This should be the final word on the Hilary Rosen issue (Ann Romney does not understand the plight of working women)…but it won’t be. Republicans are going to milk every ounce of faux rage out of this one.
To tie so many talking heads who appear on cable every day to either campaign is a preposterous exercise, and a standard neither side of the political debate should want. If the Obama camp is responsible for Rosen, is Romney responsible for GOP Rep. Allen West’s outrageous accusation that 80 Democrats are communists? Is he responsible for Sherriff Joe Arapaio (Romney’s ’08 Arizona campaign chairman) and his birther conspiracy theories? Absolutely not. If that were the standard, the campaign would just be day after day of candidates disavowing random pundits and supporters’ comments. That Republicans feel they have to stoop to this suggests a real desperation. Let’s not let this become the new normal.
Too late. It is the normal in Republican politics and has been for a long time now. Furthermore, you can expect to see a lot more of it in the weeks and months ahead.
It matters not to Republicans that Hilary Rosen is neither a spokeswoman for the DNC nor an advisor to the President. She is a paid political commentator for CNN. Period. She also happens to be a democrat which is all Republicans need to know to somehow tie her comment in with President Obama. Politically, it’s the right move for Republicans. Romney was way behind with women voters. Ethically, the Republican ploy is wrong in so many ways but since when did doing the right thing have anything to do with politics…especially Republican politics.
At the root of all this is the false-equivalence fallacy that Republicans are hoping to set up to counter the real attacks on women’s rights they have been engaged in for the last several months. Steve Benen explains.
One the one hand, we have a party that has pushed for restricting contraception; cutting off Planned Parenthood; state-mandated, medically-unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds; forcing physicians to lie to patients about abortion and breast cancer; abortion taxes; abortion waiting periods; trap laws at abortion clinics, forcing women to tell their employers why they want birth control, opposition to prenatal care, and measures that make it harder for women to fight pay discrimination.
On the other hand, we have a media pundit with no connection to her party’s presidential campaign who said something about Mitt Romney’s wife professional background.
Whatever one chooses to call what it is Republicans are striving to do with women’s rights, the bottom line is that it is part of their public policy. They are not mere words. They are actions which have been taken at the state level which affect in very real ways matters pertaining to women’s health. And there is nothing to suggest that given the power once more, Republicans would not move forward in the same manner at the federal level. Case in point: the Blunt amendment.
At the best of times, Republican’s brand of politics is depraved. In times of desperation, as they currently find themselves in…watch out. Think of a rabid dog, foaming at the mouth, forced by it’s own insanity into a corner and you’ll have an idea of what to look forward to over the next six months.
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It appears that one doesn’t have to be a Republican male to be a misogynist dick. The term applies equally well to women of the Republican persuasion. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley shows how it’s done.
“Women don’t care about contraception. They care about jobs and the economy and raising their families.”
Dumb.
Are the above mutually exclusive? Can one not be a woman who has concerns about jobs, the economy and her family while also caring about contraception? In fact the argument can easily be made that a responsible woman who truly cares about the first three items in that list must also care about contraception and the role it plays in her life. Unless lovemaking is viewed as a religious rite whose sole purpose is procreation, then determining when she gets pregnant is as pivotal an element in a woman’s life as I can imagine.
I can’t help but wonder about women who vote Republican in much the same way that I wonder about gays, blacks, Latinos, non-Christians, minorities, the poor, the middle class – anyone, really, who isn’t a white male belonging to the one percent. Why do any of these people vote against their own self-interests by voting Republican?
I understand that people can look beyond a single issue and cast their vote based on a broader view of who and what their political party of choice represents. Fine, but how does one cast that vote when the single issue they disagree with is one that attacks the very essence of who they are?
How does a gay person vote for a political party which at its core views their sexual orientation as a perversion that can be cured with a bit of therapy at Marcus Bachmann‘s clinic? A political party that refuses to accept that the person you choose to love and marry is your choice and your choice alone and should carry the exact same legal benefits that a heterosexual marriage carries.
How does a middle class wage earner vote for a political party that seeks to lower taxes for the rich and pay for the lost revenue by gutting the social safety net – programs put in place to ensure that all Americans have a fighting chance to pick themselves up when misfortune comes their way?
