Questions posed to failed CO Senate candidate Buck should inform reporters now trailing Romney
The following fictitious conversation between GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and failed Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck illustrates the questions reporters should ask Romney, now that he’s told Fox News that he “absolutely” would have signed a “constitutional amendment that would have established the definition of life at conception.”
Romney: God I wish the Personhood folks would take a hint from last night’s vote in Mississippi and just disappear.
Buck: Mitt, the Personhood folks don’t go away. They stick around, they don’t compromise, and they pay attention. That’s why I endorsed their amendment in the primary. I needed every primary vote I could get, like you do down in Iowa.
Romney: Then what happened?
Buck: After I squeaked by in the primary, reporters started asking questions, and the whole Personhood thing got way complicated.
Romney: Why?
Buck: Well, first good reporters are going to want to know if you oppose birth control. You got it wrong the other day in Iowa, Mitt, when you said, “Life begins at conception. Birth control prevents conception” Some forms of birth control, including some forms of the Pill kill fertilized eggs. Those are post-conception eggs, Mitt. Any journalist worth her press credential will figure this out, as reporters in Denver did. And if not, a blogger will. And you can’t be against the Pill.
Romney: hmmm.
Buck: And another fair question reporters asked me was, of course, about the morning after pill or Plan B, which is routinely offered to women who are raped. The Personhood amendment would ban the morning-after pill, as Denver reporters pointed out.
Romney: So that’s easy. You un-endorse the Personhood Amendment.
Buck: Exactly. You got that answer right real fast. You must have some experience doing that kind of thing. That’s what I did, though I told reporters I still supported Personhood “as a concept.” But, if they’re doing their jobs, reporters will ask you a bunch of other questions that hang there logically.
Romney: Like what?
Buck: First, if you continue to say that life begins at conception, good reporters will ask you if you think a women who’s raped should have the option of having an abortion. One talk radio host in Denver asked me if I thought a teenage girl raped by her teenage brother should be forced to give birth to a baby fathered by her rapist brother. I had to say yes.
Romney: Maybe you should have said no.
Buck: I had already un-endorsed the Personhood Amendment. Reporters were paying too much attention to let me flip flop, without generating big headlines, if I abandoned principled not-even-in-the-case-of-rape-and-incest stance.
Buck: As the campaign moved along, my opponents began running ads saying I was against common forms of birth control and against a women’s right to choose, even in the case of rape and incest. So these issues kept coming up.
Romney: Couldn’t you just say, hey, it’s the economy.
Buck: My supporters and I tried that. I said these are settled matters, and jobs are what people care about. But good reporters jumped all over me and said that women care about these issues, and they matter to women voters.
Romney: Jobs matter more.
Buck: Maybe. But I watched my lead in Colorado vanish as these issues seemed to take hold among swing voters, particularly women.
Romney: I think I can dodge reporters better than you did, Ken.
Buck: We’ll see, Mitt.