OP-ED | Republicans Desperate to Regain Lost Ground Among Women
by Susan Bigelow | Apr 13, 2012 8:13am
(5) Comments | Commenting has expired
Posted to: Business, Election 2012, Opinion
Mitt Romney swung through Hartford on Wednesday with a message for women: it’s the Obama Administration, not Republicans, who are waging war on you.
The Romney campaign is strongly pushing the idea that women lost a staggering 92 percent of the jobs lost during the Obama years, implying that the president’s policies have disproportionately hurt women in this economy. This, as anyone who is even marginally familiar with statistics instantly suspects, is a serious distortion of the facts; that the Romney campaign chose this line of attack signals that Romney, and Republicans in general, have belatedly woken up to the idea that they have a serious problem with women.
Romney’s Hartford event was geared to appeal to women; he surrounded himself with women business owners and heavily pushed his “92 percent” meme. “The real war on women,” he said, “is being waged by the president’s failed economic policies.”
It’s a disingenuous dig at best, and an outright distortion of the facts at worst. Romney and the Republicans are only looking at the numbers since the moment the president took office, instead of at the recession as a whole. Women often lag men in job losses during recessions, and that was the case this time as well. In fact, job losses for men far outpace job losses for women over the whole period, and many of the jobs lost by women after Obama’s inauguration were in government work: teachers, social workers, state and municipal employees. Which party has been pushing for huge cuts in those jobs?
Republicans continued to press Democrats Wednesday and Thursday after a Democratic operative and CNN contributor (who Republicans are now scrambling to paint as President Obama’s best friend and confidante) rather inartfully said that Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, might not be the best source of information on women in the economy because she “has actually never worked a day in her life.” Republicans immediately decided to spin this as a slap against stay-at-home mothers, Twitter exploded with phony outrage and rebuttals, and sure enough we’re doing the mommy wars again. If Hilary Rosen hadn’t been the lightning rod, someone else eventually would have; Republicans are eager to have this fight.
So this is the GOP strategy for 2012; try to appeal to women on economic issues, either through highlighting women who own businesses or bashing Democratic economic policy while simultaneously dredging up old cultural fights. On the home front, Linda McMahon has long been holding events highlighting successful women as a way of trying to bridge the yawning gender chasm into which her campaign fell in 2010. She’s been hesitant to dive into the culture wars, but she might not be able to avoid it forever. Her somewhat tortured answer to a question about the Blunt Amendment, which would have allowed employers to opt out of contraception coverage, suggests that she’s walking a tightrope there. Then again, if something seems like it might work even a little bit, expect Republicans to run with it.
The truth is that Republicans have steadily been doing their best to alienate women for the past few years. Where to even begin? There’s the ceaseless attacks on Planned Parenthood, which Mitt Romney said he’d “get rid” of, the repeal of an equal pay law in Wisconsin, the Romney campaign’s hesitation on the Lily Ledbetter Act, many new abortion restrictions including bills requiring women seeking abortions to submit to incredibly invasive transvaginal ultrasounds, the contraception debacle and, last but not least, influential GOP pundit Rush Limbaugh attacking a Georgetown Law student by calling her a slut for wanting birth control.
This is all just the latest, there is much, much more. An offhand remark by a marginal Democratic strategist and a few highly distorted statistics don’t balance that out. And who is really making war on women here? Is it Rosen and the Democrats or the cynical opportunists who re-opened a bitter divide among women for their own gain?
If Republicans were serious about making up ground with women, they’d rein in some of the harsher voices on the right and start seriously looking at health care, education, and women workers instead of just women business owners. They’re not going to do that, though; all that the Republicans want here is to use these attacks to peel away just enough independent and conservative women from the Democrats in order to be competitive. This campaign is going to be a long, brutal slog through the cultural minefield, but what else is new?
Tags: Mitt Romney, women, Republican Party, Obama, Linda McMahon, Susan Bigelow, dh
(5) Comments
posted by: CitizenCT | April 14, 2012 8:42am
Susan, you should be thanking Mitt Romney for highlighting the truth, rather than relying and linking to spin from MSNBC, the home of Al Sharpton and Ed Schultz, which obfuscates it. The fact is there are 740 thousand less total non-farm jobs since Obama was inaugurated and 683 thousand less female non-farm jobs. 92% of the drop is in women jobs. It’s certainly fair to say the decline in women jobs initially wasn’t influenced by President Obama’s policies. Equally fair is to say that the Obama administration policies over the last 3.5 years have done little or nothing to improve the situation. Obama’s policies shackle the economy and as a result, all suffer, including women.
posted by: GoatBoyPHD | April 14, 2012 10:59am
Condi Rice as VP. Maybe Susannah Martinez helps to soften the image.
