For the second consecutive election, a South Dakota ballot initiative to ban abortion has failed by double digits.

The initiative proposed to criminalize abortions - with a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and $20,000 fine - except for those done to save the life or health of a pregnant woman or performed to terminate a pregnancy that resulted from rape or incest. The scope of those exceptions was a point of contention during the campaign.

 

A ban without rape, incest and health exceptions passed the 2006 Legislature. Gov. Mike Rounds signed it into law, but opponents circulated petitions to place it on the general election ballot where it failed. Abortion foes in South Dakota responded to that defeat by crafting Initiate Measure 11 and including the exceptions.

In case you needed another reminder that the Right isn't going to go away quietly, here's a web site demanding impeachment procedures against President Barack Obama. (Via Ben Smith.)

As we have documented in recent days, the approaching elections have, with an assist from the McCain campaign and GOP strategists, brought some real ugliness into the open, including outright racism. 

Of course, an election year would not be complete without overt and covert appeals to anti-gay sentiment from right-wing politicians.  It’s at its most overt in the anti-equality ballot campaigns in California, Florida, and Arizona, which are being massively funded by national Religious Right groups and Mormon donors. 

But it also shows up in appeals grounded in the favored language of family values.  Below you can see scans of a mailing for an Ohio State Representative candidate who announces, under the heading “Love of Family,” that “Michael Keenan will strengthen families by keeping marriage between a man and a woman.”

No word on how that strengthens Ohio families who might be dealing with lost jobs, slumping wages, lack of affordable health care, or any of the other difficulties that could put stress on marriages.  Thank goodness he’ll keep committed gay couples from the legal protections that marriage can provide!  Think how much that will strengthen Ohio’s struggling families!

In case you didn’t think that attacks against Senator Obama could get any worse, they, umm, did.

Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's nominee for President, has become a target for white supremacists and other extremists on various Websites and Internet forums since he began his campaign.

The Anti-Defamation League has been tracking these kinds of threats, and they’re pretty nauseating. 

I do not want a half-breed negro prancing around the White House in a loin cloth, smoking crack…I see no reason at all to allow a Communistic negro to occupy the most powerful political office on earth. I see no reason at all to allow a sub-human to do for the United States, what his sub-human pals have done in their countries like Zimbabwe, South Africa and other black-run failed states…Wherever blacks run things, those things are totally corrupt, grossly dysfunctional and ultimately, complete failures.

 Click through to read more, but it’s difficult to get through the whole thing.

In his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken recalls an episode in Paul Wellstone’s 2002 run for re-election when, prior to his untimely death, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) ran an ad called “Pork” that savaged Wellstone for voting “to spend thousands of dollars to control seaweed in Maui.”

The implication, as Franken pointed out, was that Wellstone had “prioritized seaweed control over national defense.” The only problem was that while Wellstone had in fact voted for the legislation, so did “Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott and 84 other senators. That bill did appropriate the seaweed control spending—but it also provided $21 billion for veterans' health care, $27 billion for veterans' compensation and pensions, and block grants to assist New York City's recovery from 9/11.”

When Wellstone’s son David confronted then NRSC-chair Bill Frist about the ad at his father’s memorial service, Frist declared that “it wasn't personal,” to which David responded "'My dad took it personal.” 

And so it is only fitting that this time around, with Franken running against Norm Coleman, the man on whose behalf the NRSC ran that original ad, they would again stoop to such tricks.  

Take a look at this ad the NRSC is running against Franken – especially the clip playing in the background of a screaming Franken while the narrator declares him prone to “violent outbursts” around the fifteen second mark:

Now take a look at this video from the Franken campaign explaining the history of that clip:

That’s right, the NRSC took clip of Franken telling this anecdote about Paul Wellstone and his son, stripped it of its context and then used it to try and portray Franken as dangerously unhinged.  

I was reminded of this today when I stumbled upon this “breaking news” piece from Minnesota Democrats Exposed that recounts how, after a recent debate, Franken supposedly attacked Norm Coleman and to be all but dragged away from him:

According to dedicated readers of Minnesota Democrats Exposed who were at tonight’s U.S. Senate debate in Duluth, Al Franken got in U.S. Senator Norm Coleman face as soon as the microphones were off at the end of the debate.

My sources said that Franken was very upset and was speaking with a raised voice.  Mrs. Franken reportedly ran on stage to get Franken away from Coleman … Franken, visibly upset, continues to get in Senator Coleman’s face.  Franken is seen on film staring Coleman down as he finally recognizes that Mrs. Franken is trying to get his attention.

Wow.  That sounds pretty heated.  I can only imagine what that scene must have been like. Oh wait:

Apparently, talking to your opponent after a debate is the equivalent of being on the verge of a complete meltdown. Maybe next time, Franken should just snub his opponent all together.

Ezra Klein points out how the right is using the ACORN pseudo-scandal to undermine the Obama presidency – before the election has even taken place.

