A new ad from Planned Parenthood goes after GOP senate candidates Cory Gardner (Colorado) and Thom Tillis (North Carolina), both of whom are trying to paper over their anti-choice record by claiming to support over-the-counter availability of the birth control pill:
Here's a transcript for the ad airing in Colorado, which is backed by a
$400,000 buy (the North Carolina ad is largely the same and is backed by $500,000):
$63 a month for gas. $117 for groceries. And just when insurance is finally covering the cost of prescription birth control, Cory Gardner says no: Women should pay the $600 a year.
His plan lets insurance companies off the hook and costs Colorado families more. Independent research shows that Cory Gardner isn't being honest with us, and he's turning the bill into yet another bill.
As Joan McCarter
wrote yesterday, the Gardner-Tillis ploy doesn't have anything to do with making it easier for women to access contraception. Instead, it's a transparent gambit to distract attention from their hardline anti-choice records—
especially Gardner, who is still trying to overcome his support for a personhood amendment to Colorado's constitution, an amendment which could have criminalized some forms of contraception.
And just in case you have any doubt about whether Gardner and Tillis are engaging in a cynical political ploy instead of a sincere effort to expand women's access to reproductive heath care, check this out:
Gardner and Tillis each employ the same consulting firm, OnMessage , which also advises Bobby Jindal.
So we've got two guys who both have problems attracting women and social moderates who simultaneously try to change the subject about their records by embracing the exact same policy on contraception ... and they share the same political consultants. Clearly, the consultant had the "epiphany"—not the other way around. Gardner and Tillis aren't trying to address a problem of substance: They're trying to address a problem they have with getting elected.