Too late! Arizonians already know exactly where Blake Masters stands on treating women as 2nd Class Americans. Hell! Blake Masters even looks like one of those control freak TV preachers.
By Allan Smith and Marc Caputo
Arizona Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters softened his tone and scrubbed his website's policy page of tough abortion restrictions Thursday as his party reels from the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
In an ad posted to Twitter on Thursday, Masters sought to portray his opponent, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, as the extremist on the issue while describing his own views as "commonsense."
"Look, I support a ban on very late-term and partial-birth abortion," he said. "And most Americans agree with that. That would just put us on par with other civilized nations." (Late-term abortions are extremely rare, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracker.)
Just after it released the ad, Masters' campaign published an overhaul of his website and softened his rhetoric, rewriting or erasing five of his six positions. NBC News took screenshots of the website before and after it was changed. Masters' website appeared to have been refreshed after NBC News reached out for clarification about his abortion stances.
"I am 100% pro-life," Masters' website read as of Thursday morning.
That language is now gone.
I’ve also seen the Republican Senate nominee in my state of Washington, Tiffany Smiley’s new ad tries to back away from a rigidly absolutist stance, and now saying she opposes a nationwide strict abortion ban.
Republican campaign consultants must be sounding a retreat on abortion, after watching Pat Ryan’s stunning defeat of Republican Marc Molinaro, when Ryan made access to abortion the centerpiece of his campaign. But I doubt a tactical retreat means Blake Masters or Tiffany Smiley’s views on abortion have altered at all. They just cynically want those views to fly under the radar until they can get elected.