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June 17, 2008 05:43 PM UTC

Pro-Lifers Rip Wadhams and Schaffer

  • 19 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: Colorado Right to Life just sent us a copy of their press release dated yesterday, and we’re even mentioned. Awwww. Click below for the full release.

As the Rocky Mountain News reports:

A Colorado anti-abortion group that wasn’t allowed to set up a display table at the state Republican convention blasted party chairman Dick Wadhams on Monday, saying he is trying to drag the party “to the left.”

Colorado Right to Life President Joe Riccobono warned Republicans that by shunning their conservative base, they’re headed for “another election catastrophe in November.”

“Wadhams has moved U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer to the liberal middle and he’s trying to drag the Colorado GOP to the left,” said a news release from the organization.

Wadhams, who is Schaffer’s campaign manager, found the charge laughable.

“I’ve never been accused of being a closet liberal,” he said. “That would come as a big surprise to my Democratic friends.”

Wadhams called the organization a “very small fringe group.”

Colorado Right to Life is one of two state anti-abortion groups that have questioned Schaffer’s commitment to their movement. They accuse Schaffer of refusing to take a position on the “personhood” initiative because it might cost him votes…

Most of our astute readers know that Colorado Right to Life frequently travels off the reservation and as a result doesn’t have as much standing in Republican circles as one might think without knowing their history.

The problem for Wadhams and Senate candidate Bob Schaffer is many rank-and-file conservative Republicans have no idea that Colorado Right to Life is rightfully a bit of a pariah, and their reaction to hearing the state GOP chair refer to the organization as a “fringe group” may not be positive. In fact, it could play directly into Right to Life’s allegations about Wadhams and Schaffer, undermining what should be an inviolate base of support.

Right To Life Warns Colorado Republican Chairman

“You’re headed for another election catastrophe.”

DENVER, June 16, 2008 – “Colorado Right To Life is warning Dick Wadhams, the state Republican Party chairman, that by shunning their pro-life conservative base they’re headed for another election catastrophe in November,” said Joe Riccobono, CRTL president.

“Wadhams banned the nation’s oldest Right To Life organization from their state convention while he welcomed a radical pro-abortion group,” said CRTL vice president Leslie Hanks. “The state’s top Republican is out of touch with his own party’s base, where 4 out of 5 Republicans at the convention voted to defend life beginning at fertilization.”

The thousands of convention delegates passed all forty resolutions offered, except for the only one that failed, the pro-abortion Resolution #21. Convention rules require literature to be approved by the party chairman. Wadhams allowed the misnamed Republican Majority for Choice to distribute flyers quoting him about the Personhood Amendment 48 sponsors as “on the fringe of the pro-life movement, and they do not represent by any stretch of the imagination the hundreds of thousands of pro-life Coloradans.”

130,000 pro-lifers signed the Personhood petition. Delegates overwhelmingly passed all uncompromising pro-life resolutions including the 78% vote affirming that “life begins at conception.” 20-year-old Personhood Amendment sponsor Kristi Burton was elected among the top ten most popular of the 46 national delegates.

The Denver Post last week quoted Wadhams regarding conservative leader Dr. James Dobson’s refusal to support the Republican presidential candidate. “Dobson’s comments that he would not vote for the party’s presumptive nominee, John McCain, won’t hurt.” Further, according to the Post, Wadhams agreed that the party should “avoid social issues,” and the liberal ColoradoPols.com headlined their report about the state Republican chairman: “Wadhams: Dobson Is So Yesterday.”

“Wadhams sells out Dobson and pro-life voters in favor of pro-abortion lobbyists,” said Hanks. “Social issues have motivated Republicans in every presidential cycle since 1980.”

In sharp contrast, the ColoradoRTL.org candidate questionnaire has identified many heroic leaders running for office. “But Wadhams has moved U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer to the liberal middle, and he’s trying to drag the Colorado GOP to the left.”

“Wadhams promotion of abortion will be the straw that elects Democrat Mark Udall,” said Riccobono. Wadhams pushing the party to the left helps explain the Rocky Mountain News report that Bob Schaffer’s convention speech received, “the loudest applause… when he criticized his own party.”

In the past, Schaffer fought for protection of innocent human life from the moment of fertilization. “Now he’s allowing the party boss Dick Wadhams to position his own former pro-life belief as bad for the Colorado GOP,” said Riccobono, “so Schaffer will be blamed for their third election strike out and game over.”

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19 thoughts on “Pro-Lifers Rip Wadhams and Schaffer”

  4. Rumors are flying that Dick Wadhams may soon be replaced on the ballot with a relatively unknown candidate. Reports have indicated that this new nominee had actually once appeared on the ticket, but Wadhams had such fun clearing the field for his candidate  that he just kept going until he had cleared the field of his candidate.

    Wadhams who has run a highly visible campaign and always is available with a comment seemed a certain lock on the nomination, and with the deadline already passed it seemed like his battle against Udall would be the high profile fight of the year.

    Voters were looking forward to a series of over a thousand townhall style debates between Udall and Wadhams, but recent moves at the Secretary of States office may indicate that a ‘vacancy’ will be declared on the Repbulican side of the ballot so that a search committee can be formed to find an actual opponent to Udall.

    Reporters were unable to locate anyone other than Wadhams for comment.

  5. Schafer’s refusal to either endorse or oppose the pro-life amendment on the ballot this Fall shows that his prior openly pro-life stand will hurt him in the Senate campaign but he can’t deny he said the following on his campaign website in 2000:

    “Republicans are pro-life.  Democrats are for subsidized partial-birth abortions.”

    But of course, I forgot that Schaffer is for forced abortions so one kind of abortion is ok (forced) but others aren’t (voluntary).  Again, the press should pin Schaffer down.  He, not Mr. Wadhams, needs  to explain what his position is on the abortion issue.  By thus far refusing to answer, plus his prior statements, one is led to believe he is now a stealth candidate for the religious right.

    1. But being pro-war is the antithesis of being pro-life.  You can’t be both at the same time.  It is impossible to support killing innocents abroad as “collateral damage” while abhorring a womans right to choose her own destiny.

      You flunk ethics 101 dude.

    2. I can’t read anymore.  You were quoting someone else and I got ‘roid rage.  Anytime I see pro-life and Republican together I get indignent at such an obscene combination.

    3. Schaffer is just opposed to choice when it comes to abortion. If we reformed along the lines of old CNMI policies, Colorado factory bosses could enforce abortions lest unexpectedly pregnant workers hold up production. Schaffer’s views on abortion are strange, but they are consistent.

  6. Any chance this is all a big kabuki to moderate Sweatshop Schaffer’s image? Attacks from the far-right probably help Sweaty more than they hurt him.  

  7. The release says that

    “Delegates overwhelmingly passed all uncompromising pro-life resolutions including the 78% vote affirming that “life begins at conception.”

    Maybe I’m just being picky, but out of the 40 resolutions up for voting at the convention, 30 passed by 90% or more.  I’d consider that to be a true “overwhelming margin.”

    The “life begins at conception” resolution (which I voted for) got 77.91% of the vote-it was the lowest margin for an adopted resolution.

    Under that light, the CRL press release seems a tad misleading.

    Am I being too picky?

    http://www.cologop.org/PDF/GEM…

    http://www.cologop.org/PDF/Res…

  8.    Could we be watching some Kabuki theatre here where Sweatshop and Waddy are claiming to be moderates and have choreographed some attacked on themselves by the R-T-L’ers, thus amplifying their claims to moderates.

      Of course, if elected we all know where Bob ends up on the issue of reproductive rights.

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