For the record

The Albany Times Union, to its credit, publishes today a couple of letters and a short column pushing back against its editorial encomiums to State Sen. Roy McDonald, who was defeated last month in a Republican primary by Kathy Marchione. Both the TU and its critics, however, continue to paint the race as all about same-sex marriage, supported by McDonald and opposed by Marchione.

But there was another big social issue in the race, abortion. Marchione was endorsed by a right-to-life committee, and her phone bank volunteers described her as "pro-life" when the issue was raised. McDonald, when pressed, calls himself "pro-choice." I just did a Google news search, and it does not appear that the TU's news and opinion pages ever got around to mentioning the abortion issue in this race. Nor did most other news sources. The only one clearly differentiating the candidates' positions was the Glens Falls Post Star.

Comments

[Brian]

To my knowledge, Sen. McDonald has always been in favor of abortion rights. But he switched his vote on marriage equality. Marchione made it quite clear that opposition to civil rights was a main motivating factor to her candidacy. In fact, she even made news as county clerk when the civil rights law was being debated, threatening to not enforce it. The marriage equality issue was different from McDonald's first term (or even his Assembly days) to his first; abortion was not. I don't think he ever faced a re-election primary challenge in either chamber until he switched his vote on marriage equality. That's why it was more prominent in reporting about it.

[Bob Conner]

Brian, I don't buy your argument. I myself, who was then working as a daily newspaper reporter and knew McDonald, did not find out his position on abortion until the summer of 2008, when I pressed him on the issue in a conversation. Since I was not working on a story on the issue, I did not report his position in the paper (or, for that matter, on this blog until the above post, as far as I can recall). Until 2008, I hadn't given much thought to McDonald's position on abortion, but did not think he was pro-choice. I very much doubt that a significant percentage of his constituents knew he was pro-choice until recently, and many of them probably still do not not know.

[Brian (MOFYC, not NCPR)]

Bob, that was my understanding but you may be right. Then again, when you run unopposed all the time, you have to answer a lot fewer questions. Still, in past elections, he's been endorsed by the Conservative "Party," which I find shocking given the centrality they typically give to the social issues, particularly abortion, in their considerations.

[Bob Conner]

Unfortunately, from my perspective, the Conservative Party does not make abortion a central issue. They used to, I believe, and still are somewhat pro-life, i.e. trying to insist candidates at least oppose partial-birth abortion. I guess Pataki said he did, which is why he consistently got the Conservative nomination despite being mostly pro-choice. The Right-to-Life Party, on the other hand, has been too hard-line even for me, declining, for example, to endorse anyone who votes for the budget, which includes Medicaid abortion funding, which meant it never endorsed anyone in the Republican majority, even though many of those senators are pro-life. Others, however, like a great many politicians, are interested in issues solely for their perceived political advantage. I don't mean that as a criticism of McDonald, whose motives I have no reason to question. I do criticize the media for failing to cover the issues in the GOP primary beyond same-sex marriage. On one of them, the tax vote late last year, I think McDonald was right to vote for it and Marchione ill-advised to criticize him. But it stands to reason that in a primary where one large social issue had been raised, voters would try to inform themselves about the candidates' positions on the other big social issue, i.e. abortion. I think many of them did, and that it helped Marchione win. But they got precious little help from the media.