No he wasn't. He was objecting to the idea that you should group "no restrictions" with "legal but with a few restrictions". The whole point of the article was "don't let the extremes dictate things".

He might be wrong that the "mostly legal" and "mostly illegal" people can unify around a centrist position. But it's not misleading to quote what the statistics are on how many people give the strongest pro-choice or anti-abortion answers! Indeed, if he's going to make any sort of evidential point in suppoort of his thesis, he's basically required to quote those statistics.

It really seems like you're determined to find wrongness and offense in what he's saying by interpreting his statements in a way that goes well beyond a straightforward reading of the text. This is why I think you may be importing side-information based on other interactions. I'm not expecting you to roll over--quite the opposite, I would hope that you give robust pushback against bad ideas. But you don't seem to be pushing against what he's literally said. You hear something else, and push on that. Are you correct in your (non-obvious) interpretation? I can't say.

(Also, why is it obvious that angry rhetoric isn't part of why Democrats haven't won more races? In certain cases--Hillary's Basket of Deplorables comment is probably the most prominent--it's well documented that this has played a significant role. Maybe in other cases it actually improved their chances. But it at least seems plausible enough to be worth considering rather than dismissing out of hand. And how is saying "angry rhetoric turns people off" an inflammatory comment?!)

Anyway, I think I've said plenty for you to have an idea of my outlook, and you've said plenty for me to have an idea of yours.