My violin weeps for Bart Stupak. He went from the U.S.’s most important Congressman to irrelevant. He went to a publication that has only the Democratic party’s best interest in mind, the National Review Online to have a pity party complain:
Sitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. “They’re ignoring me,” he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. “That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue.”
According to Stupak, that group of twelve pro-life House Democrats — the “Stupak dozen” — has privately agreed for months to vote ‘no’ on the Senate’s health-care bill if federal funding for abortion is included in the final legislative language. Now, in the debate’s final hours, Stupak says the other eleven are coming under “enormous” political pressure from both the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “I am a definite ‘no’ vote,” he says. “I didn’t cave. The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions.”
Stupak was not going to get what he wanted – which was to outlaw abortion. He should be happy, the Hyde Amendment is now going to be further codified into law and poor women are going to have trouble obtaining abortions. Stupak overplayed his hand by his continuing lies about the bill – lies so blatant that even mainstream news organizations like ABC ran pieces about how he’s lying.
Stupak should be a lesson for other Democrats – being a blockade to the Democrat’s top legislative priority does not end well for you. Now there’s lots of questions about Stupak’s connections to the Family and his residence at the Cheat Street House. He’s even attracted a primary opponent who is having great success with fundraising, Connie Saltonstall.