Pro-gun, anti-abortion and fiscally conservative: meet the neo-Dems

http://www.guardian.co.uk/midterms2006/story/0,,1944311,00.html

The forging of a cohesive domestic reform agenda will be complicated by the fact that several of the new intake of Democrats in the Congress are socially conservative and in favour of policies traditionally associated with the Republicans they ousted. Some of them are pro-guns while others are anti-abortion. Some oppose stem cell research using human embryos, and many are on the wing of the Democratic party that believes in fiscal rectitude and tight control on public spending.

The conservative Democrats, or new Democrats as they are sometimes called, were disproportionately represented in the most highly contested races against Republicans, and are likely to form a substantial bloc within the new members.

Heath Shuler, a former American football celebrity who now holds a House of Representatives' seat for North Carolina, is representative of the group. He has an evangelical Christian background and is on the right of the argument on many social issues such as abortion.

Democratic party leaders deny that they had an official strategy to plant right-wing candidates in vulnerable Republican seats as a way of winning over voters. But Rahm Emanuel, the chairman of the campaign to win back the House of Representatives, has said that when they searched for candidates with the best hopes of winning, they ended up with several with a moderate approach. "As a group, they are moderate in temperament and reformers in spirit," he said.

pro-fair trade and pro-social justice

But, I'm not so sure if progressive agendas will win out in this congress.

But, its a start, and of that I am not complaining.

Its up to us to make sure these New Dems hear our concerns and take heed !

least IMO because on some issues they represent the majority of voters who call themselves Democrats.

If a party just wants to educate voters and not fight to win elections, e.g. Libertarians, then we Dems can adopt a party platform that guarantees we will never win a race.

If however, we want to control congress, then we Dems must compromise on issues that are important to a majority of the voters.

Personally, I love winning elections and having we Dems in control of Congress. :thumbsup:

Have we bought into the republican mantra that we're crazy spenders or are chomping at the bit to take your gun away? And with Catholics here in the Northeast anti-choice democrats have been around for a while.

:eyes:

The push to ban nonhunting-style guns--mostly by the DLC, I might add--is a recent development (late 1980's/early 1990's).

John F. Kennedy was an NRA life member, a strong believer in the 2nd Amendment, and owned a Colt AR-15, as I recall.

There WAS no push to outlaw civilian rifles with protruding handgrips until the DLC started it in the late '80s/early '90s. So opposing such bans hardly makes one anti-progressive.

I have a feeling that it is propaganda to make the loss seem less catastrophic to the right wing. We also have some people saying our Senator won by "smearing the opponent" when all was done was point out one very pertinent fact. He ran a corp by firing loads of people and cutting health benefits and then giving himself a multi million dollar bonus. All of a sudden this is worse than calling Kerry or Mcclelan cowards in Vietnam.