Howard Dean in Kansas
On abortion specifically, he said, the party must commit to making abortions "safe, legal and rare" while maintaining women's rights to choose.I've never been a Deaniac (if only because I was waiting to see who the Dem candidate shook out to be), but tend to like what he has to say. I particularly liked the "safe, legal and rare" comment regarding abortions. Republicans who want to make abortion illegal also seem to want to create situations where it would otherwise be more common. Promoting abstinence "education" over sex education is the downright dumb.
"The issue is not abortion," Dean told the closed-door fund-raiser. "The issue is whether women can make up their own mind instead of some right-wing pastor, some right-wing politician telling them what to do."
And Dean told the Hiebert fund-raiser that gay marriage was a Republican diversion from discussions of ballooning deficits and lost American jobs. That presents an opportunity to attract moderate Republicans, he said.
"Moderate Republicans can't stand these people (conservatives), because they're intolerant. They don't think tolerance is a virtue," Dean said, adding: "I'm not going to have these right-wingers throw away our right to be tolerant."
And concluding his backyard speech with a litany of Democratic values, he added: "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good."
I also like how he brings up the subject of tolerance. I think he'll be a good DNC Chair.
