March 23, 2007
The dream is over?
Apparently, Fred Thompson was pro-choice when he ran for his 1994 US Senate seat. Ramesh Ponnuru notes that he has voted with pro-lifers the majority of the time while he was in office and that he currently considers himself pro-life. The problem, as I see it, is that this makes him no different from Rudy and Romney. Rudy is a pro-choicer who would, ostensibly, side with pro-lifers while Romney is a late-in-life converter to the pro-life cause. There's nothing wrong with either position, per se, just that if this is true, Thompson loses some of his rightwing credentials.
UPDATE: Although he's overtaken Romney in an Iowa poll...
UPDATE: Philip Klein speaks to National Right to Life executive co-director Darla St. Martin who spoke to Thompson personally in 1994 and found him to be consistently pro-life. Also Philip emails that he has scoured Lexis and didn't find "one direct quote from Thompson where he said, a la Romney, that he supported a woman's right to choose." The dream lives on!
UPDATE: Philip notes, though: "The only thing I'd add just to be clear, is that I'm not saying such a quote doesn't exist, or that no YouTube video will surface with him espousing the pro-choice position, but just that my initial research yielded no such quote."
Posted by Karol at March 23, 2007 02:55 PM | TrackBackTechnorati Tags: Fred+Thompson Election+2008 Mitt+Romney Rudy+Giuliani
Yes, the dream of overturning Roe v. Wade is over.
We're probably gonna have the first Pro-Choice/Pro-Choice presidential election ever, and the extremist Pro-Lifers are gonna face a delicious Catch 22.
Posted by: Joe Grossberg at March 23, 2007 04:05 PMWhy does he lose the credential? The upshot is he has been a good a pro-lifer, right? That's still better on the issue than Rudy, Romney and (I could be wrong) McCain.
Posted by: CosmoReaxer at March 23, 2007 06:13 PMSo he's a flip-flopper. He voted for it before he voted against it. I'm guessing, though, that it will somehow be all right when he does it.
Posted by: Michael at March 23, 2007 08:54 PMActually, Joe, 1976 was just that sort of election.
Ford was pro-choice, and Carter faked being pro-life, but he was a pro-choice Governor.
Posted by: Damian G. at March 23, 2007 09:00 PMOkay, we've got one story and a couple of blog posts that depend on that story, that has no documentation saying he "was" pro-choice. This is in comparison to his actual voting record which was consistantly pro-life and his own statements as recently as the last couple of weeks where he stated clearly that he is pro-life. We also have the head of one of the largest pro-life activist organizations say that she met with him face to face and came away convinced that he was pro-life.
........What was the question again and ....why was it asked?
