Abortion ads play big in N.H. and Colo. Senate campaigns

As the senatorial campaigns in New Hampshire and Colorado continue to highlight candidate positions on abortion, the rhetoric over the health law calms a bit.

The Washington Post's Fact Checker: The Fierce Fight Over An Abortion Ad In New Hampshire
[Republican candidate Scott] Brown has been hopping mad over this ad, even cutting his own ad denouncing what he called "a smear campaign." His campaign has called for the ad to be pulled. The [Sen. Jeanne] Shaheen ad carefully does not actually say that Brown is against abortion, but some might argue that it certainly leaves that impression. Given the complexity of this issue, we are going to fact check both the key phrase in the ad and Brown's claim that the goal of the bill was promoting adoptions (Kessler, 10/10).

Politico: How One Republican Has Navigated Abortion Attacks
Listen to Cory Gardner these days and you might think he backs abortion rights. Calling himself "a new kind of Republican," the affable Senate hopeful looks earnestly into the camera in his TV ads and tells voters not to believe Democratic Sen. Mark Udall's attacks on his record on women's issues. He disavows his past support of the so-called "personhood" anti-abortion amendment. He's even trying to run to Udall's left by aggressively promoting over-the-counter contraceptives (Raju, 10/9).

Denver Post: Udall And Gardner Battle Over Obamacare Even As Issue Dims
Cory Gardner's campaign for U.S. Senate began seven months ago with a promise -; and a call to arms. "We will stop the government takeover of health care," Gardner said as he announced his bid to unseat Democrat Mark Udall. At the time, the pledge made sense. Few issues churn out the Republican base better than the Affordable Care Act -; often called Obamacare -; and the nation still was wincing from the botched rollout of the program's website the previous fall. "The real issue (in the race)," opined GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway in March, "(was whether) an incumbent senator like Sen. Udall (can) defend his position on Obamacare enough to really win re-election." But with the race in its last weeks, this forecast has not come to pass (Matthews, 10/9).

In other news, Hillary Clinton hinted that she may be open to repealing the health law's medical device tax -

Bloomberg: Hillary Clinton Open To GOP Obamacare Demand On Medical Devices
Hillary Clinton signaled she might be open to repealing a key component of Obamacare during a speech yesterday at a medical device conference in Chicago. Since the passage of the landmark health care bill, Republicans have wanted to kill a 2.3 percent excise tax on devices such as defibrillators and pacemakers, usually paid by the devices' manufacturer or importer. The money it raises -– an estimated $29 billion over a decade – is central to the financing of Obamacare, and the White House opposes its repeal. In a paid appearance before the Advanced Medical Technology Association, or AdvaMed, Clinton told a ballroom filled with more than 2,000 industry representatives that they "have an argument to make" when it comes to repealing the tax. "We have to look and see what are the pluses and minuses," she said. "I don't know what the right answer about the tax is" (McCormick, 10/9).