It seems hard to believe that in 2012, access to contraception would be the issue driving a U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts, but here we are.
Late last week, incumbent Sen. Scott Brown (R) and his main challenger, Elizabeth Warren (D), had competing op-eds on the policy dispute in the Boston Globe. Brown, who has struggled badly to understand the basics of the controversy, continues to be deeply confused.
Most notably, Brown believes he has a trump card to play: his approach is the same as Ted Kennedy’s. The Republican senator’s op-ed said he simply wants an exemption based on “moral and religious convictions.” Brown wrote, “My predecessor, the late Senator Ted Kennedy, believed just as I do.” A new Brown campaign radio ad is pushing the same line.
The problem, of course, is that the talking point is simply not true.
Patrick J. Kennedy lashed out at Senator Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts on Sunday, asking him to stop invoking the name of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy’s father, in a radio advertisement about insurance coverage for contraceptives. […]
In a letter that the Brown campaign released on Sunday, Patrick Kennedy, a Democrat like his father, wrote: “Providing health care to every American was the work of my father’s life. The Blunt Amendment you are supporting is an attack on that cause.”









