Washington, DC — In what may be the most interesting asterisk to what promises to be the most interesting Presidential election year in decades, an independent candidate entered the race today. This new candidacy is not that of the typical, well, oddball independent. In this case, it’s a well-known former member of Congress.
Former Sen. Thomas Franklin Lincoln, a Minnesota Democrat, announced today that he will run for President as an independent. The wrinkle in the picture is that Lincoln presents himself as that perhaps rarest of political bird: the prolife liberal.
Speaking today, on the 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in America, Lincoln was among friends. He was the keynote speaker at a Washington rally held by Prolife Progress, a network of self-described prolife progressives. The rally preceded the annual March for Life abortion protest on the Washington Mall. His announcement was met with enthusiasm from his audience of about 100. While organizers professed surprise at the announcement, they also indicated some apprehension about his candidacy.
A politician with three decades of experience in Washington, Lincoln was always known as a liberal. Coming to Congress in the late 1960s, he quickly became a vocal critic of the Vietnam War and a reliable vote for civil rights legislation. The Roman Catholic legislator’s opposition to abortion became well known as well, although it was also sometimes muted. His voting record was consistently criticized by pro-choice organizations, but he tended not to be vocal in his opposition, so he was rarely praised by prolife groups, a situation he has suggested is partly due to those groups’ unwillingness to accept Democrats, as he characterized it.
Lincoln was ousted from his Senate seat after three terms in 2002, following his vote against authorizing the Iraq War. While Lincoln has pointed to the attacks on him for this vote as the primary cause of his defeat, he has commented that he saw a softening of his Democratic support over time. He said he believed this was due to his prolife positions because his other Democratic credentials were unblemished. He believes he was caught in a perfect storm of losing Democratic voters at a time when Republicans accused him of a lack of patriotism.
After today’s announcement, Lincoln and the rest of the audience joined the thousands in the March for Life. Prolife Progress officials had warned their audience that their presence hasn’t always been welcomed in the March. In fact, they said, some March organizers had suggested in the past that they not carry signs indicating their liberal orientation, prolife notwithstanding.
Nonetheless, the group carried their banners, as did some Lincoln supporters who found time to hand make posters. “Lincoln for President,” “Lincoln for Life,” and “Prez4Life” signs surrounded the newly minted candidate as he made his way through monumental Washington.
After the March, Lincoln indicated that it had been a “peaceful and energizing” experience. He said his group received some “boos and cheers,” but he felt that many in the crowd respected both the Prolife Progress marchers as well as his nascent candidacy.
“There are more people in this crowd who are concerned about poverty and war and education than the mainstream media let on,” Lincoln said to a reporter during the March. “Prolifers aren’t as monolithic or, for that matter, as monolobal as some in the country want to think. It may be easier to paint people according to a single position and ascribe all kinds of other thoughts to them, but the easy way of thinking about people and politics is usually wrong. You’ll see a surprising level of interest in my candidacy and what I represent among a group like this–and a lot of other people as well.”
During his speech, Lincoln gave the generalities of what might become a stump speech: “I support life from womb to tomb. That means much more than just opposing abortion, although it starts there. It means providing a positive environment for all people, a positive reason for women to carry children to term and give birth. It means healthcare, before and after birth, for the child as well as the mother. It means serious efforts to address poverty across the country, which means major investments in our country’s infrastructure, from inner city streets to rural bridges, from rundown schools to rundown, overworked, and underpaid teachers. We can’t lament test scores when children are afraid to walk to school on violent streets. It means a commitment to focusing on hunger and nutrition. It means recognizing that what we’ve done to the planet has an impact on life–recognizing that fact and doing something about it. It means good working conditions and a living wage for people across the board—you can’t be prolife and see human beings—in America or in third world sweatshops—as cogs in a corporate machine, as means to a bottom line ends. It means looking at the root causes of violence in our country. It means an end to exporting that violence to poor countries on the other side of the globe. It means respecting sovereignty of nations and of people. It means seeing war as a last resort and admitting that war is a failure of diplomacy, policy, and moral imagination. And it means respecting the people who choose to serve their country, respecting their sacrifices and those of their families back home, and remembering them when they come home. It means ensuring the dignity of older Americans and not consigning them to poverty and misery because of unaffordable healthcare and prescriptions. It means respect for life, respect for the living, so that life for all is worth living.”
Organizers of the Prolife Progress rally expressed surprise that Lincoln made the announcement in this venue. He’d been invited to speak as an inspiring prolife Democrat who would motivate the group before the March. “It certainly has brought more attention to our organization and our cause, but we had no idea it was coming,” said executive Linda Smart. “We really haven’t had time to evaluate it.”
A guest who asked not to be named demurred. “I don’t know if this is good for us,” she said of the 78-year-old Lincoln’s candidacy. “Is it good for progressives to put forward another white man telling American women not to have abortions? Prolife liberals—prolife Democrats—are made up of many women, and I think it might have served us better if our first candidate had been a woman.” Then she added, “But then again, he’s well known, and he’s willing, and he’ll get some attention, and we frankly don’t have a lot of prolife women with those credentials.”
Another prominent guest who also spoke on condition of anonymity added doubts, “I respect all that Sen. Lincoln has done for the country and the Democratic Party, but at this time, when the Party has a real chance to reclaim the Presidency and maintain Congress, his candidacy could complicate things.” When asked if this sentiment revealed differences of priorities, the guest rejected the suggestion, “Not at all. Politics is about looking at hundreds of issues at the same time. They may not all be of the same importance, but many impact many others. In the country as it is now, we need to change the market for abortion by lowering demand. You do that by establishing social conditions though social policy that make having children less of a burden that it’s gotten to be. And when you change those conditions, you also make many other changes, including reducing abortions. I’m not saying that Lincoln’s candidacy jeopardizes that by possibly siphoning votes from the Democratic nominee, or even that his campaign will last until the election, but it may become a distraction that we don’t need.”
Contacted for comment after Lincoln’s announcement, Richard Cleveland, director of Ban Abortion Now, a national anti-abortion organization, said, “Lincoln was mostly a reliable vote for prolife legislation, but he supported campaign finance reform, which threatens the voice of organizations like ours. In addition, he’s been wishy-washy on issues about abortion and contraception. He also consistently voted to approve pro-abortion judges and other appointees and opposed prolife nominees. I’m no more excited about his candidacy than about Rudy Giuliani’s.”
After the March, Lincoln noted that he had spent the past several weeks discussing his possible run with previous supporters and other operatives. “They were generally positive, but I can’t say I got many promises of public support. My friends are Democrats—as am I—and let’s face it, there’s a stigma in the Party if you’re prolife. Some of these people want a future in the Party, so they’ll have to make a decision whether to come forward publicly and support me. If they don’t, I won’t hold it against them. But I had to make a decision too, and I thought it was time to step up and speak my mind.”
With that, he walked away, saying he was in the market for a staff.