This may be unpopular, but I'm ok with running anti-choice Dems if it will win elections.

[politicat]

71. Here's my take: other CDs are not my circus, not my monkeys.

I don't have a say in CO6 because I don't live there. It's in my 'hood, so to speak (I live on the NW side of Denver Metro, CO6 is the E and SE side) but I trust the party and the constituents to choose their own representation. They don't interfere in my choice, I extend the same respect. CO6 is always going to be a tough district, because it's big, it has complex competing interests (the eastern extreme is still plains ag and oil/gas; the central is end-stage, declining suburbia with a heavy concentration of immigrants and first generation working class) but it's winnable. Morgan Carroll was a great D candidate for it. She just got outspent, and came very close.

Would being personally against abortion but supporting pro-choice policies have helped her? Not here, not that much. (Colorado already went through a lot of these wars, long before others did, and we have laws that reflect this, like deep, impervious bubbles around all medical facilities -- so if you want to protest a dentist, you still have to obey the bubble law -- and we don't do the TRAP and surgical restrictions. Those have been shot down whenever ALEC tries.)

What about WV1? I don't know. Since WV is so gerrymandered (no compact nor contiguous anywhere near those districts) it's going to be messy. Being personally against abortion but pro-choice on policy is a nuanced statement. When a constituency is enraged, nuance is not necessarily the best option, so it's probably not in a WV1 candidate's best interest to be trying to engage in complex thought on human rights when that constituency is sharpening pitch forks and winding torches.

In my district, an anti-choice Dem wouldn't make it to exploratory committee. In my senate races, there's a potential, and depending on other positions, they could make that argument, but they'd have a tough race. I'm willing to listen at the exploratory/primary level -- as a woman, as a reproductive rights advocate, as a fundraiser -- but they're going to have to talk about deep policy with intelligence and nuance, and they'll have to talk hard about how they can square my human rights with their personal moral stance. And that will be tough.

So I can see how the DCCC can make their argument. But they're not getting my money. I have local circuses and local monkeys who need bananas and peanuts.