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September 07, 2014 12:14 PM UTC

Video: Cory Gardner's Epic Abortion Pivot Fail

  • 28 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

We've got several clips of video from yesterday's debates in Grand Junction hosted by civic engagement group Club 20 to share, but one particularly noteworthy exchange between incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall and GOP challenger Cory Gardner last night needed to get in the record right away. In this truly remarkable clip of video, Udall hammers Gardner over his longstanding support for banning abortion, including making abortion a class 3 felony–which could result in health care providers receiving harsher prison sentences for performing abortions than persons found guilty of rape.

Gardner's attempt to pivot away from this issue, as you'll see, did not go well:

UDALL: Congressman. When it comes to a woman's reproductive rights and women's health, how can women and families trust you? You voted for a class 3 felony bill that would punish doctors more than rapists, you voted against providing emergency contraception to rape victims, you supported a bill to defund Planned Parenthood. After you told the, uh, Colorado, the Fort Collins newspaper that you would not do anything of that sort. How can families and how can women trust you when it comes to staying out of their personal health care decisions?

GARDNER: Senator Udall, I look forward to growing an economy that makes sure that women have jobs in this country, the kind of jobs that they are lacking right now. I look forward to putting economic policies together that keep women in this country from struggling to make ends meet as they are under Barack Obama's failed economy. And look, I understand, I understand that you have a concern with my position, I'm pro life, and I believe every life is precious, and I understand that you do not support that policy…

UDALL: Congressman, you didn't answer my question.

GARDNER: But what I think we ought to do is recognize that women around this country deserve a growing economy.

MODERATOR: You should answer his question.

UDALL: Would you answer my question? Would you answer my question?

GARDNER: I answered your question about…

UDALL: How can women and families trust you?

GARDNER: Because I…

(Applause grows)

UDALL: Why are you getting between women and their doctors? Why are you asking, women… (unintelligible) …why should just Washington businessmen, Washington congressmen tell women what they should do?

Sen. Udall's words at the very end of the clip are tougher to understand, mostly because the raucous applause from the audience was drowning him out–please help us correct this transcript if you find any errors. But by that time, Gardner's attempt to pivot off the issue had done more than just fallen flat. Gardner revealed himself as totally unprepared to answer questions about his record on reproductive choice. Gardner's answers up to now to straightforward questions about his record are simply not backed by the facts, and Udall would have been ready for any of them.

So the only choice Gardner has is to pivot to something else. Even when doing so is disastrous all by itself.

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28 thoughts on “Video: Cory Gardner’s Epic Abortion Pivot Fail”

  1. Cory's dificulty lies in his trying to not lose contact wiht his base while trying to seem moderate. I don't see ho that can work. I wish someone would get him to flesh out his ideas on vouchers for Medicare.

    1. Dean, the poll you referred to has Udall opening a lead.  Is it because Udall is gaining on Gardner or because of who they are polling.  Here is a clue from the poll:

      REGISTERED VOTERS

      September 2014 July 2014
      Democrat     32     32
      Republican   32     37
      Independent  35     30
      Other 1 1
      Total 100 100

      Take away 5% of the Republicans you poll and you get fewer Gardner numbers.  

      2. Hey AG, Gardner is going to become a loser in November. LOL

         

        Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is maintaining his lead over Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) in Udall’s bid for reelection, according to a poll released Sunday.

        Udall garnered 48 percent of registered voters, while Gardner took 40 percent, according an NBC News / Marist poll. The remaining voters were undecided or voting for third-party candidates.

        Udall is also leading Gardner among Hispanic voters, 60 percent to 27 percent, according to the poll.

        “Right now, Udall is disrupting GOP plans to add Colorado to its victory column as they seek a Senate majority,” said Lee M. Miringoff, director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, in a statement. “To seal the deal, Udall needs to mobilize young voters and Latinos who boosted Barack Obama in his presidential wins.”

        Pollsters surveyed 1,208 likely voters between Sept. 2 through Sept. 4. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

        In May, NBC / Marist showed Udall with support from 48 percent of registered while Gardner had 41 percent. 🙂

      3. 5 % fewer registered voters in Colorado are even willing to identify as Republicans, and in just 3 months !  Keep up the good work Mr. Gardner.

  3. I was afraid to click on this thread for fear of the headache and possible seizure inducing horsie. It's really getting old. What's still relevant is that Gardner refuses to address facts about his past votes and present position on the federal personhood amendment in which there is no wording that would make it less problematic , including for birth control, than the state amendment he says he opposes. Asking him until he provides answers instead of "look over there" evasions isn't beating a dead horse. Voters have a right to hear him give direct answers to those questions and they're going to be asked until he does.

