Candidate Watch
Who is More 'Pro-Life': Fred or Mike?
Huckabee and Thompson have been feuding lately.
MIKE HUCKABEE:
Fred's never had 100 percent record on right to life in his Senate career. The records reflect that.
--Fox News Sunday, November 18, 2007.
***
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS:
You've taken to calling Governor Huckabee a 'pro-life liberal'. What does that mean?
FRED THOMPSON:
Yes. Well, it means he's pro-life, but he's liberal in everything else...Like taxes, like illegal immigration enforcement.
--ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos, November 18, 2007.
Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee have been having a private feud going recently. The two Republican candidates are both trying to court the conservative evangelical vote, which means flaunting their "pro-life" credentials and doing whatever they can to pin that nasty "L label" on to their rival. In the process, they have managed to misrepresent each other's records.
The Facts
Fred Thompson served in the U.S. Senate from 1994 to 2002. The National Right to Life Committee has tracked his Senate votes back to 1997 on this website. The group found that Thompson voted consistently in support of pro-life issues, such as a ban on partial birth abortions and a refusal to use federal funds to pay for abortions. There were several occasions when the senator voted against the National Right to Life recommendations, but they all involved the McCain-Feingold bill on campaign financing. The anti-abortion group argued that McCain-Feingold would restrict its right to free speech.
Since Thompson voted with National Right to Life on all matters of substance, he can accurately claim an "100 percent pro-life" voting record. More recently, he has said that he would oppose a constitutional amendment protecting the rights of the unborn, and would also oppose jail terms for women who had abortions. But he was never asked to vote on those issues in the Senate. (Meet the Press, Nov. 4, 2007.) The Huckabee campaign failed to provide factual support for the governor's claim that Thompson did not have a 100 per cent pro-life record in the Senate.
Huckabee was clearly taken aback that National Right to Life endorsed Thompson for president, partly on the grounds that he is more "electable" than other "pro-life candidates." It noted that he has "run second only to pro-abortion candidate Rudy Giuliani for the Republican nomination in the overwhelming majority of national polls."
The Thompson accusations against Huckabee for alleged "liberalism" also seem greatly overstated. It is true that Huckabee supported several measures as governor of Arkansas that would have helped the children of illegal immigrants. He was in favor of providing prenatal care for illegal immigrants on the grounds that this would cut the state's medical bills over the long term. He wanted to allow illegal aliens who had attended high schools in Arkansas in-state tuition rates at state universities. And he criticized a police raid against a poultry plant that netted more than a hundred undocumented workers. (Associated Press, August 5, 2005.)
On the other hand, Huckabee has also said that illegal aliens who apply for welfare benefits or try to vote should be arrested. His website includes a call for strengthening American borders and opposition to President Bush's proposal for immigration reform that would have put millions of illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship. In an attempt to prove his toughness on immigration, he aired a political ad recruiting Chuck Norris to defend the border.
"He is more a compassionate conservative than a liberal," said Art English, a professor of political science at the University of Little Rock. "His political beliefs are heavily influenced by his religious views."
Huckabee has gone further than Thompson in supporting passage of a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as "a union between one man and one woman." Thompson told the Christian Broadcasting Network in September that he is in favor of a weaker amendment saying that a state need not recognize gay marriages sanctioned by another state. Huckabee's support for a constitutional amendment on marriage is hardly a "liberal" position.
The Pinocchio Test
It seems fairly obvious what is happening here. Both Thompson and Huckabee are trying to outdo each other in proving their conservative credentials, even if it means distorting the other man's positions. To foist the L-label on Huckabee is as unfair as twisting the facts on Thompson's Senate voting record. Two Pinocchios each seems an appropriate sanction.
PS It's a trend! The campaigns are replying to the Rise of the Media Fact Checkers with "Fact Check sites" of their own. Hillary Clinton appears to have been the first to launch, with her Fact Hub. Barack Obama responded yesterday with Fact Check. Let me know if you spot any more out there.
Posted on November 20, 2007 at 6:00 AM ET
| Category:
2 Pinocchios, Candidate Record, Candidate Watch, Immigration, Mike Huckabee, Social Issues
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Posted by: estiv | November 20, 2007 09:36 AM
What a silly column! Who cares who is the most prolife? As long as they are both prolife, I could vote for either.
Posted by: drawlings | November 20, 2007 09:52 AM
I think the point of the article and column is not that either one of them is anti-choice, but that candidates often stretch the truth or outright lie about each other (or have their campaign spokespersons do it). I think it's very helpful to have someone follow up on these claims, especially if it helps to shame politicians into running cleaner campaigns.
P.S. As long as they are both prolife, I could NOT vote for either.
Posted by: Steve | November 20, 2007 10:25 AM
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Posted by: votenic | November 20, 2007 11:18 AM
"Fred Thompson served in the U.S. Senate from 1994 to 2002. The National Right to Life Committee has tracked his Senate votes back to 1997 on this website."
Not that what happened so long ago is a big deal, but what was Thompson's voting record prior to 1997. It seems the National Right to Life Comittee left out the first three years Thompson had as Senator. Also, did Thompson hold any public office prior to US Senate. Many states pass laws regarding Abortion (Parental notification, etc) so are those votes being looked into?
Posted by: Paul S. | November 20, 2007 11:21 AM
Ugh - neither. No Republicans I can think of are "pro-life". They are "pro-birth" then to hell with life. Such hypocrisy - it's so friggin' stupid.
Posted by: sequoia | November 20, 2007 01:04 PM
"Who is More 'Pro-Life': Fred or Mike?"
How about you ask an equally provable question:
"How Many Angels Can Dance On The Head Of A Pin?"
MH is clearly more pro-life than FT; FT bears a greater resemblance to an inanimate puppet.
Posted by: Judge C. Crater | November 20, 2007 03:24 PM
I think this is one of the best Fact Checker columns yet.
The focus should be on the candidates' main claims to deserve the White House. Huckabee and Thompson fighting over the "truest conservative" label is an important conflict for a big portion of the electorate. A conservative listening to one of these two would clearly get the impression that the other guy's no good; Fact Checker shows each claim is dubious but not outrageous.
I've still got stuck in my craw the four pinocchios for my guy Rudy. He spouted fact-based survival rates for cancer, the Fact Checker found numerous biased sources that complained about the figures but didn't provide the correct ones. Best of all the NCI study quoted research dating back to 1992 that....couldn't determine the survival rates. Since Rudy's claim wasn't disproven, more than two pinocchios was unfair. Further, Rudy's campaign isn't focusing on health care. Fact Checker could have chosen Iraq, fiscal discipline, abortion, or something else the campaign leads with, and check away.
Posted by: The Angry One | November 20, 2007 04:16 PM
Who do you truly believe is more "Pro-Life", and is more likely to pass an agenda that is in line with the Christian Right movement?
http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=1043
.
Posted by: PollM | November 20, 2007 04:31 PM
sequoia: On the Daily Show, Huckabee actually said something like, "I think life begins with conception, but I also don't think it ends at birth. That's why I support education, health care, etc." It's this, "we should take care of people" mentality that makes people like Thompson accuse him of liberalism.
Posted by: LtNOWIS | November 21, 2007 06:43 PM
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Since the "Fact Checker" feature is presumably meant to provide as unbiased a perspective as possible, it is disappointing to see the use of the term "partial birth abortion" without any qualification. It is a term that was created by the anti-abortion movement, and not by the medical community. I would hope the unqualified use of the term was simple sloppiness.