You have to wonder whether the Online Left finds equivocators like Rep. Jason Altmire (D, PA-04) as insulting as we do (not that progressives have the courage to call their own hypocrites out, of course). Let me set the background: in 2010 Altmire did his level best to look like a mighty pro-life champion, largely because he was running for re-election in a R+6 district (which he ended up winning with only 51% of the vote). Back then it was all about how Altmire absolutely hated taxpayer funding of abortion, and how he’d never support such a thing, and the rest of the spiel that then-Speaker Pelosi graciously allowed him to repeat in order to keep his seat.

But that was 2010. Since then the seats have been redrawn, and now Altmire is facing Murtha crony/replacement Mark Critz in a race for the redrawn PA-12 district that has been called ‘spirited‘ (read: ‘vicious’). So, now that the pandering has to be to Democratic primary voters, how is Altmire pandering?

Did you really need me to tell you? Altmire’s all about keeping Planned Parenthood nice and funded, now. Of course, as CatholicVote.org helpfully notes, Altmire has always supported PP; but now he’s ratcheted up the rhetoric. Apparently you’re an ‘extremist’ now (according to Altmire) if you support defunding it – and whether or not you believe that is immaterial; the real question is whether Republican voters (who, if these numbers* are right, went 54/45 McCain/Obama in 2008) agree with Altmire. Spoiler warning: they don’t.

The moral of this story is, of course, that there’s really no such thing as a conservative Democrat: Jason Altmire was supposedly a reliable pro-life vote, but the very second that his principles clashed with the primary he changed his tune with nary a lost note. Not that Mark Critz is any better, of course – but Critz has union support, so Altmire has to make up the lost ground somehow. In a lot of ways, of course, this is academic, given that PA-12 was redrawn extensively to look a lot less like a mutant amoeba and a whole more like a normal Congressional District; the eventual Republican candidate is in a good place to beat whichever crab crawls to the top of the Democratic barrel after the primary this month. But it never hurts to remind people that supposedly conservative Democratic politicians lie when it suits them…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*I know, I know. Give me a better source.