Democratic Colorado Sen. Mark Udall's tenuous chance at reelection took a hard blow Sunday after he was cussed out in the middle of a public stump speech by one of his own ultra-wealthy donors because, in the donor's words, "fucking abortion is all he talks about."

Udall—the scion of an American West political dynasty that descended from one of the country's most infamous religious mass-killers—is a first-termer with a shaky tenure in a purple state where opinions are bitterly divided on the president and his political party. But Sunday's shouting match was not merely a "losing the day" lowlight; it highlighted the unease many Democrats feel over Udall's cynically one-note strategy to court female voters.

The Guardian was present for Sunday's fireworks, at a gathering in front of Udall's campaign bus:

The crowd cheered and autumn leaves fluttered about the senator like confetti.

Then, finally, came the only reference to policy in Udall's speech. "And by the way, I'm proud to stand with Colorado's women," he said, almost as an aside. "I'm proud to stand for reproductive freedom."

An angry voice from the crowd jeered: "That's not the only thing you stand for! Jesus Christ!"

Udall turned to a short, dark man on his left. The senator look genuinely stunned. "I'm sorry?"

"That's not the only thing you stand for!" The heckler was Leo Beserra, a 73-year-old who made millions on Wall Street and, since the early 1990s, has shared a generous slice of that wealth with Colorado Democrats.

Now, a lot was going on there. Few creatures are as perpetually needy as ancient millionaires, and the uterus-free Beserra could simply have been frustrated that his dollars hadn't purchased a senator who was speaking directly to him. And the "Democrats just treat women like reproductive systems" knock has long been a conservative riposte to charges that Republicans wage a war on women.

But Udall's clunky appeal to women through pro-choice boilerplate has been "particularly relentless and, seemingly, ineffective," in the Guardian's words. Recent polls have shown that reproductive rights, while important, are not high on voters' priority lists these days.

That's not to say women, or men who care deeply about women's rights, are amused by Udall's opponent and his fondness for fetal "personhood." But neither do they see Udall's tack as anything but a cynically instrumental ploy.

Perhaps voters are smarter than Udall assumes. Maybe pretty much correctly assume that any given Republican is clueless on women's issues, and any given Democrat may be slightly better, and they don't really need this articulated to them ad infinitum, so much as they need it related better to their daily lives and needs.

Perhaps, too, they smartly recognize that—unless Republicans gain a GOP president or veto-proof majorities in both the House and Senate—another anti-abortion senator, while annoying and culturally retrograde, can't actually do much to further erode reproductive rights in the next few years.

But perhaps the worst cynicism came not from Udall but other Democrats. Speaking to the Guardian after that confrontation, Becerra the wealthy donor sounded more concerned about polls and optics than people:

"Who is running the worst campaign? [Udall]. Because fucking abortion is all he talks about. He should not talk about it any more whatsoever. There are so many other issues."

Referring to the 2012 election strategy, Beserra added: "Two years ago it might have made sense. But didn't they get an inkling that it wasn't working [this year]?"

Udall, in fairness, tried to make precisely that case, telling the Guardian that abortion rights were part of a larger social and political narrative about his opponent. "Gardner's focus on limiting those reproductive freedoms is an indication of his extreme position on everything from climate change to affordable college tuition, to protecting social security and Medicare," he said.

It's true all of those are women's issues, family issues, human issues—and that they're more immediately threatened by a conservative Congress with power of the purse. So why not talk about them more directly, rather than making the circuitous appeal to women's sense of well-being and security through their birth canals? There is a war on women, and it is waged primarily—though not exclusively—by conservatives. Pointing that out once was a successful strategem for Democrats. Pointing it out again, two years later, after having done little of note to end the war, is a lazy, insulting number-crunching gambit for continued political power.

Fair or not, that's a narrative Republicans are telling to great effect about Democrats like Udall, because it fits the facts fairly well. Is it a good reason to vote against Mark Udall? No. But if voters were motivated solely by good reasons, these elections would already have been canceled for lack of interest.

[Photo credit: AP Images]