Wow, it looks like Colorado Republican Bob Beauprez, who is running to be the state's governor, has completely reversed his position on abortion, and birth control, and "personhood" and all the rest of it! This is big news!
That or he's lying, of course.
In an interview aired Wednesday on Colorado Public Radio, Beauprez, a former congressman, struck a decidedly pro-choice note when asked about abortion and birth control. He said he would not stand in the way of women having access to abortions, nor would he interfere with women choosing what kind of birth control to use. "I respect people's opinion, women's right to that choice," he said. He later added, "I don't want to run somebody else's family and make decisions for their family, their life; I want them to have the opportunity and the freedom to do that themselves."
Yes, to listen to Bob Beauprez he is now reformed. He cosponsored a "personhood" amendment in 2005; now he's saying he respects other people's opinions. He was proudly bragging of his hardline anti-abortion, anti-birth-control stances as recently as a few weeks ago; now he's completely changed his mind. It's either that or a candidate for high office in America can go to different venues and boldly lie about their opinions, their stances and their past records, but that doesn't seem right.
So it might be funnier to take the hard-right pro-personhood anti-birth-control Bob Beauprez at his word, and presume he has completely changed his mind on all of this and is now on the pro-choice side of the fence. He's ditched you, conservative anti-abortion activists! He hath denied you! If he gets in office there will be birth control for everybody! You've spent all this time working for him, and what did you get? Him telling NPR he wants nothing to do with you! Ah ha ha ha, his plan worked perfectly!
So I guess this is the end of the Bob Beauprez campaign for the gubernatorial position in Colorado. He's not trusted by Democrats because c'mon, we're not that stupid, and now the conservative base can't vote for him because he said flat-out on the radio that he "wouldn't stand in the way of people having access to" abortions or birth control, a complete reversal of his actual record on that thing. He's done for.
Then again he might come out tomorrow and say something completely different. A man would never lie about something as important as whether they were going to enforce their deeply held religious beliefs on the entire rest of the population, but politicians have been known to change their minds on things twenty times in the same day, depending on who's asking.
Daily Kos has endorsed Colorado Secretary of State candidate Joe Neguse. Click here and chip in $3 to his campaign.
Defeat Mitch McConnell in just two hours. Sign up to make GOTV calls to Democrats.
As a short side note, Beauprez seems to be plagiarizing a bit from fellow Republican Cory Gardner's approach. When confronted on his past cosponsorship of "personhood"-based restrictions on abortion and birth control, Gardner simply insists it never happened, no matter how many reporters
point out that it most certainly did. Colorado is frequently referred to as the Mile High state; perhaps the altitude renders the memory fuzzy, or perhaps Republicans this year are all far too potted up on the pot to recall any of the things they said before, say, last week. Take your pick.