Ken Buck is having second thoughts on yet another issue, The Denver Post reports today.

This time, it’s the consumption tax, which Buck called “great” during the GOP primary but now says was “never my alternative,” according to The Post.

The Post reports:

“Buck’s stance Wednesday on the consumption tax is the latest instance in which he has offered a different position from in the primary.”

We all like a person, especially if she is your wife but even if he is a political candidate, who’s willing to change his or her opinion.

But the key phrase in The Post’s sentence above is “different position from in the primary.”

It’s one thing to consider new information and make a change. It’s another to take a position to appeal to one group of people (right-wing GOP primary voters) and change it to appeal to another group of people (average everyday angry voters).

In this case, whether you’re the angry right winger or the average angry voter, you’re wondering whether Buck will say anything to get elected.

That’s why Buck’s recent changes are important, and why media outlets like The Post deserve credit for spotlighting them for us.

In today’s article, The Post reviewed three other issues, on which Buck has flipped since the primary:

Personhood. He supported it during the primary, briefly came out against it, and now says he’s neutral, but is still in favor of personhood “as a concept.”

Pro-choice judges. During the primary, Buck said he wouldn’t confirm “pro-abortion” candidates for any federal job, including judges. Now Buck will confirm pro-choice nominees.

Anti-abortion legislation. During the primary, Buck promised to sponsor anti-abortion legislation. Now he won’t.

Now that Buck is establishing a record of backtracking, The Post and other media outlets should offer readers a wider view of his before/after primary positions. The expansive list includes:

Social Security and Medicare. During the primary, Buck says “the private sector runs programs like [health care and retirement] far better” than the federal government.  Now the Buck campaign says, “Ken is not in favor of privatizing Social Security,” and we have to keep a “promise” to seniors and maintain the program, with tweaks including privatization and a higher retirement age for younger people.

Constitutionality of Social Security. During the primary, Buck said he was “not sure” about the constitutionality of major federal programs passed over the past 70 or 80 years. Now he says he’s “never had doubts” about the constitutionality of Social Security.

Privatization of Medicare. During a primary debate (Mike Rosen 7-19-10), Buck said he supports “privatizing as many of the areas of health care as possible, including the decisions of folks that are on Medicare.” Now he tells the New York Times that he hasn’t “decided whether some form of vouchers would work or not.”

Department of Education. During the primary, to select audiences, Buck advocated shutting it down immediately. Now he consistently says it should be cut back.

Common forms of birth control. Consistent with his position during the primary, the Buck campaign told 9News that he’s against common forms of birth control that prevent implantation, such as IUDs as well as some forms of the Pill. Now he says he is “not in favor of banning any common forms of birth control in Colorado.” (But still opposes killing fertilized eggs, which are killed by common forms of birth control.)

Social Issues. (See above.)

Consumption tax. (See above.)

News outlets like The Post, Associated Press, Grand Junction Sentinel, and others have covered Buck’s before/after primary stances on a case-by-case basis, but I’d like to see more reporting that brings all these issues together, a bit like Buck’s interview with New York Time reporter John Harwood here, and delves more deeply into why Buck staked out the positions he did initially and why he is changing his views post-primary on some issues and not others.

The ranks of the Personhood 33, as I’ve been calling the top 33 Colorado candidates who’ve endorsed the Personhood Initiative, are diminishing.

First, as you know, Ken Buck un-endorsed the measure, though he still supports personhood “as a concept,” leaving me and others wondering what’s changed. His hard-line abortion stance still puts him in opposition to common forms of birth control and abortion even in the case of rape and incest.

Still, I’ve been wondering if the other 32 members of the Personhood 33 will follow Buck’s cue. (See list here.)

So this week, I phoned up some more of them, after determining previously that Dan Maes and Tom Tancredo were standing with the Amendment.

Colorado Senate (SD 16) candidate Tim Leonard, who…-like Buck…-believes that life begins at conception, told me he never endorsed the Personhood measure, and the Christian Family Alliance website erred in listing him as an endorser.

“I’ve taken no position on any citizens initiative or anything that’s on the ballot that doesn’t have to do with me,” he said, adding that activists were asking him about it during the primary but he never took a position.