How does a black man vote for a political party still deeply infected with racist attitudes? Should you doubt the validity of that last statement then you might want to take a look at the people supporting and defending the murderer of Trayvon Martin. It clearly has become a political issue with those on the right attacking the victim (black) while defending the killer (white). Also ask yourself which political party gave rise to the Birther movement after the election of the country’s first black President.
And how does a woman vote for a political party whose leaders dare to question her use of contraception while they battle to restrict her reproductive rights and take away her ability to choose.
Greedy, selfish, white guys with a ton of money who remember they’re Christians only at Christmas and Easter – I understand why they’re voting Republican.
Everyone else? I don’t get it. You tell me.
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( The Nikki Haley source photograph is a Wikimedia Commons licensed image. )
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Unless Mitt Romney finds a plausible way to convince women that he really isn’t the dick he’s portrayed himself to be, the difference in November might come down to this.
President Obama has opened the first significant lead of the 2012 campaign in the nation’s dozen top battleground states, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, boosted by a huge shift of women to his side.
In the fifth Swing States survey taken since last fall, Obama leads Republican front-runner Mitt Romney 51%-42% among registered voters just a month after the president had trailed him by two percentage points.
The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney’s support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group.
Romney stating that he’d end federal funding of Planned Parenthood and that he supported the Blunt Amendment which would have given employers the right to prevent women from obtaining insurance coverage for contraception (or any other service) based on the employer’s religious or moral beliefs, is no way to make friends among women or any other fair-minded, sensible part of the electorate. In fact the entire focus on social issues (thank you Mr. Limbaugh and Santorum) has damaged Republican’s standing with women to an extent which goes far beyond the presidential race.
The fall election campaign will see Republicans spending millions in advertising trying to convince women that they really have their best interests at heart and that their supposed war on women was one big lie brought to you compliments of lying libs in the lamestream media. Yawn.
Dems, of course, will spend an equally obscene amount of money reminding women voters of exactly where Republicans stand on women’s rights. All of this begs raises the question: why are social issues in play in this election year? It’s a losing proposition for conservatives – especially when it comes to women’s reproductive rights. Wasn’t this election supposed to be about ‘it’s the economy, stupid’?
A Republican strategist noted, “The focus on contraception has not been a good one for us … and Republicans have unfairly taken on water on this issue.” Unfairly? How delusional can these people be? They refuse to take responsibility for any of the shit they find themselves in. Republicans are the ones who brought up the social issues. It is their doing and it’s their candidates, their members in Congress and their conservative media who haven’t been able to restrain themselves from coming off as a bunch of white guys in suits hoping to take their country back to a time before women’s suffrage gave women the right to vote.
As for contraception not being a good issue for Republicans, here’s a little zinger from a TPM reader.
…because the previous focus on republicans as xenophobic, racist a-hole who oppose science, support the rich and oppose health care is such a winner for them.
Nice.
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What the hell is wrong with conservatives and the total maniacal agenda they espouse? Every day brings on a new statement or proposal that goes against everything civilized nations have come to understand as being rational and decent. The latest comes from conservative writer Dana Loesch who pathetically defended a bill which was approved by the Virginia state House requiring any woman seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound.
As Dahlia Lithwich noted in a Slate piece, most abortions take place during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy which therefore cancels out women having a typical noninvasive type ultrasound most people are accustomed to. Instead, Virginia women seeking an abortion “will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure, in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced.”
Short version: Virginia women seeking abortions will be subjected to state-sponsored rape.
And then Dana Loesch offered up this piece of perverted logic in defense of the Virgina bill.
That’s the big thing that progressives are trying to say, that it’s rape and so on and so forth. [...] There were individuals saying, “Oh what about the Virginia rape? The rapes that, the forced rapes of women who are pregnant?” What? Wait a minute, they had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy.
Tell me there is not something seriously wrong with anyone (in this case, a woman!) who equates consensual sex with a state-mandated act which involves inserting a probe inside the vagina of a woman who has not requested the procedure. These people have lost their minds.
On the bright side, let the right make this election all about social issues. Let them take their 1950s outlook and argue against abortion, contraception, women’s rights and same-sex marriage. Let their bigotry and narrow-minded hate shine like a beacon for all to see. Polls clearly indicate that the majority of Americans have moved beyond these issues. All that needs to be done is for those progressive attitudes to show themselves in the polls come November.
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