The GOP will fight fire with fire. Hilary Rosen came right out and started with Ann Romney over the definition of womenhood and Romney’s fitness to speak on behalf of women.
Not coincidentally Rosen has a long affiliation with the LGBT Human Rights Campaign includng a decade-long domestic partnership with their past Executive Director Elizabeth Birch.
It’s safe to say Rosen isn’t voting GOP any time soon.
In 2008 Palin was viciously attacked by the pro-choice crowd upon her announcement with nasty rumor after nasty rumor circulating over the decision to give birth to special needs child Trig accompanied with outrage over Bristol’s decision to carry to term.
The GOP isn’t getting that voting block either. Good riddance to them! The women who are litmus test snuffies aren’t welcome in the GOP.
Romney is OK with white women in the sense he’s splitting the usual vote. In March he was up 17 points in the ABC poll and is now splitting the white female vote after the nasty primaries and inattention to the women’s vote or women’s issues.
It’s the Hispanic Vote Romney needs to court and ne needs to lock up black conservatives and the State of Florida. Hispanic Florida Senator Marco Rubio on the short list for VP w/ Rice and Martinez.
As far as the War on Women goes the GOP will counter with the usual scenarios:
Birth control pills for 14 year-old girls who are encouraged to be sexually active rather than abstinent under the Obama “War on Women”. Young men will no longer use condoms for safety, Instead they’ll use the priciest sheepskins condoms there are and thumb their noses at the risk of HIV and STDs by forcing young girls on the pill and using non-safe but trendier sheepskin condoms.
Getting a doctor to testify on the expected rise of STDs under Obama’s “War on Women” under such a program is easy. Hey, if the kids really screw up they can get an abortion without parental notification. The polling on issue is overwhelmingly negative.
Then there’s the war on religious institutions and so on.
It will be the typical divide.
Obama left some big holes on Immigration and The Dream Act. Big enough for Romney to drive a truck through.
posted by: Reasonable | April 14, 2012 11:53am
Susan: Your title: “Republicans Desperate to Regain Lost Gound among Women” is pointed and appears to have a Democratic perspective. Your blog should have read: “Women Desperate to Regain Lost Ground Under Obama.”
Why are you, indirectly pointing blame at Republicans, because of Obama has failed women—based of facts—not editorial fiction?
posted by: GoatBoyPHD | April 15, 2012 5:29pm
A popular factoid this weekend: White Males will not be a plurality in the Democratic House in 2012.
Women and minorities are expected to make up 52-54% of the Democratic House in the US Congress (and 25% to 30% of the Senate Democrats).
The GOP is suffering or stengthening from ‘White Flight’ from the Democratic Party depending on your point of view.
posted by: Todd Peterson | April 19, 2012 1:18pm
My God, this is one terrible OP-ED…
“If Hillary Rosen hadn’t been the lightning rod, somebody else would have; Republicans are eager to have this fight.” First off, Sandra Fluke testified, thanks to the awful Nancy Pelosi, in front of committee whose primary responsibility is committee assignments for House members. In other words it was totally contrived. She’s also been represented pro-bono by the PR firm run by Obama’s former communications director. Geez, Susan, wake up…
Economics issues ARE women’s issues. Over the past several decades women have become a sizable part of the paid work force making them more vested in financial issues. Financial maven Suze Orman tells women that owning your job is the way of the present and future, not waiting for someone else to create you a job. Sandra Fluke has her job waiting in the Soros-sphere but we can’t all be paid to carry George’s water, now can we?
Women are concerned about the financial future of their children. Moms are often heavily involved in the college search process for their kids. They worry about the prospects for their kids getting jobs in their field and being able to live independently after graduation. They are concerned that their kids will be able to “live better” than they did at similar points in their lives. How about the drag of the stratospheric debt on the future economic prospects of their progeny. These issues matter to everyone, Susan.
All of this claptrap about voting with your reproductive organs that comes from the militant feminists has to be squelched. Serving us more warmed over bowls of this drivel isn’t helping anyone here, Susan. David Axelrod and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz threw Rosen under the bus because they knew that she was an albatross. The non-apology offered by Rosen was typical of a feckless hack like her.
Although I don’t agree with Jonathan Pelto’s vision of what size the government should be, at least he has insights and life experience that make him interesting to a consevative guy like me. Maybe you can learn something from him.