Colorado House (HD 35) candidate Edgar Antillon also told me he shouldn’t be on endorser list anymore, having un-endorsed the Initiative during the GOP primary before Buck did.

“Obviously, I don’t get attention like Ken Buck does, but my stance changed on that,” he told me, primarily because he supports abortion to save a women’s life, putting the life of the mother first.

So the Personhood 33 was down to the Personhood 30 by the time I called Colorado House (HD 34) candidate Brian Vande Krol, who told me that he also never endorsed Personhood Amendment. The Colorado Right to Life website claims he supports “Personhood”.

“Mr. Vande Krol was reported to support Personhood by a volunteer who said he spoke to him, but this is not a reliable method of knowing of someone’s stand, and he has also not responded to our survey,” Bob Kyffin, custodian of the CRTL blog, emailed me in response to my questions. “We have tried to make it clear that the only way we know for sure where someone stands is if they respond to the survey.  When we do, we make note of that.”

Kyffin added: “Your articles are helpful to us in determining who sincerely supports Personhood and who is just pretending — historically a major difficulty with Republicans.  It is our hope that most of those you communicate with will affirm support for Personhood in full knowledge that the only forms of birth control it would ban are those that cause a chemical abortion (i.e. abortifacients).”

I left a couple messages over the past week at the campaign of U.S. House candidate (CD-4) Cory Gardner, who’s endorsed Personhood, but I didn’t get a response yet.

Gardner told the Coloradoan a couple weeks ago that he supports the proposed personhood amendment, confirming his past endorsements.

Abandoning Personhood would be a major change of direction for Gardner, given that, you may recall, he bragged at a February candidate forum about circulating petitions to put the measure on the ballot this year.

“I have signed the Personhood petition. I have taken the petitions to my church and circulating them in my church. And I have a legislative record that backs up my support for life,” said Gardner.

But Gardner, like Buck, has changed his position on one issue dear to the hearts of social conservatives. The Coloradoan reported Oct. 3 that Gardner will no longer carry legislation to outlaw abortion, despite what he previously told Tea Party groups.

Given the prominence of social issues in past CD 4 elections, the Coloradoan is right to be asking Gardner about these topics, even if he resists them.  (You can hear the Gardner’s exchange with the Coloradoan here, toward the end of the clip. It’s a great example of a journalist pressing a candidate to answer a question directly.)

But especially given Buck’s statements on Amendment 62, journalists outside of Ft. Collins should be asking the personhood endorsers what they think nowadays about the measure. But they’re not. Hence this blog post, to fill in the journalistic gap.

I really am trying to stop writing about sperm, eggs, zygotes, implantation, and birth control, but these normally quiet yet essential topics keep arising in the Denver media.

The Denver Post states today that the Personhood Amendment would ban common forms of birth control, which is one reason the newspaper came out against Amendment 62.

“Yet because Amendment 62 would define human life as beginning the moment of ‘biological development,’ some common forms of birth control would be illegal because they prevent a fertilized egg from attaching.”

We know that Michael Bennet has been pointing out that Ken Buck is opposed to common forms of birth control. This is based not only on his hard-line abortion stance but also his endorsement of the Personhood Amendment.

Buck’s campaign first tried to tell journalists that Buck supported common forms of birth control AND was in support of  the Personhood Amendment.

But then Buck acknowledged that Amendment 62 would ban common forms of birth control, and he un-endorsed the measure, saying he does not want to ban common forms of birth control.

Still, as recently as last weekend, Buck has stated that he supports “Personhood as a concept.” 

But if this is true, he’d still oppose common forms of birth control, which potentially kill fertilized human eggs, as today’s Post editorial points out. And as a legislator, he’d presumably vote to ban them.

Unless Buck is…pro-choice. This would allow him to support the Personhood concept AND support common forms of birth control.

That’s what the Post editorial board should ask Buck.

Does his support for common forms of birth control mean that he’s now become pro-choice since the GOP primary? If not, what gives?

Looks like CBS Anchor Bob Schieffer did about two minutes worth of homework prior to his interview with Ken Buck Sunday on Face the Nation.

Had he or his producers prepped for maybe five or ten minutes, he could have called out Ken Buck on some seriously misleading statements on his show.