The politics of Karl Rove are alive and well! As we near Election Day, we're seeing more smears and attempts at character assassination. The combination of win-at-all-costs politics and the growing financial crisis makes me nervous, because economic hardship has historically provided fertile ground for scapegoating vulnerable people.

People For is working hard to expose, refute, and defuse the kind of dangerous demagoguery the Right is pumping out. A number of pundits have blamed the housing market crash and subsequent drop in people's retirement savings on minority homebuyers who can no longer afford their predatory mortgages. They're trying to stir racial resentment and bigotry among voters who may already be uncertain about casting a vote for a black presidential candidate. The same candidate is falsely portrayed as a subversive Muslim extremist. Sarah Palin this week went so far as to accuse Barack Obama of "pallin' around with terrorists."

Sadly, these attacks work at whipping some people into a hateful frenzy. There were media reports, which were apparently serious enough that the Secret Service launched a threat investigation, that at that same speech Palin made her "terrorist" comment, a member of the crowd shouted "kill him" and another one yelled "treason" loud enough to be picked up by TV mics. It was unclear whether "kill him" was directed at Obama or William Ayers, to whom Palin was referring, but it really doesn't matter.

All of this shows what we are up against, and it shows that real progress means changing the culture as well as public policy. One of the main reasons I came to People For was that it wages the struggle for the heart and soul of America as fiercely as it fights for progressive policies. Two specific ways we'll do both are 1. winning at the ballot box, and 2. by sustaining a movement.

Winning at the polls: People For the American Way Voters Alliance is funding 24 progressive House candidates (all but one challengers) in close races against right-wing opponents in a very strategic way. The Voters Alliance issued a challenge on its ActBlue page pledging an additional $3,000 to the candidate who raises the most on that page by October 15. This encourages blogs to drive traffic to the site to support their favorite candidate, and it encourages the candidates to do the same for themselves (and it gives them the opportunity to ask for support in a different way). The page has already raised over $50,000!!! (Please consider a contribution to one or several of these great candidates and to the Voters Alliance, and spread the word!)

Sustaining the movement: People For the American Way Action Fund is using ActBlue to build the progressive movement's farm team by funding a group of bright young candidates for state and local office. The Right has engaged in similar efforts for decades — Sarah Palin is actually a graduate of GOPAC, the Right's primary candidate recruitment and training program. People For's Action Fund is running ads voiced by Rachael Maddow on Air America Radio starting next week in support of young progressives. Check out these candidates and again, consider a contribution (in these state and local races, a little bit can really go a long way).

THAT'S building progressive power.

Thanks to those of you who wrote in response to last week's note for the very warm and supportive e-mails. Keep the great feedback coming! E-mail me at Kathryn@pfaw.org.
 

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza outlines John McCain’s latest kinda-sorta-maybe change in tactics (we can’t say “strategy” because at this point it’s unclear whether McCain ever had one.)  Obama partisans are most likely very happy with the McCain campaign’s performance so far, but they might want to be careful what they wish for.

It’s not as if we didn’t see this coming, but the ugliness is still shocking.  McCain strategists, right-wing bloggers, and their Fox TV propaganda arm have decided that the only way to turn around the seriously slumping numbers for the McCain-Palin ticket is to knock aside discussion of the nation’s economic problems and focus on trying to destroy Barack Obama with charges that would make the Swift boaters blush.  Pitbull Palin is at the forefront, beaming broadly while telling crowds that Obama thinks the nation is so imperfect that he’s willing to pal around with terrorists.

The portrayal by Palin, Sean Hannity, and others of Obama’s relationship to William Ayers is so dishonest, so dishonorable, and so disgusting that it’s hard to imagine where things will go over the next four weeks.  Actually, it’s not so hard -- we can get a pretty good idea, based on the other elements of the new smear campaign: Obama’s criticism of war-fighting strategy in Afghanistan is misrepresented as a disrespectful attack on our troops, and Palin repeats the bogus charge that he voted to “defund” the troops – even though by the Mc-Palin team’s rationale, the exact same thing could be said of McCain’s Senate votes.

Over the past couple of days, news reports have documented people in the GOP ticket’s audiences shouting “kill him” and “treason” – and telling a black cameraman, “sit down, boy.”  If there’s any worry within McPalin’s team about unleashing this kind of ugliness and hatred, there’s no sign of it on the candidates’ smiling faces.  They seem to be fully embracing the savagery of the Bush campaign team’s win-at-all-costs tactics, which took McCain down in 2000.  And McCain, who has tried so hard and for so long to make his name synonymous with honor, has now welcomed the perpetrators of that dishonorable campaign onto this team and demonstrated his willingness to say and do anything to win his final run at the White House.

Against gay rights, in favor of banning books -- Sarah Palin's values aren't mainstream Americans' values. Here's a short video of People For the American Way activists (including hockey moms!) making it clear that Sarah Palin doesn't speak for them.

"Sarah Palin Doesn't Speak For Me" from People For the American Way on Vimeo.