Amy:

Mark, I would be happy to discuss with you the extent to which the
Democratic Party has been tone-deaf on the issue of abortion, has
often made pro-life voters feel unwelcome, and has created a political
environment in which Democratic politicians sometimes feel pressured
to shift their public positions in order to be viable for national
office.

But your assertion that abortion is "the national party's number one
issue, the position it fights hardest for" is absurd. The proof is
that Bob Casey was not allowed to speak at the 1992 Convention? It's
true that he was kept off the stage and that was a mistake because it
projected an (inaccurate) image of a Democratic Party that is
pro-abortion. But the number one issue of the Democratic Party that
year was economics. You've listed several other instances of Democrats
going out of their way to alienate pro-life individuals within their
own party, but those are evidence only of ignorance on the part of
national Democrats--one-third of their voters are already pro-life.

Both parties have too often treated abortion as a binary issue--pick a
label, pick a side, you're either with us or against us--when that is
not at all the way Americans think about it. Public opinion polls show
time and again that even many of those who believe abortion is murder
don't think it should be illegal. People are remarkably capable of
holding two seemingly inconsistent beliefs in tandem and yet our
politics assumes that they must choose.

Mark:

Amy, it's true, neither party adheres to communitarianism. And Barack Obama's
speeches embody the Christian humanist vision. But I think you miss
the depth and scope of the Democratic Party's commitment to identity
politics.

For millions of Americans, the problem is not Obama's rhetoric or that of
Hillary Clinton; it's the reality. Each believes that the government should
stay out of the business of protecting a whole class of human beings. In
fact, Senator Obama opposes legal protection for unborn infants even after
they have survived an abortion attempt. Good grief. On this issue, he is all
word and no deed.

It's tempting to think that the Democratic Party's commitment to abortion
rights is lightly held. Alas, the opposite is true. It's the national
party's number one issue, the position that it fights hardest for. I am
referring to the presidential wing of the party, not its congressional wing.

Just consider the recent history. In 1992 and 1996, former Governor Bob
Casey of Pennsylvania was barred from giving a pro-life speech at the
convention. In 2004, Democrats for Life of America was prevented from
linking its website to that of the Democratic National Committee. And in
2005, former Rep. Tim Roemer of Indiana, a respected member of the 9/11
Commission, lost his bid for the DNC chairmanship because of his moderate
pro-life stand.

Amy:

Mark, for the past few decades, neither political party has truly embraced a
politics of the common good. Democrats endorsed the idea that we have
economic obligations to each other--rightly focusing on corporate
responsibility and economic justice--but insisted that how we lived
our lives and the culture we contributed to was a matter of personal
choice and impacted no one but ourselves.

Republicans, on the other hand, rightly identified social
communitarianism as a concern of many Americans--the worries of
parents, for example, about the culture in which they raise their
culture--but insisted that when it came to economics, we should be
hands-off and let the good judgment of the free market reign.

Both are a far cry from a figure like William Jennings Bryan, who wove
the strands of social and economic concerns into one consistent common
good vision. That's starting to change now, however, which is why I
have to dispute your assertion that the national Democratic Party no
longer adheres to this vision. Just take a look at Barack Obama's
speeches, particularly his December 2006 address at Rick Warren's
Saddleback Church

"I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper"--that's the essence of
common good politics.

I'd argue that Mike Huckabee also represented a new kind of common
good Republican in the GOP primaries this year. He talked about the
concerns of the working class as much as he talked about traditional
culture war issues. One of his most powerful statements came when he
talked about those who criticized his position that children of
illegal immigrants should not be punished. "Some say that makes me
liberal," he said. "I think it makes me human."

Mark:

Amy, in your book, you write that the New Left represented identity politics
rather than the common good. I'm with you. Take Bobby Kennedy's speeches
from the last few years of his life. Their operating assumption was that
we are our brother's keepers. As Kennedy said in his his "Mindless Menace of
Violence" speech,

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to
find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We
must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on
the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can
neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

The problem with the national Democratic Party is that it no longer really
adheres to this communitarian vision. It's more New Left than Old Left;
more Eugene McCarthy than Bobby Kennedy. Just take the party's unwavering
commitment to legal abortion.

To millions of Americans, this represents a complete repudiation of RFK's
vision.

"What has violence ever accomplished?" Kennedy asked. The leaders of NARAL
and Planned Parenthood endorse violence as a way to achieve their ends.

"Too often we excuse those who build their own lives on the shattered dreams of
others," Kennedy stated. National Democratic leaders not only excuse but
also defend those who build their lives on the shattered dreams of unborn
infants. "We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot
be built on the misfortunes of others," Kennedy said. How can
abortion-rights leaders build their children's future on the misfortune of
unborn children?

I know, Americans support abortion in the hard cases (rape, incest,
health, and life of the mother). Even so, millions of them view the national
party's commitment to abortion as a genuine tragedy. They think that the national
party should be on the side of the least of them all, unborn children.
Their view was captured once by Eunice Kennedy Shriver: that we should change
the conditions that cause women to seek abortions, not to permit violence
against the unborn.

This view is prevalent throughout the country, especially the Midwest and South. In my book, I quote from Irmo Antonacci, a Democratic precinct captain from western Pennsylvania, who explained the old Democratic philosophy: "They were for the working man. They were trying to do things for the people."

Mark Stricherz is a contributor to GetRelgion.com and author of "Why the Democrats Are Blue: Secular Liberalism and the Decline of the People’s Party." Amy Sullivan Amy Sullivan is the nation editor at Time magazine and author of the new book "The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats Are Closing the God Gap."