Schieffer: You also said at one point that you would support a proposed law out there in Colorado that would have banned some forms of birth control, some birth control pills. Do you still hold to that?

Buck: I have never said that. No. I have said that there is a state amendment on personhood. I am in favor of personhood as a concept. I am not taking a position on any of the state amendments. And I have said over and over, and it’s been reporter over and over again, that I am not in favor of banning any common forms of birth control in Colorado or in the United States.

Schieffer: Alright. So we’ve cleared that one up.

Hardly.

Buck is clearly on record as supporting the Personhood Amendment. He’s un-endorsed the Initiative now, but he was for it previously. (And in the middle there, he was against it.)

As for banning common forms of birth control, Buck’s spokesman Owen Loftus told 9News in an email three weeks ago that Buck opposes some forms of the pill, IUDs, and other homone-based methods. These are common forms of birth control.

Buck’s position opposing birth control was consistent with his view that life begins at conception, with the creation of the fertilized egg or zygote.

His no-birth-control position was also consistent with his position opposing abortion, even for a 14-year-old girl raped by her teenage brother. Buck wouldn’t allow her to take a morning-after pill, either.

But Buck’s new position in favor of birth control methods that kill zygotes (like IUDs or the Pill) is inconsistent and makes him look awfully hard-hearted toward the raped 14-year-old girl.

Buck is now saying he’d allow a zygote to be killed by an IUD, but he won’t let a teenage girl choose the morning-after pill or to abort a zygote if the poor girl gets pregnant after she is raped.

Schieffer could have produced some informative and dramatic TV if he’d asked Buck what gives.

Why would he force a raped girl to have a child but allow comfortable women, who could use barrier-method birth control, to use IUD’s and the pill, which murder fertilized eggs too?

After Scheiffer failed to clear up Buck’s issues with Personhood, Schieffer then asked Buck if he was in favor of turning veterans hospitals over to the private sector.

Buck said Schieffer was getting “the Democrat speaking points here.”

Schieffer said, no, “these come from newspaper clippings, but I want to hear your side of it. That’s why I asked.”

It’s great Schieffer is reading newspaper clippings, but he wasn’t reading them very closely. If he had, he’d have pressed Buck harder.

The BigMedia question of the week is, are any of the 33 candidates who endorsed the Personhood Initiative, other than Ken Buck, clued into the fact that the measure would ban stuff like the Pill and IUDs?

You recall last week Buck withdrew his endorsement of Personhood, Amendment 62, saying he didn’t “understand” that the measure would ban common forms of birth control (even though his campaign understood that the measure would ban IUDs and at least some forms of the Pill.)

Over the weekend, to fill in the journalistic gap, I asked a few of the other best-known Personhood endorsers (the Personhood 33) if they knew the Initiative would ban common forms of birth control, and if Buck’s decision changes anything for them.

Nate Strauch, spokesman for Personhood endorser Dan Maes, said of his boss, “He has not changed his opinion on the matter.”

Fellow gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo, also a Personhood endorser told me “nothing has changed there,” regarding his endorsement of Amendment 62.

Asked if this means he supports banning common forms of birth control like the Pill and IUDs, Tancredo said, “I must admit, on the rest of this stuff, I have to look into it.” (I’ll check back with him later and report back.)

Cory Gardner, running for CD 4, is another high-profile GOP candidate who’s thrown his backing behind Personhood. His campaign didn’t return my call over the weekend, but the Ft. Collins Coloradoan reported Sunday that Gardner supports Amendment 62.

Asked by the Coloradoan if he opposes abortion even in the case of rape and incest or if the mother’s life is in danger, Gardner replied: “I’m pro-life, and I believe abortion is wrong.”

I’ll try to find out if Gardner, unlike Buck, understands that Amendment 62 would ban common forms of birth control.

I’ll be calling other members of the Personhood 33 as well.

Denver Post editorial page editor Dan Haley got a fact wrong in his column today.

He wrote in reference to Colorado’s U.S. Senate race:

“No one in 2010 is talking about social issues except Bennet.”

Most likely, Ken Buck is the GOP nominee precisely because he talked so much and so passionately about social issues during the Republican primary, scoring much more love from the social-conservative wing of the Republican Party than his opponent Jane Norton. Arguably the support from social conservatives tipped the close primary in his directions.

