
he’s trying to beat the ethics investigation and any legal consequences out the door…
TooManyJens
@phastphil:
You can’t possibly think that would end the controversy.
Cerberus
@phastphil:
I wish it was that easy.
Unfortunately, like with most right-wing whine fests, what they say is the problem isn’t what they’re actually bitching about. Most anti-choicers like to whine about the poor BAYBEEZ, but what they find so offensive is the idea that women are fully human. They hate that women are no longer a man’s property and are more and more finding their identities as full humans with jobs and careers and passions that have nothing to do with men and it scares the bejezus out of them.
And that’s not going to go away but by the continual hammering home of progressive and feminist ideas throughout the age.
The anti-choice angle of the old anti-feminist/anti-women forces is really the last arm they have left and have held on by wrapping the remaining religions around it as if it were key to their faiths, but it too will die.
That last point is worth pointing out to litbrit. We may be “losing” ground to the Overton Window pushing on reproductive rights, but have won a number of battles more related to the religion v. women battle its now a part of. Religions as little as 30 years ago proudly trumpeted the right of all women to be houseslaves and nothing else and now they’re reduced to holding on to the sex stranglehold as long as they can to try and prevent as many women as possible from getting used to the career and intellectual accomplishment path.
The good thing is that we are winning the war even if the battles have been ire-inspiring to say the least.
phastphil
The Case for Permitting Abortion Until Birth
Cameron
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Actually, Michael Moore lives in Traverse City, which is Dave Camp’s district (MI-4).
manwith7talents
Sometimes I wonder how people like Stupak become successful at politics in the first place, since they don’t seem to be very good at it.
Personally, I think he started to get lots of attention and liked it. Maybe someone started whispering in his ear: “You know Bart, you could be Senator someday, or – dare I say – President!”. Then he realized that he had made a huge mistake and reversed course, but it was too late.
Meanwhile, maybe the Dems hold the district and maybe they don’t, but there’s no guarantee that Stupak would have held it either, and now we get rid of a major source of division in the party. I’m glad he’s gone.