Jennifer Lawless is running for the House in Rhode Island against agressively anti-choice candidate Jim Langevin. As Matt Stoller points out, her ad is terrific, exactly the kind of unapologetic ad a pro-choice candidate should be running in a blue state where pro-choice matters. It's emotional, hard-hitting, it has authority and she picks a fight.  She comes off as sensible, no-nonsense, and standing for something. Major, major kudos to her campaign for its messaging and the ad's creators; it really works.

On the other end of the spectrum there's NARAL, who are launching their own campaign to elect pro-choice candidates in the fall.  Which is great, we wholeheartedly approve. On their info page regarding "what you can do about it," they call to "block anti-choice justices," and "elect pro-choice Senate candidates in 2006 who can help block anti-choice Supreme Court nominees."  Fabulous.  But do they mean Senate candidates Lincoln Chafee and Joe Lieberman, both of whom have NARAL's endorsement, who both voted for cloture on Samuel Alito?  Does this pass anyone's smell test?

As a side note, long-term visitors to this site will remember that our Lamont/Lieberman and Chafee coverage began during the fight against Alito when the Gang of 14 announced it would vote for confirmation.  I called NARAL that day and asked if they were going to pull Chafee's endorsement as a result of his cloture vote.  Many will recall we were  told that NARAL did not consider a cloture vote to be "significant," and when I raised an objection to this I was told that someone would get back to me.  Nobody ever did.

Recently I learned that they have pointedly never called back, assuming that I would just go away.

Na. Ga. Na. Ha. Pa.