So it would have been true for Haley to write that Buck doesn’t like to talk to him and mainstream journalists and average-regular-angry voters about social issues now. And Buck is trying not to talk about social issues to anyone now that the primary is behind him.

But Buck undoubtedly blabbed and blabbed about social issues to select audiences who heard his words clearly, and these folks were part of his Tea-Party victory formula.

I’m really sorry to offer this exchange again from Jim Pfaff’s social-conservative radio show (560 KLZ), but it’s emblematic of how Buck dangled his social-conservative lines to select audiences who wanted to hear them.

Pfaff: “These social issues, like marriage, these are critical issues. It has been one of the great weaknesses of the Republican Party not to deal with these critical issues.”

Buck: “I agree with you that I think it has been a weakness of the Republican Party in the United States Senate, and I think it’s time that we look at the people we are sending back to Washington DC and making sure those people are sticking by the values they espouse on the campaign trail.”

This kind of talk paid dividends for Buck.

As the Colorado Right to Life blog put it after the 2010 primary:

“The biggest victory for Personhood today was Ken Buck, for U.S. Senate.”

So, you’re right Mr. Haley, Ken Buck must not have said anything about social issues in 2010 to get that kind of response from Colorado Right to Life, which we all know cares only about jobs and the economy.

Reporters are having a hard time figuring out Ken Buck.

His statements on key issues are at odds with each other, and this has left some reporters, like local TV fact checkers, disagreeing about what some of his real beliefs are.

I have sympathy for these reporters. How do you sort out a guy who says we should “immediately flip the switch” on the Department of Education one day, and then calls for slowly phasing out the Department the next.

How does a reporter reconcile Buck’s view that government shouldn’t be in the retirement or health arenas at all with his view that we have an obligation to make Social Security and Medicare work for our seniors?

To give the public a better handle on how Buck thinks about these issues, reporters should take a few minutes to learn what he thinks about the U.S. Constitution and the intent of the founders.

Speaking to a Tea Party group in December Buck made it clear that we need to honor what he sees as the intent of the founders, which was to keep the federal government small.

“We have for 70 or 80 years put ourselves in a bind where we have grown government in a way that’s inconsistent with the way the founding fathers saw the government,” Buck said. “And I’m not ready to say unconstitutional because the Supreme Court, according to our constitutional structure, is the decision-maker on whether something is constitutional or not. It has said it is constitutional. It’s certainly not consistent with what I think the founding fathers intended. But I’m not sure it’s unconstitutional at this point. But that’s semantics.”

“And so,” Buck continued, “I think we need to recognize what the federal government shouldn’t be doing, and we need to develop a plan to move those programs into the state and the private sector. But again, it isn’t going to happen overnight.”

This view of the federal government gone awry, going back to the New Deal, explains how Buck can be so hostile toward, for example, Social Security, Medicare, and the Department of Education…-and yet not want to flip the switch on all of them (though he has said this about the Education Department, perhaps because his primary opponent was ready to shutter it immediately.)

Buck’s recipe for how he would scale back the New Deal initiatives and other federal programs may help resolve the dispute among reporters about whether Buck really thinks Social Security is constitutional or not, much less “horrible” policy.  It may well be that Buck was literally speaking his mind when he said, “I don’t know whether it’s constitutional or not,” if he reduces the distinction to mere semantics, while Social Security itself is “fundamentally against what I believe” since it would be one of those government programs that have put us “in a bind” in the last 80 years.

People need help understanding how Buck would get us to the world where major federal programs, like Social Security and Medicare, are privatized and the states have more control.

What’s Buck’s plan to create a government consistent with Buck’s view of the intent of the founders? What are the details? How many years until he could see Social Security and Medicare being fully privatized and out of the control of the federal government? How long until the Education Department is cut back and returned to the states, and which programs would be cut outright in the long term and which put in state control?

These and other questions spring forth from BigMedia’s question of the week for reporters:

What’s Ken Buck’s plan for moving major federal programs to the state and private sectors?

Partial transcript of Ken Buck discussing the U.S. Constitution and the size of government December 6,2009, at a Tea Pary gathering.

