KBH: Pro-Choice?

One of the topics at a most interesting lunch meeting with Democratic candidate for Texas Governor Tom Schieffer this past week was KBH and her potential to get crossover votes from Democratic women. The case for that is simple: If D women voters get the sense that we don't have a viable candidate for governor, they will cross over into the R Primary and vote for KBH in order to ensure we don't have another four years of Rick Perry. If you even hint outloud that this might happen, you get the vociferous blowback of, "Kay is anti-choice!!!" But, you've heard Kay if pro-choice, right? I certainly have heard that and assumed that in her heart, that was true. But, what about her public statements (not to mention her voting record)? From the Houston Chronicle this week:

She has voted for enough abortion restrictions and similar measures to give her strong rating with the National Right to Life Committee -- by her campaign's calculations, a 94 percent "lifetime rating."

By all accounts, her announcement tour across Texas has been short on talk about the abortion issue.

But when I asked about the issue today, her campaign said she addressed it this way in Tyler yesterday: "I am a conservative, I have a conservative voting record that I will match against anyone. I have a 94% rating on the right to life and pro-life. I think it is very important that we have great reverence for life."

Her senior communications adviser, Jennifer Baker, added, "There is not a single piece of pro life legislation that has been passed by the Texas legislature that Kay Bailey Hutchison would not have signed. Kay Bailey Hutchison has a solid pro-life voting record in the United States Senate. She has consistently voted to ensure that federal funds are never used to fund abortions."

That's good enough for me. If her campaign says she's solidly pro-life, then she's not pro-choice. If she's pro-choice in her heart, and anti-choice in her public statements because she has to grovel for far right votes in the Republican Primary, well politics is a nasty business and good on her for showing Perry her trucks are bigger than his truck, but it's not going to help her get the crossover votes of Democratic women in March or November.

For the record, Tom Schieffer is solidly pro-choice. More on the Schieffer lunch in bits and pieces as I digest it (pun intended).