Two high-profile politicians are wisely backpedaling from two extreme positions.
Their reversals are smart moves politically, yet we still don’t know why they staked out such fringe positions to begin with — political convenience or ignorance of the issues — and we’re not sure which is worse.
First, Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck now says he’ll vote against Amendment 62, known as the “personhood amendment.” He originally pledged his support for the controversial amendment that grants legal rights to embryos and, according to attack ads from his opponent, would ban “common forms of birth control.”
It’s an extreme measure that Coloradans ought to reject. Republican Bob Schaffer, who’s pro-life, came out against a nearly identical amendment in 2008 when he was running for the Senate.
Yet Buck likely scored some political points in his GOP primary against Jane Norton by coming out in favor of the measure since Norton also was in favor of it. But now Buck has to win over those more moderate and independent voters who cast ballots in general elections, and he suddenly finds himself backtracking. Over the weekend, he said he would vote against it, but now he’s saying he won’t take a position on it.
He claims he didn’t understand until recently that passage of the amendment would likely outlaw some common contraceptive methods, like the IUD or birth control pills that can reduce the chances of implantation for a fertilized egg.
We’re left to believe that Buck, the Weld County district attorney, wasn’t paying attention in 2008 when voters soundly rejected a measure that would have guaranteed constitutional protections to “any human being from the moment of conception.”
Buck also has since backed off on his statements that he would introduce a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, although he still would support such a ban. He also now says he would be willing to vote to confirm pro-choice judicial nominees, even though he earlier claimed he would never confirm “pro-abortion” candidates for any government job, including judgeships.
His jog to the middle of the spectrum has, it seems, left him parsing words like “pro-choice” versus “pro-abortion.”
And let’s not forget Tom Tancredo, the highest-profile politician to endorse the “Ugly 3” — Amendments 60 and 61 and Proposition 101. He is now distancing himself from the measures.
Either he never bothered to read them before endorsing them, which is troubling since he wants to govern the state, or he was trying to score some quick political points with the far right. He now says that after studying them more closely, “there are certain aspects I’m concerned about.
“I don’t know if I will support them or not,” he was quoted by The Colorado Independent as saying.
There are plenty of aspects to be concerned about in regard to these three measures. Tancredo accurately acknowledges that voter anger with government is why the proposals are on the ballot, but he should also acknowledge that they go too far if he wants to be taken seriously as a candidate.
