Progressive women melt over JBE support for pro-life bill

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This is an interesting story in the Advocate this evening about the reaction by progressive women to Governor Edwards' support for pro-life legislation. Edwards ran for governor as a pro-life candidate, and a good case can be made that he owes his initial election to the combination of a damaged Republican candidate (Vitter) and JBE's pro-life positions, which permitted him to sell himself as a moderate candidate and gave some Republican voters an excuse for supporting him.

Now, of course, Edwards is running for reelection having supported some progressive policy positions but also having put his strong pro-life positions into action. The interesting part of this story is that progressives are really between a rock and a hard place and have no satisfactory choices here. They can support Edwards, which means that they will support a candidate running for reelection who has promoted a strong pro-life stance and who has put his money where his mouth is by acting on his pro-life position. Alternatively, progressive women can sit this one out, which increases the probability that JBE would lose and that an even more conservative Republican would take his place. Oh, and they can support some of the progressive women who are running for lower office, but the chances that these progressive women will win state legislative seats in the conservative districts in which they are running are slim (or none).

All of this makes for an interesting and fun read!!