    1. Has udall ever answered the question of why he told the voters they could keep their plan and their doctors?  Was he so clueless he believed it, or did he knowlingly lie to the voters to make it less difficult to pass?

      "Asking him until he provides answers instead of "look over there" evasions isn't beating a dead horse. Voters have a right to hear him give direct answers to those questions and they're going to be asked until he does. "

      1. I wanted to keep my 65 year old doctor, but he retired.  Waaaahhhhh!   It's Udall's fault  Waaaahhhh!

        You seem to think an oversimplification — meant to fit into the 15 second attention span of the news media — about the effects of the ACA is somehow equivalent to Con Man Cory's persistent and blatant lying about his support for outlawing a woman's right to choose.

        Over 9 million people that now have health insurance where they had none before would probably beg to differ.

    2. The question for Senator #QuidProKoch should be: "how many of your constituents have coverage now that they didn't before? Coverage that ConMan has voted to repeal 50 times  And as a bonus question ask him for his rationale in his vote to gut SNAP – when his district has pockets of constituents who live in poverty rates twice the state average.  He's become as loathesome as our WIF

      1. I guess nowadays the snake oil market just isn't what it used to be back in the 19th century.  

        No wonder GOTP'ers want to turn back the clock 150 years. Of course, they'd be shattered to realize that back then cities had a "check your guns at the city limits" law, because of, well, numbskulls with guns. 

        1. MB — that comment was meant for your other regarding Gardner's internal polling showing him losing even Republican women…  The guy is too slimy even for them, I suppose 🙂

           

            1. Their core demographic is dying off, and people aren't born angry, mean, hypocritical old white men. People (for the most part) are born decent, and have to be carefully cultivated into a vile, small-minded GOTP voter.   

              Lindsay and his crew simply don't have the time to do that kind of farmin' anymore. 

  5. Very good job. And the polls seem to be showing that the more people hear from Gardner the lamer he sounds.  Not a shred of gravitas. Udall has plenty. I'm sure the visuals don't help either. Udall looks like the rugged western Senator from central casting. Gardner looks like an oily huckster. That may be superficial but you know what? In the TV age it matters so I'll take it. 

    1. I've said for some time that the more Cory campaigns the more votes he will lose.

      I first saw the TV ad with Cory at a wind farm yesterday. Great placement, just before Broncos game. Wonder where that wind farm is and if he trespassed onto it

  6. Thank you thank you Moderator Rachel Richards for saying, "You should answer the question". Clearly, this will make her some kind of progressive "activist" according to the rightwing spinners.

    Telling the truth is so much simpler. You don't have to remember what you said when to whom. So poor Cory is all tangled up in his own inventions.

    Lies  we know about:

    1. After four years of advocating for Personhood, he finally figured out that it might make some forms of birth control illegal.
    2. The Federal Personhood bill is way different than the Colorado bill, because making a law that says that life begins at conception is really different than saying a fetus is a person since conception. Even though multiple organizations say they are the same thing.
    3. Cory claims to have invented the green energy industry in Colorado, even though he has consistently blocked pathways to renewable use.
    4. He claims not to have voted to shut down the government, even though he absolutely did.
    5. He claims to care that women don't have well-paid jobs, even though, like all the House Republican caucus, he will not sign the discharge petition to allow the $10.10 Federal  minimum wage law to even come to a vote.
    6. Same thing with immigration reform. If it isn't allowed to be voted on, no one can accuse him of not supporting immigration reform. Except we do, and will.

    Which of Cory's lies do we not know about yet, that we'll find out about before the election?

    1. Dunno, MJ, but I refilled my popcorn stash today.  Entertaining.

      For AC, unless you apologize for posting a cartoon lampooning the tragic death of a journalist with more courage than you will ever have, you are worse than a troll.  You are despicable and beneath contempt.  Kindly stop dropping your excrement at this site. 

      1. 1. AC is paid to drop excrement on this site.  Morals are best left at the door to do his job.  That's today's GOP.

        2. Having one of the worst jobs in the Colorado GOP, he gets pummeled with every post, illustrating each time the depths to which his party has sunk.

        3. Projecting his own rage at being assaulted with reality leads him to ever more disgusting levels of outrageous posts. (Hey, since Bush the Idiot retired the title of Worst President EVER, the GOP has been trying to bestow that dishonor on President Obama since, oh, about 2 minutes after the inaugural.  Hasn't worked, but as with Moddy and the dead horse gif, they won't stop trying, because you know, 'back at your times a billion billion!' is all these bozos got)

        He's scum, but that's what he wants to do with his life, so if the shoe fits…

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