Harold Ford Jr., who is mulling a run for Senate in New York, met Tuesday with some of his leading critics: representatives from the abortion rights group NARAL, who have complained that he's trying to mask the stances he took while a Tennessee congressman.

They met for nearly an hour, and though Ford described the sit-down as positive, he did not win over the influential group, who is still backing Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in her bid to win a full term.

Even worse for Ford, the group's leader says that if the recent New York transplant jumps into this race, he can expect NARAL will “aggressively” let voters know what they think of him, which, the leader says, is a candidate who cannot be called pro-choice because he advocates some restrictions on abortion, like on late-term procedures and requiring parental notification.

“What surprised me, what disappointed me, was that there would come a day where he would actually switch on some of the tough issues, and would be the champion that I sort of said New York needed,” said Kelli Conlin of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Ford describes himself as staunchly pro-choice. But while running in Tennessee, he called himself pro-life, which he now says is used to reclaim the term away from opponents of abortion.

“I said that I was pro-life thousands of times during my Tennessee Senate race,” Ford said, “In effort to describe what I thought was the right frame to support other social issues, including increased education spending for children, increased health care spending for children, and even to support broader veterans benefits for those returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, active duty and National Guard.”

Ford's stance, or critics may say, stances on abortion and gay marriage were the subject of an interview last night on Comedy Central's “The Colbert Report.”

"On gay marriage in 2006 you said, ‘well I've never flip-flopped on gay marriage, Mr. Blitzer,’ this was to Wolf. ‘I've always been opposed to it.’ Then you told Matt Lauer two weeks ago, you were for civil unions and same sex marriage. Why the difference?” asked comedian Stephen Colbert. “I think this is a great thing because you're saying these things in the media capital for the world, New York City, 'Gotcha Town,' and you're saying, 'Come and gotcha me.'"