Yesterday evening when I was driving home I was listening to Erick Erickson, who replaced Herman Cain on the 7-10 p.m. EST slot back in February, speaking about a strong pro-life activist named Ellen McCormack who ran for president as a Democrat in 1976. I don't believe I knew anything about her until I heard Erickson speak about her death yesterday evening on WBS Radio in Atlanta, Georgia. After reading a little about her, I felt it would be appropriate to cap off Women's History Month for 2011 honoring a great pro-life activist who ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1976, to no avail. However, it was refreshing to hear a pro-life Democrat running for president over 35 years ago. Today any Democrat that receives the nomination for president today must support the abortion agenda. Democrats today are supported by pro-abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood and liberal women's activist groups such as Feminist Majority and NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League). The information about Ellen McCormack comes from New York Times (March 29, 2011).
Ellen McCormack, a self-described housewife and grandmother who ran for president as an anti-abortion candidate in 1976 and 1980, did well enough to become the first woman to qualify as a candidate for federal financing and Secret Service protection. She died Sunday in Avon, Connecticut from congestive heart failure. She was 84.
She initially ran for the presidency to help focus national attention on abortion after the 1973 Supreme Court decision granting women the right to the horrid procedure. Her television commercials, partially paid for with federal campaign money, attacked abortion as the equivalent of murder. In a 2007 column on the Web site Eagle Forum, Phyllis Schlafly, long a national leader in the fight against abortion, said Mrs. McCormack had played "a major role in the pro-life movement." "Her leadership," Mrs. Schlafly added, "enabled the then-young pro-life movement to flex its muscles and demonstrate political courage, determination and perseverance." In 1976, Mrs. McCormack, who ran as a Democrat and campaigned almost solely on the abortion issue, raised a total of $525,580 in contributions of $250 or less from 20 states. As a result, that made her eligible for $247,220.37 in federal matching money for the primaries. The money went mainly for anti-abortion television commercials. Mrs. McCormack won 238,000 votes in 18 Democratic primaries, and 22 delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention.
Her success prompted criticism that she had misused amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 that mandated matching money for presidential candidates. Critics said the amendments, adopted in 1974, were never meant to finance single-issue campaigns. Congress responded in March 1976 by requiring a candidate for a presidential nomination to receive more than 10 percent of the vote in two consecutive primaries to qualify for matching money. Mrs. McCormack responded in 1980 by running as the presidential candidate of the Right to Life Party, qualifying for the ballot in Kentucky, New Jersey and New York and winning more than 32,000 votes. This time, she didn't apply nor was she eligible for matching funds.
Eleanor Rose Cullen (Ellen) was born in Manhattan on September 15, 1926. In her early 20's she married Francis McCormack, who became a deputy inspector in the New York Police Department. He died in 1993. The couple lived in Merrick, on Long Island, where Mrs. McCormack, a Roman Catholic, focused on the abortion issue when the procedure was legalized in the state of New York in 1970. In an interview with The New York Times in 1976, she stated she saw slides of unborn children at the time and "was convinced it was a human life being taken." Her political involvement began with her book discussion group and progressed to membership in the Pro-Life Action Committee.
She never did become a household name. Newsweek reported that not even her next-door neighbor knew she was running for president. She had never held office in a local PTA. "We thought our legislators would take care of it," she said of the abortion issue in an interview with The Times in 1978. "But they didn't. We found very early that it's in politics that the big decisions are made. So we decided to run our own candidates." Mrs. McCormack did take positions on other issues as she traveled the nation. She favored Soviet-American detente, opposed busing to integrate schools and said neither Israel nor Egypt should be sold American arms.
She also made a strong pitch for her view of traditional values. "The feminists have convinced politicians they represent all women," she told The Times in 1976. "But I am a woman, too. I differ with some of their beliefs. I believe in child care for the poor, but I don't favor child care for the middle class. I think we are teaching working mothers it is more prestigious to work than to be home with their children.
In 1976, Mrs. McCormack emphasized that she was fighting for bus drivers and janitors and continued to run her household despite her hectic campaign schedule. Her husband underscored the point in an interview with Newsweek, saying, "We need more ordinary people like my wife running for president."
No comments:
Post a Comment