We have for 70 or 80 years put ourselves in a bind where we have grown government in a way that’s inconsistent with the way the founding fathers saw the government. And I’m not ready to say unconstitutional because the Supreme Court, according to our constitutional structure, is the decision-maker on whether something is constitutional or not. It has said it is constitutional. It certainly not consistent with what I think the founding fathers intended. But I’m not sure it’s unconstitutional at this point. But that’s semantics. I think your point is government has grown beyond where it should be, in ways that in shouldn’t be, and I agree with you. And I think the key is to find ways over time to reduce programs and privatize programs and return programs to the states.

But what about that kid with student loans who couldn’t go to college otherwise. Are we really going to say for 70 years we’ve had student loans, and that is an unconstitutional program, and now you can’t go to college? Or are we going to find a way to move from where we are now, which is wrong, to a system that recognizes human behavior and human needs and let the states take over these programs in a thoughtful way. And so I think we need to recognize what the federal government shouldn’t be doing and we need to develop a plan to move those programs into the state and the private sector. But again, it isn’t going to happen overnight. We didn’t get into this problem overnight and we aren’t going to solve this problem over night. And people who say we are going to solve it overnight are either ignorant or lying to you. And it’s very frustrating to have those people out there with simplistic answers to these very complex problems.

Back in May, U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck had this exchange with Jim Pfaff, the social-conservative flag-bearer at 560 KLZ radio.

Pfaff: “These social issues, like marriage, these are critical issues. It has been one of the great weaknesses of the Republican Party not to deal with these critical issues.”

Buck: “I agree with you that I think it has been a weakness of the Republican Party in the United States Senate, and I think it’s time that we look at the people we are sending back to Washington DC and making sure those people are sticking by the values they espouse on the campaign trail.”

Then, on Thursday, The Denver Post quoted Buck as saying:

“I am not going to Washington, D.C., with a social agenda, and to create that misperception is wrong,” he said.

But for Thursday’s story, The Post failed to ask social conservatives in Denver what they thought of Buck’s “buckpedal” on social issues, as Colorado Pols has termed Buck’s abandonment of stated positions he held during the primary. So I’ll so it here, to fill the journalistic gap.

I mean no one would argue that Buck didn’t go the extra mile, especially for specific audiences, to make it clear that he was going to Washington with a social agenda, as the exchange above illustrates.

His positions on social issues included, among other positions:

• Opposition to abortion even in the case of rape and incest
• Opposition to giving a 14-year-old girl raped by her 13-year-old brother the option to use the “morning after pill”
• Belief in the idea that the “stage of development” when humans become “persons” is the “single cell,” which would ban fertilization procedures
• Support of Personhood Amendment giving citizenship rights to fertilized eggs
• Opposition to common forms of birth control
• Pledge to oppose “pro-abortion” judicial nominees or any person applying for any government position.
• Pledge to introduce an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning abortion
• Support of an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ensuring states that outlaw gay marriage do not have to recognize gay marriages conducted in states that permit them.
• Opposition to gay marriage
• Support of public posting of the 10 Commandments
• Support of a vague “coexistence between government and religion”
• Opposition to funding Planned Parenthood health clinics
• In favor of overturning Roe v. Wade.

So do social conservatives feel betrayed that Buck is now saying he’s “not going to Washington, D.C., with a social agenda?”

In response to this question, the normally conversant former GOP Senate President John Andrews emailed me:

“I’ll pass on this one.”

State Sen. Dave Schultheis told me he still supports Ken Buck but he thinks the tactic will hurt his election campaign.

“It’s unfortunate that he appears to be minimizing the social agenda. He should go to Washington with both a fiscal and social agenda.

I think that being totally honest with the people helps a candidate. Let the people decide, which is the way we should all be acting.”

Denver Post columnist Vincent Carroll emailed me:

“Do you really think Buck - a social conservative, no doubt – gave social issues a high priority in the primary?  That’s not my impression. Not compared to fiscal issues, anyway.”

Talk-radio host Pfaff said:

“I’m confident that Ken Buck will stand on these important social issues very well. If a vote comes up, he’s going to vote the right way. In reality, though, the emphasis has to be on getting this fiscal house in order. I’ve said many times, I have no desire to live in a pro-life socialist state. And so, it does have to be both/and proposition and not an either or proposition. The question is emphasis.”

