In this confusing era when “conservative” has come to mean favoring federal deficits and government intrusion into private lives, while “liberal” has become synonymous with support for states’ rights and opposition to activist judges, it probably shouldn’t come as any surprise that other terms have also drifted into foggy territory. Take, for example, “pro-choice” and “pro-life.”
It used to be simple. If you were pro-choice, you supported the US Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, and you opposed efforts to make the procedure more difficult to obtain. If you were pro-life, you wanted Roe overturned, but until that happened, you favored having state legislatures and Congress enact any restrictions on abortions that might survive a court challenge.
Then, things got squishy. Some nominally pro-choice politicians began edging to the right, claiming that while they still favored allowing women to choose, they didn’t want to confuse the poor dears with too many choices. So, they were willing to ban late-term abortions or impose waiting periods or place language in criminal statutes that made fetuses human beings. Meanwhile, some abortion opponents squirmed toward the left, claiming they wouldn’t want to outlaw all abortions, just some of them. Well, most of them, really. Although, one or two a decade might be OK. Maybe.
Some of these folks were Democrats who represented conservative districts or Republicans running in liberal areas. They valued their electability more than their principles. Then, there were the GOPers who wanted to keep the extreme right wing of their party off their backs, or the Dems who feared reprisals from the hard-left elements in their organization. The one thing all these political prevaricators had in common was they had no intention of voting the way they talked. They figured nobody would notice that discrepancy, and they could win support from both sides.
More often, they got nothing from nobody.
In recent years, Maine candidates who’ve attempted to straddle the issue have usually ended up aborting their campaigns. The list of wafflers includes Republican Charlie Summers (1st Congressional District race, 2004), Republican Brian Hamel (2nd CD, 2004), Republican Peter Cianchette (governor’s race, 2002), Republican Jim Longley Jr. (1st CD, 1994 and 1996), Democrat Dennis Dutremble (1st CD, 1994), Republican David Emery (1st CD, 1990 and governor’s race, 2006) and Democrat Joe Brennan (nearly every race, nearly every year).
Most of them lost. (Longley won a seat in Congress in 1994, but only because he was running against Dutremble, a fellow weaseler, while Brennan, who quietly switched from pro-life to pro-choice during his first term as governor, squeaked by in a couple of races for Congress in the late ’80s, before ending his political career with a long winless streak.) While their lack of clarity on abortion may not have been the major reason for their defeats, it certainly contributed to the perception that they weren’t being particularly forthcoming.
Meet the latest member of this distinguished drove of the disingenuous. She’s Darlene Curley, a GOP state representative from Scarborough, who’s running against Democratic US Rep. Tom Allen in the 1st District this year. At her campaign announcement on January 26, Curley was asked by reporters about her position on abortion. She refused to characterize herself as either pro-choice or pro-life, saying she rejected labels.
