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September 23, 2022 12:34 PM UTC

Joe O'Dea Hammered on Abortion, Gun Control

  • 20 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Back in August, Republican Senate candidate Joe O’Dea made a catastrophic strategic error on the issue of abortion rights that was sure to be used by opponents in a slew of advertisements.

And here they come.

As we wrote in August, O’Dea’s admission that he voted for Proposition 115 in 2020 — an abortion ban that was rejected by 59% of Colorado voters — was likely the nail in his electoral coffin on an issue that has surged to the top of mind for many voters in 2022. A new television ad from a PAC called “53 Peaks” is using O’Dea’s vote on Prop. 115 to hammer him on abortion rights:

But it’s not just abortion rights where O’Dea is getting crushed. As The Colorado Sun reports:

Giffords PAC, the national organization pushing for tougher gun regulations, is running ads attacking O’Dea on gun policy…

…The 30-second Giffords PAC ad, which hits the airwaves Friday, features scenes from the mass shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, an Aurora movie theater and a Boulder King Soopers and blasts O’Dea for opposing “common-sense” firearm reforms like “closing loopholes and keeping guns away from criminals.”

O’Dea opposed the bipartisan gun regulation bill passed by Congress earlier this year and signed into law by President Joe Biden. “We’ve got plenty of laws on the books already,” he said during a Colorado Sun primary debate in June.

Here’s the Giffords ad:

 

O’Dea lags well behind incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet in candidate fundraising, and with no real national support expected in Colorado for the Republican candidate, there’s not going to be much O’Dea can do other than sit there and get punched in the face over and over and over again.

Polling data shows that O’Dea is trailing Bennet by double digits. That might have been O’Dea’s high-water mark when all is said and done.

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20 thoughts on “Joe O’Dea Hammered on Abortion, Gun Control”

    1. "Kyle Clark asking what Dem bill in the last 2 years he’d vote for"

      The infrastructure bill. The same bill that Mitch McConnell voted for. He can vote for Dem bills provided the leader gives him permission.

  2. Dems need to counter O’Dea’s narrrative ( on MTP here)  rhat Fentanyl overdoses in Colorado are due to cartels going through an “open border”, and lax drug enforcement. 

    According to the CCRJ, the best ways to curb Fentanyl overdose deaths are

    • Increase access to Naloxone, which reverses opioid overdoses and saves lives.
    • Strategically focus federal stimulus dollars towards drug prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery services that have been proven to save people’s lives, including treatment on demand.

    Joe O’Dea doesn’t support any of these public health measures. He wants to keep promoting Trumpian racist “ border security” tropes instead. 

    1. The Fentanyl problem is less a result of the so-called border crisis and more the result of J.D. Vance’s (former?) client, Purdue Pharma.

      But why let a little detail like that get in the way of a nice xenophobic rant.

      1. How would selling Fentanyl over the counter fix anything?

        It’s an inherently dangerous, cheap, and highly narcotic drug, and use should be limited to prescriptions for severe pain ( as for terminal cancer treatment), when the narcotic and addictive effects don’t matter as much. 

        1. It would avoid all the overdoses and deaths from people taking much more than they thought they were taking. Yes some people would still overdose. But many would limit it to a known amount that gives them the high without the death.

          We let people smoke cigarettes. We let them drink themselves to death. We let them ride motorcycles without helmets. Why do we outlaw this one vice?

          1. Making something easier to obtain over the counter would do nothing to limit the fentanyl already mixed in with every street drug to make it more potent. It might hurt the cartels' import business some, but not much, as fentanyl is also cheap and easy to manufacture.

            People were making opioids and meth from over-the -counter cough syrup and cold remedies. OTC fentanyl would meet the same fate.

            Usually, I'm all for legalization, as with cannabis products. But fentanyl kills even in minute doses.

            graphic from CU Boulder " 5 things to know about Fentanyl"

            Increase options and accessibility for treatment and emergency overdose Naloxone. That's the better solution, as CCRJ says.

              1. Pettersen proposed similar “harm reduction” and safe injection sites in Jeffco, and Republicans lost their minds over it. 

                So we have no harm reduction, nor safe injection sites in the Denver metro area. Lots of addicts; lots of overdose deaths; but very little compassionate or appropriate care for sufferers.

                1. I think we agree. Criminalizing drug use is looking at the problem from the wrong end of the telescope.  The money spent on enforcement and incarceration with the cost to both society and individuals is a complete waste.

                  We should license the manufacture and distribution of drugs, ensuring consistency and labeling of potency, with safe injection sites and addiction treatment services funded with what today goes to police, judicial and incarceration budgets to lock up end users.

                  Stopping unlicensed manufacture and distribution (like with cannabis today) would then be the focus of enforcement spending.

    1. I tripped over a reference to a CATO Institute paper on fentanyl that was interesting:

      Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers

      It is monstrous that tens of thousands of people are dying unnecessarily every year from fentanyl. But banning asylum and limiting travel backfired. Reducing deaths requires figuring out the cause, not jumping to blame a group that is not responsible. Instead of attacking immigrants, policymakers should focus on effective solutions that help people at risk of a fentanyl overdose….

      My colleagues have been warning for many years that doubling down on these failed prohibition policies will lead to even worse outcomes, and unfortunately, time has repeatedly proven them correct. The only appropriate response to the opioid epidemic is treatment of addiction. But for this to be possible, the government must adopt policies that facilitate treatment and reduce the harms from addiction—most importantly deaths. To develop these policies, policymakers need to ignore the calls to blame foreigners for our problems.

       

      1. That’s an informative article. Too bad Chuck Todd didn’t confront O’Dea on MtP with the fact that 86% of fentanyl smugglers are US citizens, when Odear was blathering about how “they” are killing “our kids” because of open borders.

    2. "If you get pregnant, you have five months to fix things"

      And if the senior senator from South Carolina has it her way, if you get pregnant, you won't even have four months to fix things. After that, your sorry ass belongs to Lady G. 

      1. This was my comment from early last week. I’m still right:

        What Graham knows about women’s bodies and pregnancy could be dropped painlessly into his eye. The earliest testing can begin for serious anomalies is 15 weeks.

        And Lady G. wouldn’t know what to do with my parts or any other woman’s.

        From ACOG on testing for fetal abnormalities: 

        Second-trimester screening includes the following tests:

        The “quad” or “quadruple” blood test measures the levels of four different substances in your blood. The quad test screens for Down syndrome, Edwards syndrome (trisomy 18), and NTDs (Neural tube defects i.e.Spina bifida, anencephaly, micrencephaly). It is done between 15 and 22 weeks of pregnancy.

        An ultrasound exam done between 18 and 22 weeks of pregnancy checks for major physical defects in the brain and spine, facial features, abdomen, heart, and limbs.

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