This, from the Omaya mayoral candidate Bernie's being hammered for supporting:

[Ken Burch]

“While my faith guides my personal views, as mayor I would never do anything to restrict access to reproductive health care,” Mello said in the statement.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10028967293

So no...Bernie did NOT endorse an "anti-choice" candidate. And he did NOT say social issues should matter less than economic issues.

[RedWedge]

1. It's convenient that he has that view as mayor, since he certainly didn't as state senator.

[Ken Burch]

2. Hillary had different views as Senator than those she expressed as first lady

Kirsten Gillibrand had different views as a congressmember than she did as a senator.

Btw...is there a candidate in the Omaha mayor's race who you would consider pro-choice?

And does the name "Tim Kaine" rings a bell?

[RedWedge]

8. There's evolving, and then there's saying you won't take anti-choice action when it's not likely

to come up.

Believe me, I'm very familiar with compromise. But I'm not a fan of calling things "progressive" when they aren't, and I'm certainly not a fan of any cult of personality.

[Ken Burch]

10. I wish Mello had always been pro-choice.

But how would the pro-choice cause have been served by Bernie or anybody else refusing to support this guy because he USED to be anti-choice? I could see the argument if there was a pro-choice candidate Mello was running against, but the only other candidate is a right-wing neanderthal

People are acting like Bernie supported a pro-lifer AGAINST a pro-choice candidate...that's not the situation here.

[Eko]

11. Because

It just seems pretty odd to some of us around here when a group just hammers, I mean hammers a politicians previous votes without taking into account their current views to gain political power and then does the same thing later and is insulted when called out about it. That is called something, I'm sure there is a word for it somewhere. I keep seeing the same arguments used by one group that was used against them earlier and now they are fine with it. Purity!, Purity! and now Pragmatism! Pragmatism! It would be hilarious if it didn't help us end up where we are now.

[VigilantG]

3. Thank you Ken Burch!

[cheapdate]

4. I've heard it suggested by some and seconded by others that Sander's remarks

amounted to a proclamation that all work on civil rights must be abandoned.

That's not how I interpret the situation.

[Ken Burch]

5. Bernie, whatever else you can say about him, has never said that ANY work for civil rights

should be abandoned, or even diminished.

And Bernie won't even be running again in 2020, so why keep attacking the guy at all?

We have nothing to gain as a party from driving his supporters away.

[cheapdate]

6. No argument from me.

We need everyone. We need coalition. We need solidarity even while we don't agree on everything.

We need the rural and the urban voters.

The "left" without the "center", or the "center" without the "left" is an ironclad guarantee of conservative, Republican power.

[SirBrockington]

7. Third Bernie thread in last 10 Ken Burch

The Primary is over

[Ken Burch]

9. There's a difference betwee defending someone against false attack

and refighting the primaries.

I campaigned hard for Hillary all fall.

All I'm doing here is defending a good person from a smear.

[ProfessorPlum]

12. and doing it well. Thank you

[ProfessorPlum]

13. we have to watch out for alternative facts about progressives and Democrats, too

thank you for doing it.