According to Nate Cohn, there is little in the early voting numbers out of Colorado to provide encouragement for incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Udall’s campaign.
It would be a galling symbol of Democratic misfortune this cycle if Colorado turned out to be where the Democratic turnout machine most obviously fell short of its lofty goals.
At the moment, it looks as if that might happen. The so-called Bannock Street Project, named after a Denver street where Michael Bennet’s Senate campaign had its headquarters in 2010, will need to pull off a remarkable turnout feat over the next few days to give Mark Udall, the Democratic candidate, a shot at winning.
This is more disturbing than the actual polling which has bounced around all over the place in recent weeks, with most (but not all) polls showing a slight edge for Republican challenger Cory Gardner. Too many Republicans have already voted or, conversely, too few Democrats have voted. While Udall is expected to win the independent vote, it looks like he’s facing a gap that will be too big to close.
So, perhaps, Margaret Carlson is justified in writing a snide obituary for Udall’s campaign and Senate career. We will know soon, probably by late Tuesday night.
Either way, however, Ms. Carlson’s column is one of the worst examples of beltway opinion writing that I have ever read. Her beef with Udall’s campaign is that it is has been condescending to women.
What do women want? Freud’s question, yet to be fully answered, has roiled the contest for what should have been a safe Senate seat in Colorado.
Thinking he knew the answer to that query is how Senator Mark Udall, the Democratic incumbent, could end up losing his job to U.S. Representative Cory Gardner, a conservative Republican who is otherwise on the wrong side of so many issues that matter to Coloradans…
…Back [in 2008], he ran a normal campaign. This time, he has almost exclusively centered his campaign on women while getting us almost completely wrong. Unfortunately for him, Freud’s question can only be answered in the negative: We know what we don’t want, and that is to be treated like ninnies, the sum of our body parts, captives of gender.
In Carlson’s telling, Udall has insulted women’s intelligence (treated them as ninnies), ignored any issues that don’t relate to female anatomy (the sum part of their body parts), and acted as if women don’t care about anything but reproductive issues (they are captives of their gender). She characterizes this focus on women’s issues as manipulative. She goes further and argues that pointing out Gardner’s record on reproductive rights amounts to a “gaffe.”
Sadly for Udall, what’s left of Republican discipline kept ridiculous candidates out and put a muzzle on anyone who snuck through and might make a peep. Look around for gaffes. There aren’t any.
The gaffes are on the Democratic side. Because Udall’s message hasn’t caught on, he says it louder, like a boor with an unfunny joke, and thus opened the door to outside groups to go even further.
Ms. Carlson seems to be making the assertion that throughout the whole nation no Republican Senate candidates have made any gaffes. This is absurd on its face, but it also treats misstatements as more significant than ridiculous policies.
When Carlson finally gets around to the substance of the campaign, it’s obvious that Gardner has committed enormous gaffes simply by voting for radical legislation, including on women’s rights.
Watch:
On the merits, the Republican doesn’t care about women’s issues. In 2006, Gardner opposed legislation to allow pharmacists to prescribe emergency contraception, and proposed disallowing Medicaid to pay for Plan B emergency contraception. In 2007, he opposed a state House bill requiring hospitals to inform sexual assault victims of the availability of emergency contraception. He favored “personhood,” until it wasn’t to his advantage to do so and seems to have gotten away with it. Gardner would still ban some forms of birth control, and supports a federal bill that would do the same.
So, let’s set aside campaign tactics for a moment. By Carlson’s own admission, Cory Gardner has a record of opposing contraception for victims of rape and supporting the banning several popular forms of birth control favored by women. If you are a woman living in Colorado who is registered to vote, are you willing to overlook that record and give Gardner a chance because you like his position on some other issues, like entitlement reform or the Keystone XL pipeline? Wouldn’t it be political malpractice if Udall didn’t make sure, first and foremost, that women understand just how incredibly hostile Cory Gardner has been to their interests?
And Ms. Carlson is a woman. She ought to be concerned about these issues. She also ought not be easily duped about them. She certainly shouldn’t be so stupid as to write something like this:
Gardner outmaneuvered [Udall] by calling for over-the-counter birth control, which neutralized the issue (despite the fact that it would cost women more than it does if it’s covered by insurance), but Udall kept at it. In its surprise endorsement of Gardner, the Denver Post wrote that in an “obnoxious one-issue campaign,” Udall “has devoted a shocking amount of energy and money trying to convince voters that Gardner seeks to outlaw birth control.”
Could there be a clearer example of Beltway opinion writing than this? There is no way that calling for over-the-counter birth control should be able to “neutralize” the attacks Udall has made on Gardner, and only a compliant and complicit press could make such a dishonest tactic in any way effective. Carlson only scratches the surface when she points out that it would be more expensive for women to get their contraceptives over-the-counter rather than through their health insurance. “More expensive” means “less available,” not more. And Gardner still supports policies that would ban some forms of birth control. If Gardner’s answer to Udall’s attacks is that he supports policies that would make fewer women able to access fewer forms of birth control, then the public should be made to understand this and not be told that the issue has been “neutralized.”
But Carlson goes further and calls Udall a “one-joke candidate” while saying that Gardner is so “secure” in his belief in impending victory that he was willing to campaign with Chris Christie.
Like I said at the top, the early voting looks good for Gardner, but I give Nate Cohn credit for doing some research to ascertain those facts. Margaret Carlson didn’t do any research. She just chose to mock a candidate she thinks is going to lose for trying to point out that his opponent has views that should be complete non-starters for women. And Carlson agrees with him on the substance but still blasts him as a joke.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is as bad as it gets.