I interviewed those guys last week. Then over the weekend Buck dropped a nuclear bomb on social conservatives.

Buck told The Denver Post he changed his view and would now vote against Personhood Amendment, which would give legal rights to fertilized eggs. He said he didn’t “understand” that the measure would ban common forms of birth control, even though until the weekend his campaign had been defending Buck’s opposition to common forms of birth control, telling 9News Buck opposed forms of the Pill and IUDs, for example.

For Sunday’s piece, The Post got a response from a key social conservative.  The Post interviewed Cleta Jasper, a board member of the Pikes Peak Citizens for Life, who sent Buck a survey in response to which he promised, among other things, not to vote for pro-choice judicial nominees.

The Post asked if she was upset at Buck:

“Not enough to kick him in the shins,” she said.

The Denver Post over the weekend ran an editorial stating that a Michael Bennet ad was unfair.

Now Buck is using the editorial in a commercial.

You have to wonder if The Post, since it has yet to endorse in this race, will put the new Buck ad under the editorial microscope, too.

After all, you expect the editorial page, prior to making an endorsement, to be relatively fair to candidates, maybe not like the news department, but still.

Here are two items from the Buck ad that The Post might scrutinize:

• Buck calls Bennet a “rubber stamp for his friends in Washington.”
• Buck says Bennet is “legislating unemployment.”

The Post wants a “fair and vigorous discussion on the issues that matter to Coloradans,” and it didn’t think the Bennet ad made the cut.

So, what do you think of the Buck ad? Does it meet your standards? Does is come close?

You owe it to readers, and simple fairness, to let us know.

The Denver Post yesterday references an exchange between U.S. Senate candidates Ken Buck and Michael Bennet over a Bennet TV ad showing Buck making a series of statements. The Post reports:

The candidates had a sharp exchange over that ad during their first head-to-head debate Saturday. Buck said media examinations had found its assertions to be untrue, while Bennet stood by the claims.

Assuming Buck is referring to the fact checkers CBS4, 7News, and 9News (and I don’t know other news outlets that have checked the ad), this statement is false.

Those fact checkers found numerous portions of the ad to be true.

For exmaple, CBS4 and 9News deemed it true that, according to the ad, “Buck wants to privatize Social Security.” As a Post report recently put it, Buck’s Social Security plan would “offer private Wall Street investments.” And Buck is quoted on The Fix as saying Wall Street historically gets a higher rate of return than Social Security.

9News found it true, as the ad stated, that “Buck even questioned whether social security should exist at all.” On its website, 9News stated: “Buck has said numerous times, including at the Constitutionalist Today forum in March, that the …the idea the federal government should be running health care or retirement or any of those programs is fundamentally against what I believe and that is that the private sector runs programs like that far better.’ (Source: Constitutionalist Today Forum, March 9)”

7News and 9News found it true, as asserted in the ad, that Buck opposes abortion, even in the case of rape and incest. 7News on its website quoted this Buck radio interview:  ”If you believe that life begins at conception, which I do, then the exception of rape or incest, you’re taking a life as a result of the crime of the father, and even though I recognize that it’s a terrible misery that that life was conceived under, it is still taking a life in my view, and it’s wrong.”

7News and 9News (on the video version) also found the ad’s statement, “Buck even wants to ban common forms of birth control,” to be true. 9News website states: “Buck believes life …begins at conception,’ so birth control methods that don’t impact that (i.e. condoms, some forms of the pill) are fine with him. Others that would keep a fertilized egg from implanting like hormone-based birth control methods, some other forms of the pill, IUDs, RU-486 and what’s known as the morning-after pill, are not supported by him. (Source: E-mail from Buck spokesman Owen Loftus to 9NEWS, Aug. 26)  As you can see from my blog post on this topic, featuring an interview with the Chair of the Obstetrics Department at the University of Colorado Medical School, all forms of the pill could potentially prevent a fertilized egg from implanting.

As the TV fact checkers might say, here’s the bottom line: Aspects of the ad were found to be true, others out of context or misleading, and just a couple points were deemed false or opinion.

The fact checkers did not say the Bennet ad was untrue, and reporters should correct Buck if he tells them so.