As the `04 campaign was going on, I remember eating lunch at a Cici's Pizza with my parents and a family that went to their (evangelical) church.  In spite of their conservatives ways, I must admit I like these people.  They are caring, funny, hard-working and not caught up in the general b.s. that so many people tend to be. In short, these are the kind of people you want as friends because of their loyalty and their heart. You also want them in your party.

But as the conversation, despite my best efforts, turned to politics, I was informed by the father of some "facts" that had never really been brought to my attention. I learned that Democrats were the party of  big business, and that Republicans did everything they could to make small business work.  I tried to counter with Haliburton, Enron and outsourcing. The first two kind of bounced off him, but at the mention of "outsourcing" he had his talking points retort.  He told me Democrats were the ones who outsourced because Heinz outsourced jobs.

I must admit with great regret that I was so befuddled by this that I just got quite. I was at that moment awestruck by the power of GOP propaganda.

Liberal pop quiz --- what was wrong with his argument? 1.) Teresa Kerry wasn't in charge of that outsourcing decision 2.) John Kerry was the one up for office, not Teresa, or Heinz corporation 3.) Teresa Kerry was a life-long REPUBLICAN until Kerry ran for president. 4.) outsourcing is a Republican policy and was rewarded with tax credits by Republicans. Only a Progressive administration offers any hope for slowing this tide by advocating fair trade over market fundamentalism.

My Argument

Why would someone think the activity of a company tangentially related to a candidate would outweigh an entire culture of corruption,cronyism and corporatism?

The answer can be found in Aristotle's notion of ethos . . . a.k.a. credibility.  An argument, to Aristotle, has 3 parts:  1.) Logos (logic and facts)  2.) Pathos (emotional appeal)  3.) Ethos (credibility of the source).

Quite simply, national Democrats have absolutely no credibility to large portions of my state. Instead, Republicans do.

If you think a side represents evil, then any detail you can find to support that notion will be pushed to the forefront.  If you think a side represents a just struggle, details that go against that notion will get pushed to the background. This is what happened when the outsourcing issue met abortion. Republicans outsourcing away the prosperity of the working class was pushed to the background so that the mental image of "Pro-Life crusader" could remain in the family friend's conception of Bush. But Kerry already started out as a "baby killer" to him. With that, even a tiny detail like an outsourcing operation associated with Heinz was enough to show Democrats weren't really out to help the common man.

You and I both know these conclusions are illogical, but logos is only 1/3 of our battle. We must win on emotions (pathos) and we must gain an ethos for our Southern Democrats.

Just for a moment, think about the premises of your opponents who we must win over. If life (i.e. the soul) starts at conception, then of course abortion is murder. Would you listen to a candidate's tax policy if they were saying they wanted to legalize a parents right to kill their born child up the age of 21? (Ancient Rome had this tradition; the father owned the child forever as property.)

Clearly, when ethos falls, the other components of the argument do not get a fair hearing. You can argue all you want with the premises of a pro-lifer, but you cannot question that their motives are compassion. They believe they are saving human lives.

When the father of family got up to get some more pizza, the mother tried to make peace with me. She tried to get put herself in my shoes and mentioned some things Clinton had done to help lift people out of poverty, but she stopped suddenly and got very saddened as she remembered Bill Clinton's vetoed the bill banning partial birth abortion. She said she couldn't understand how anyone would veto that bill. I could see she wasn't very political. Instead, she was the type of person who would like to find ways to support the current President, whoever that president might be. Clinton was as great of a communicator as Ronald Regan, but as a pro-choice candidate who wouldn't even bend on partial-birth abortion, there was no way he could win the hearts (and then the minds) of 70% of Oklahomans. You may say "oh, who needs them?," but if you do, what's the point of pursuing a 50 state strategy?

Pro-life Democrats are the only hope for progressives to get gubernatorial or congressional seats in most of the red states. Only with their ethos can issues like corruption, fair trade, and education weigh in the decisions of a large portion of the voters down here. But being pro-life doesn't have to be something that neutralizes the GOP onslaught. Pro-Life Democrats should campaign on this question, "Is point of being pro-life to pat yourself on the back for your own morality, or is it to protect the lives of children and actually lower the number of abortions?"

This strategy is what I will call for Progressives being proactively pro-life, but for the red states it might play better as being "actively pro-life" or "aggressively pro-life"(people in red states tend to like things to sound tough)

Here's the commercial:

Imagine you're a teenage girl and you've made the biggest mistake of your life. Now you're pregnant. You have no money. Where can you turn for pre-natal care? How can you make sure your baby is born healthy? And if you cannot support that child, how can you find loving parents who will give your child a good life with a happy family?

[switch to candidate]"These are questions we in the pro-life community have a moral obligation to answer for any girl caught in this situation. It takes two to get pregnant, but only one scared young girl to be trapped in a desperate situation. We can't go back in time to undo the mistake. But we must do everything in our power to protect that child and mother's life and health. We can also work to lower the rates pregnancy for other teens in our state. It's time to put our money where our values are. It's time to get to work. We can't just be pro-family and pro-life, we've got to be aggressively pro-life."

Conclusion

Instead of allowing ourselves to get pounded year after year in red states by the wedge issue of abortion, we Democrats must turn the issue on its head.  Whereas the market-worshipping wing of the Republican Party can't stand the idea of government performing actions to reach out and help, Progressives can.  With this aggressively(pro-actively) pro-life stance, candidates will have the ethos to be able to articulate the other important issues where Democrats have the advantage. This will pull voters back in to the blue column for `06. Let's see how Republicans like a taste of wedge politics.