When formulating their battle strategies, the leaders of the Democratic Party should ask themselves a simple question: if the circumstances were reversed, what would the Republicans do?
Case in point: Conservative interest groups filed suits on Tuesday to stop the creation of the stem cell research institute that California voters approved in November. The suits aim to invalidate the proposition through minor technicalities.
What would the Republicans do if liberal groups filed suits to stop an initiative that had been approved by an overwhelming 59% of voters?
And, with the terms reversed, that’s how Democrats should be speaking about these efforts to block the stem cell institute.
As a type-1 diabetic, this issue is extremely important to me–stem cell research holds out the best possibility for a cure, and I’m tired of seeing the issue co-opted by religious nuts who don’t even have a grasp of the issues involved. Many people, for instance, don’t seem to realize that if they weren’t used for stem-cell research, the embryos involved would be discarded by the clinics that use them for in-vitro fertilizaton. As the parents of Katie Zucker, a fellow diabetic, put it:
And defending the will of the people in California shouldn’t be a difficult decision for Democrats, either.
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