God's Politics

I have very mixed feelings about this book. As a tactical matter I see the need for Democrats to appeal to the religious, but essentially I am what he calls "secular fundamentalist" in that I think the government should be purely secular, and I'd prefer not to hear about politicians' spiritual lives. They shouldn't matter, but, unfortunately from my perspective, they do.

I finished the book feeling, "OK, let's try to find some common ground" with regard to abortion. After all, even Harry Reid proposed a plan to provide real sex ed and family planning services to women in this country. I can support the position that reducing the abortion rate is a good thing and the best way to do this is education and access to birth control. But, yesterday, just when I had finished the book, I got an email from my friend telling me that my Congressman, an anti-abortion Democrat, voted against restoring the funds to the UN for HIV/AIDS prevention and birth control. I can't go along with that. That's capitulation, not compromise. I'm pissed, really and truly pissed.

I have felt all along that I would vote for Casey in '06 as much as I dislike how the state party essentially cleared the field for him so there will be no real primary. (Yeah, there's a progressive from Philly that I've only heard about on Kos. He's not going to win.) It's going to be very hard for me to vote for Casey, as much as I despise Santorum, and I am hearing from plenty of women who may just stay home because they don't feel Casey is any better when it comes to women's rights. Yeah, he's polling great now, but this could be a real disaster. Votes like Doyle's make it harder to try to convince people to just hold their noses and pull the lever.