Let the backlash begin...

Sweatshop Schaffer is feeling his first bit of backlash from the right after his endorsement of the Northern Marianas as a "model" for U.S. immigration policy. This morning's Denver Post tells us

An anti-abortion group is blasting Bob Schaffer, Republican candidate for a Colorado U.S. Senate seat, over his defense of human rights conditions in the Northern Mariana islands, an American territory where allegations that factory workers must undergo forced abortions are common.

Colorado Right to Life accused Schaffer of closing his eyes to reports from Chinese workers on the islands about forced abortions.

"The pro-life movement will no longer give a pass to candidates like Bob Schaffer who look the other way when Chinese women are forced to abort their children," said Steve Curtis, spokesman for the group and former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

"At best Schaffer was negligent investigating coerced abortion in the Mariana Islands," he said. "Worse, he has voted for permanent normal trade relations with China, rewarding the regime that forces women to abort their children."

I have to applaud Right To Life for being more than just a partisan group that ignores and excuses Republican's and their actions, especially during a tough election year. Consistency is all you can ask for - ideological, moral, ethical - and Colorado Right to Life has demonstrated it in this case.

Unsurprisingly James Dobson's outfit, Colorado Family Action, leapt to the defense of Sweatshop Schaffer. President Jim Pfaff called Schaffer,

"consistently a pro-life legislator."

Consistent so long as it doesn't get interfere with the business interests of his major donors.

For the last week Schaffer and his campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, have depserately tried to make this issue about disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. They uncovered $1500 in donations to previous Mark Udall campaigns from donors connected to Abramoff and tried to argue that somehow Udall's acceptance of a few donations was equivalent to Schaffer's reciept of a $13,000 boondoggle to Saipan and Schaffer's willingness to literally adopt Abramoff approved talking points while attacking victims of sexual abuse from the Islands.

Abramoff though has always been a distraction, a secondary issue. The real issue has always been Sweatshop Schaffer's eagerness to birng a system of sexual exploitation, forced abortion and slave like labor conditions to the U.S. guest worker program. Schaffer needs to answer questions about the Northern Marianas Islands and his endorsement of the deplorable conditions that workers on the Islands face.