This is a really good ad from MoveOn.org and NARAL setting the record straight on congressman and Colorado GOP Senate nominee Cory Gardner's claim to be history's greatest champion of the birth control pill:
GARDNER (from last week's ad): The difference between me and Mark Udall on contraception?
VOICEOVER: There's a big difference. What Cory Gardner doesn't tell you in that ad: Last year, Gardner sponsored a federal 'personhood' bill that could outlaw 'some of the most effective and reliable forms of contraception.' [Citation: The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.]
And Gardner's new plan could cost women $600 a year in out of pocket medical costs.
GARDNER: And that's a big difference.
VOICEOVER: It sure is.
Gardner's ad tried to claim that he was more supportive of contraception than Democratic Senator Mark Udall because he favors making the pill available over the counter, but as the ad points out, that would also mean insurance companies would no longer have to cover it—which makes Gardner's position appealing to some on the right.
Moreover, no matter what his position is on contraception, Gardner has been and remains a hardline opponent of reproductive freedom. He supports banning all abortion, a position that is so extreme in Colorado that he'd rather talk about the birth control pill than defend his anti-choice views.
Perhaps most importantly, it's impossible to take anything Gardner says on this topic seriously. When he announced earlier this year that he had changed his mind about his 2010 support for a "personhood" amendment to Colorado's state constitution, he did so while leaving his name as a co-sponsor of federal legislation to do the same thing that he claimed he opposed. He co-sponsored that legislation in the summer of 2013, and is still co-sponsoring it to this very day.
The reason for Gardner's hot air is obvious: Right-wing social engineering (to borrow a phrase from Newt Gingrich, shudder) doesn't play statewide in Colorado, so in service to his ambition to be a U.S. senator, Gardner tried to reposition himself with an election year conversion. But while he can try to dodge and cover up his extremely conservative record on social issues, he can't erase the facts, and the facts are that up until it became a political liability, Cory Gardner proudly presented himself as a right-wing culture warrior time and time again. And if he gets elected to a six-year term in the Senate, it's pretty obvious what to expect from him.