Even before the final results were tallied for Tuesday’s election, women’s groups were expressing dismay that their choices for governor next November were an anti-abortion rights Republican and a Democrat with even more conservative views on the issue.
By week’s end, there seemed no satisfying solution to their dilemma: There was talk of everything from a write-in candidacy to skipping the governor’s line on the November ballot because the Democrat who occupies it is Glenn Poshard, a socially conservative congressman who once co-sponsored a constitutional amendment permitting abortions only to prevent the death of a mother.
The quandary for anti-abortion rights groups was not much better. They considered themselves stuck between voting for either a Democrat or George Ryan, a Republican who recruited a pro-abortion rights running mate.
But regardless of the outcome of the general election, last week’s nomination of Poshard as the Democratic gubernatorial nominee raised questions about the pro-abortion rights camp’s ability to rally its supporters behind a winning candidate.
After U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) endorsed his fellow Downstate native, Poshard, late in the primary, women’s groups threatened to exact electoral revenge. But those threats rang hollow after Poshard won handily.
The groups said that the pro-abortion rights vote failed because it was divided among former Justice Department official John Schmidt, former Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland Burris and former U.S. Atty. Jim Burns.
Still, Lorna Brett, president of the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women, insisted that while their influence was diluted in the primary, pro-abortion rights voters would help determine the winner in November–even if they can’t change the candidates’ minds on abortion.
“We’re not a machine. We don’t have precinct workers,” Brett said. “But no one could argue that pro-choice women are not a big and important voting bloc in general elections.”
Beyond the question of the political strength of women’s groups, the Poshard-Ryan race will force parties on both sides of the abortion issue to wrestle with it like never before.
That became clear late in the week when Poshard offered to meet and seek common ground with NOW and other liberal groups–the very same people who had demonized him during the primary while supporting Schmidt, who anchored his campaign on the abortion issue.
“I know there are differences among us and some important differences on important issues,” Poshard told fellow Democrats at a “unity” breakfast, referring to his past opposition to abortion and gun control. “I’m going to reach out, I’m going to sit down, I’m going to listen. I’m going to do everything I can to find the common ground, the things that unite us as a party.”
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It is likely to take more than a good sit-down, however, to bring women’s groups and others into Poshard’s fold.
Citing the decision of pro-abortion rights Democrats such as U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez and Durbin to support Poshard, local leaders of NOW and other women’s groups said Democratic leaders showed no “ideological backbone.”
“I think from the very beginning of this primary we’ve seen women candidates, women’s issues and women’s votes taken for granted. The Democratic Party has a lot of healing to do with women,” Brett said.
Since Tuesday, Brett said she had heard pro-abortion rights supporters planning such alternatives as supporting a third-party write-in candidate, skipping over the gubernatorial line on their ballots or launching a “Democrats for Ryan” movement because “he is more pro-choice than Glenn.”
Unlike Poshard, who twice voted to oppose federal funding of abortion in cases of rape and incest, Ryan supports allowing abortion in those cases.
Brett insisted the primary would serve as a wake-up call for pro-abortion rights forces, who she said are “incensed” with Democratic Party leaders including House Speaker Michael Madigan.
But she made no commitment to providing the sort of heft– campaign workers, money and other resources–that produces votes.
“Right now, NOW isn’t spearheading anything.”
This year’s Senate race also will test just how important the abortion issue is among Democrats who have become disenchanted with incumbent U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, who faces conservative Republican Peter Fitzgerald, a strong opponent of abortion.
Betty-Ann Moore of Libertyville, former chairwoman of the Lake County Democratic Party, vowed not long ago that only dire circumstances would prompt her to vote for Moseley-Braun.
Last week, she said those dire circumstances had arrived with Fitzgerald’s victory over Loleta Didrickson, a social moderate who supports abortion rights.
With a sigh, Moore said, “I’ll be voting for Carol.”
Alienated pro-abortion rights Democrats aren’t the only ones facing what they perceive to be a distasteful choice.
Joseph M. Scheidler, director of the Pro-Life Action League, said anti-abortion rights activists felt betrayed by Ryan’s recruitment of pro-abortion rights candidates to moderate the ticket and deflect criticism from his own hard-line position.
Ryan encouraged the candidacy of Didrickson and named another pro-abortion rights woman, state Rep. Corinne Wood (R-Lake Forest), as his running mate.
“I like George, but when he started selling out like that, he lost an awful lot of votes,” said Scheidler, adding that his normally Republican wife took a Democratic primary ballot Tuesday in order to vote for Poshard. “We don’t like compromise.”
Ryan’s campaign contends that the women most troubled by the gubernatorial nominees are largely Democrats whose decision in November has a greater impact on Poshard.
Where those voters go is Poshard’s “problem, not ours,” said Ryan campaign manager Scott Fawell. “They are not part of our base of support and not part of the coalition that we have that puts us over 50 percent.
“If we get some of them, God bless them. But they’re not coming out of our hide. They’re part of Glenn’s. He’s going to have some backtracking to do.”
The Ryan campaign believes Poshard’s conservative views run counter to the Democratic Party’s liberal base.
“Will some hold their nose and vote for Glenn?” Fawell asked. “Maybe. But I would guess mainstream, anti-gun, pro-environment and pro-choice women will probably not bring themselves to hold their nose for Glenn.”
The Poshard campaign believes much of the consternation being expressed is leftover animosity from the primary election.
“All voters matter to us, and we will continue to lay out the totality of our record” on women’s issues, such as Poshard’s support for family and medical leave, said Poshard aide Joe Novak. “We had a hard time punching through the rhetoric in the primary.”
Novak acknowledged that abortion is the deciding issue for some voters–and that it isn’t just problematic for Republicans.
“What has hurt the Democratic Party has been the litmus test,” he said. “We’re not going to run a campaign on a litmus test.”
But what concerns Democrats such as Moore in Lake County is whether party leaders will make a strong enough push to encourage pro-abortion rights members to vote in the general election.
“All those people who didn’t bother to vote in the primary (ended) up with a slate they didn’t like,” Moore said.
“Then they may opt to stay home in November because they don’t have a pro-choice slate to support. So there’s democracy in a nutshell.”
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