It's been something of a mixed bag semi-election day for women in this country who also happen to hold progressive or liberal political views. While the Republicans were handed some pretty tough defeats, women were handed some defeats as well -- sometimes in the same stroke.

Tim Kaine wins the Virginia governor race. Hooray for Democrats. But Tim Kaine is an anti-choice Democrat -- which, with the Alito-wielded axe threatening to drop on Roe in the coming months, suddenly is very important shit indeed.

--And we get the Washington Post declaring that this --THIS -- is the "new model" to which to aspire.

"I think this is an interesting test case for Democrats to see if you can run a faith-based campaign focused on values and do so as a progressive candidate in a Southern state," Rozell said.

It worked, Rozell said, because of Kaine's frequent mentions that he served as a missionary in Honduras while in law school and his familiarity with the language of religion. "It did not come off as calculated," he said.

So while it's promising that people aren't sucking up more smoke from the radical right, it's not an unqualified victory day by any means.

Now it's worth noting that, while anti-gay marriage efforts are still garnering much deserved attention in the blogosphere, precious little attention is paid to Governor-elect Kaine's views against women's reproductive rights.

Or it gets this kind of attention:

The presumption is that Alito is primed to rule against Roe. Whether he would or wouldn’t, the Democrats are prepared to oppose him.

But what if they did something utterly unpredictable? What if the Democrats simply decided to walk away from this particular battle, a tactical retreat that no Republican in their right mind (pun intended) expects? What if, yes, the Democrats decided that to let those proverbial chips fall where they may, and allow for the possibility that the Supreme Court just might overturn Roe and declare that there is no constitutional right to abortion.

The Democrats would be far better off.

That is, except for the female Democrats (and female Republicans and independents and Greens and....).

To begin with, let’s once again lay to rest a popular canard: overturning Roe would not, repeat would not, make abortion illegal. That simple truth ain’t so simple. In fact, if you stopped ten people on the streets of New York and Los Angeles, where it’s fair to say support for Roe runs high, high, high, seven, eight, or even nine would say that if Supremes overturn Roe, we’re back to the days of dark alleys and wire hangers.

Not true.

If Roe disappears, very little changes - at first. Roe enshrines a federal, constitutional right to privacy, which in turn bars state legislatures from passing laws making abortion illegal. Before Roe, nothing stood in the way of states making abortion legal. Post Roe, nothing would change in the Blue States.

Where this guy gets this, I don't know. Fact is that over 20 states have standing abortion bans on the books, held in limbo only by Roe.

He then goes on to the tired old argument that having to fight more vigorously for women's right to their own bodies would actually be good because it would put the Democrats on the offensive.

Unfortunately, this issue is a third rail for the left, a cow so sacred that even this mere mention of retreating on Roe triggers, shall we say, sharp reactions.

Yeah, because sacrificing women's lives in the name of cold-blooded political calculus -- especially when it's advocated by a man who will never have to face pregnancy, aborted or not -- is pretty fucking cruel.

And if you don't think it's a big deal, then I recommend you check out tonight's Frontline report (available online in full 5pm EST Wednesday) and see what Republicans and Democrats have been doing to erode women's reproductive rights and options.

At least Proposition 73 is going down in California.

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