In Which Joe O'Dea Claims to be Pro-Choice

5 Comments

by: Colorado Pols

Colorado Republican Senate candidate Joe O’Dea released a new television ad over the weekend that most politicians would be ashamed to have approved. The ad attempts to paint O’Dea as a “pro-choice” candidate, which is nothing short of a complete lie.

In the ad, which you can see below, O’Dea’s daughter, Tayler O’Dea, says, “My dad supports a woman’s right to choose.” The ad then cuts to Steve Kornacki of NBC News saying, “O’Dea is running as a pro-choice candidate” and Marshall Zelinger of 9News saying, “O’Dea…supports a woman’s right to choose early in pregnancy.”

We could discuss at length how this advertisement is completely false and goes against everything O’Dea has said about abortion rights. We could also point out that O’Dea’s campaign has regularly tried to claim that he is both pro-life AND pro-choice.

But the simplest way to explain why this ad is false is using O’Dea’s own words. You’ll notice that O’Dea himself never appears and says I am pro-choice, because he is not. And how do we know that Joe O’Dea is pro-life, and NOT pro-choice? Because Joe O’Dea said it himself in May:

Republicans know that the issue of abortion rights is a huge problem for them, particularly since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June. Joe O’Dea probably can’t win an election in a heavily pro-choice state like Colorado by being “pro-life,” so O’Dea is now content to just lie about his position in order to curry favor with voters who haven’t been paying close attention to his words on the issue.

This is the worst kind of cynical politics. A candidate who would approve an ad like this has no business representing Coloradans in elected office.

5 thoughts on “In Which Joe O’Dea Claims to be Pro-Choice”

Conserv. Head Banger says:

September 19, 2022 at 4:41 pm

Sorry, all. Both Ways Joe O'Dea is definitely not pro-choice. If he was, would have those endorsements from "pro-life" groups?

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DavidThi808 says:

September 19, 2022 at 4:47 pm

You know we have all these posts here about how Joe "Anyway" O'Dea is not pro choice and every last voter in Colorado realizes it. Yes it's so so sooo clear.

Except…

I think he's pulling it off. Most voters are low information and most voters are ok with some constraints on abortion and so his message of "let's find a balance" is working.

And here's the other part of this – why vote for Bennet if O'Dea is ok on abortion? What's the difference between them? I haven't seen Bennet selling any reason to vote for him other than abortion. And we've seen this story before with Udall.

I'm more worried that the Bennet team does not have strong reason other than abortion to vote for him. Hold O'Dea accountable on abortion, but you need additional reasons.

And there are a lot!

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Chickenheed says:

September 19, 2022 at 6:18 pm

I don't know why this is so hard for Republicans. I'll just gift what my dad, a staunch Wyoming Republican, said about abortion. "I think abortion is wrong but I don't think Government should make the decision so I'm against abortion legislation."

There! Use that ya nerds.

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davebarnes says:

September 19, 2022 at 8:15 pm

She has very pretty eyes.

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dwyer says:

September 20, 2022 at 2:39 pm

O'Dea is not a woman nor a doctor, but he doesn't hesitate to decision what is best for both. He is a self- appointed "decider" who will decide what is best for everyone. Not for me.

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