…a strange, confusing place where men with large, sometimes smooth foreheads bellow into microphones…

Kerry says he believes life begins at conception

But even as he tried to avoid making news Sunday, Kerry broke new ground in an interview that ran in the Dubuque, Iowa, daily, the Telegraph Herald. A Catholic who supports abortion rights and has taken heat recently from some in the church hierarchy for his stance, Kerry told the paper, “I oppose abortion, personally. I don’t like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception.”

Spokesman Stephanie Cutter said that although Kerry has often said abortion should be “safe, legal and rare,” and that his religion shapes that view, she could not recall him ever publicly discussing when life begins.

“I can’t take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist,” he continued in the interview. “We have separation of church and state in the United States of America.” The comments came on the final day of a three-state Midwest swing, during which Kerry has repeatedly sought to dispel stereotypes that could play negatively among voters in the Heartland.

On Sunday morning, the day the candidate’s abortion comments appeared in the local paper, Kerry sat in a church pew near Vilsack, also a Catholic who supports abortion rights, and his wife, Christie, one of Kerry’s earliest backers in Iowa.

Afterward several parishioners asked him about his position on abortion and his vote against a recent bill that would have banned the late-term procedure opponents call “partial birth” abortion, according to a reporter for the Telegraph Herald who sat behind Kerry’s pew.

Heard an NPR report today on the same campaign swing – the reporter following Kerry has a rather snide tone to his voice, which I confess to finding enjoyable. He reported on a man who seemed supportive of Kerry up to a point, the point at which he shifted his jacket to reveal a pro-life identification on the shirt underneath. The man told the reporter that it was too bad, but he really couldn’t vote for Kerry because of the abortion issue.

Dems, catch a clue.