At last night's Democratic Party Presidential debate, lagging far behind in the polls Presidential candidate Cory Booker made one heck of a logical leap to go to extremes on Democratic Party litmus test issues of abortion and voter suppression.
MADDOW: Governor John Bel Edwards in Louisiana is an anti-abortion governor who has signed abortion restrictions in Louisiana. Is there room for him in the Democratic Party with those politics?
[After Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders answered, Senator Booker jumped in:]
BOOKER: This is a voting issue. This is a voter suppression issue. Right here in this great state of Georgia, it was the voter suppression, particularly of African-American communities, that prevented us from having a Governor Stacey Abrams right now.
(APPLAUSE)
And that is, when you have undemocratic means, when you suppress people's votes to get elected, those are the very people you're going to come after when you're in office. And this bill, opposed by over 70 percent -- the heartbeat bill here -- opposed by over 70 percent of Georgians, is the result from voter suppression. This gets back to the issue about making sure we are fighting every single day, that whoever is the nominee, they can overcome the attempts to suppress the votes, particularly of low-income and minority voters, and particularly in the black community, like we saw here in Georgia.
There are several questions this raises.
- Since Democrat John Bel Edwards supports life and opposes abortion, is Senator Booker accusing a Democrat of being for “voter suppression”?
- Does Senator Booker realize the absurdity in his argument of abortion and voter suppression? Isn’t every abortion itself suppressing one future voter?
Besides that, Senator Booker’s statement is troubling because it attempts to suppress the votes of all those who supported Governor Kemp and undermine the legitimacy of a fairly elected public official. As RNLA Vice President for Communications Harmeet Dhillon wrote:
Abrams did not lose a close election. She lost by 54,723 votes. Compare this to Democratic Vice President Al Gore’s loss in the 2000 presidential election in Florida (537 votes), Republican Sen. Norm Coleman reelection loss in Minnesota in 2008 (312 votes), or even Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson’s loss in Florida last year (10,033 votes).
Abrams lost by a margin over four times larger than the three candidates above combined. Yet Gore, Coleman and Nelson all accepted their losses.
Abrams has never conceded – instead, she proffers wild conspiracy theories about how the election was “rigged,” even as she admits to The New York Times: “I have no empirical evidence that I would have achieved a higher number of votes.”
Circumspect public officials or those seeking such offices, regardless of party, should avoid undermining integrity in our voting process, yet Abrams and her ilk are too attached to their narrative to be deterred by reality.
Booker’s desperation does not justify statements that undermine our elections.