Posted on 04/22/2014 5:08:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
Just because your opponent is hurling baseless or even ridiculous charges does not mean that you are free to disregard them. You may think it's absurd to argue that you are engaged in a "war on women." But contempt for the accusation is not enough.
Some strategists suggest (they have for years) the key for Republican candidates is to downplay social issues in favor of economic arguments. Pocketbook appeals are great, but the premise -- that social issues damage Republican candidates -- is shaky at best.
When Pew asked women voters to rank a list of issues in order of importance in September 2012, abortion was named less often than health care, education, jobs, Medicare, the economy, terrorism, taxes, foreign policy and the budget deficit. The only issues that ranked lower for women voters were immigration and energy. A post-election Kaiser poll found only 7 percent of those who voted for President Barack Obama cited women's issues as most important to their vote.
It's true single women tend to favor Democrats, but that isn't an abortion vote; it's a vote for security. American women are about equally divided between the pro-life and pro-choice positions, with the seesaw sometimes tilting a bit one way and sometimes the other, depending upon the polling question. Most Americans, including most of those who describe themselves as pro-choice, are comfortable with restrictions on abortion after 12 weeks gestation.
What Americans do recoil from is perceived extremism, and that's where Republicans need to learn their lines. In 2012, some Republicans seemed ill-informed and insensitive about rape and pregnancy. The press and the Democrats will always frame questions to abortion opponents as "you oppose abortion even in cases of rape and incest." It's up to Republican candidates to remind audiences that it is Democrats who are the extremists on this question. A possible response: "There are some rare and very tragic cases of pregnancies caused through rape and incest. They represent less than 2 percent of all abortions performed in the U.S. yearly. (Source: Alan Guttmacher Institute). My opponent, however, favors no restrictions on abortion whatsoever. Not for sex selection. Not at six months gestation. Not when the baby can survive outside the womb. Not at nine months gestation. In some cases, not even after a baby is born alive following a failed attempt at abortion."
Sen. Barbara Boxer, whom everyone agrees is a mainstream Democrat, once explained that life begins when you take the baby home from the hospital.
Democrats actually don't like to talk about abortion much. They know that voters are not with them, so they disguise what they're for with euphemisms like "choice" and "women's health." Lately, they've added contraception to the mix to weave their haunting tale of a Republican "war on women."
Who's against contraception? The only Republican on the national stage who has said anything remotely akin to opposing birth control was Rick Santorum. Santorum is a thoughtful guy -- not always a bonus in a candidate. He mused that contraception had been, on balance, a bad deal for women. He also revealed that he and his wife didn't use it, which is way more than we needed or wanted to know. Still, not even Santorum ever said that he would vote to outlaw it.
The Democrats were sly. Obama's Department of Health and Human Services slipped a mandate into Obamacare that requires all insurers to provide contraceptives for free. Not just to indigent women, but to all women. There is already a federal subsidy providing free contraceptives for the poor. In 2010, we spent $2.37 billion for family-planning services. It's the Democrats' great innovation to force middle-class women to subsidize contraceptive purchases by wealthy women.
Republican candidates who are accused of being against birth control because they oppose Obamacare should enjoy explaining that declining to subsidize something is not equivalent to opposing it. I decline to subsidize gun purchases by all American males. Does that make me anti-man? Anti-gun? I decline to subsidize gym memberships for all teenagers. Does that make me pro-obesity? I decline to subsidize farmers -- oh wait, we already do that, but I wish I could refuse. And the same goes for our subsidies of green energy companies, the NFL, big banks, transportation and thousands of other things.
Women voters are not an army of Sandra Flukes, flocking to the polls for their free diaphragms and limitless abortions, but they do flinch from extremists. It's up to Republican candidates to illustrate who the real extremists are.
Will some visible Republican please point out that supporting fanatical Muslims, like this Admin does, is the real War on Women? And then get Ayaan Hirsi Ali up there to talk about it.
No, they will not. They’re literally stuck on stupid.
Both Democrat and Republican men want women to give the milk away for free. However, the Republicans insist the women should despise themselves.
I am not worried abut the so called “War on Women”, its all liberal bullshit. I am worried about the very real “War on Babies”. How many women have been killed in this war on woman compared to the murders of millions of unborn babies?
Would someone please tell the geniuses at Pew (and all other media/polling outlets for that matter) that it's just absurd to separate jobs, healthcare, the economy, taxes, deficits, energy into separate issues. Tough to separate energy and foreign policy too. Geez, people are soooooo stupid to niche these issues as if they aren't all the same thing. (rant over)
funny, it seems to me that the Democratic party has been in a war against white men for decades.
In Colorado, we’ve put the Libs on notice:
Coffman and Gardner spank Udall
If God is against it, would it matter if every mother loving fool on earth thought it was her or his God given right? Contraception is child sacrifice either before or often after the fact. Contraception is racial suicide writ large. Contraception is hatred of faith, hope and love, God and neighbor, creation and the future. Contraception is a rejection of the inestimable gift of the the bounty of the female sex and rebellion against God's first command to "be fruitful and multiply".
For our nation to outlaw contraception would be like the hangman voting to outlaw rope.
Like most liberal “causes”, making them define exactly what they mean and what EXACTLY they propose to do about it through government
would be the defeat of that cause.
As long as they can remain in the realm of “feel good about yourself as a good person for opposing this ‘bad thing’”, the issue is lost.
Valid responses:
Democrat War on the Middle Class
Democrat War on Workers
Democrat War on Jobs
Democrat War on Truth
I’m not even a six-figure-per-month expert.
Whats next? Dogs? Midgets?
Are we gonna see ads on TV? “Republicans are mean to little people.”
I am glad a wise liberal told me I was at war with women, otherwise I would have never known.
A wise liberal? What is that?
Democrats are waging war on white middle class men...
I think, if the pubbies could/would ever present a real economic plan, they’d win hands down. With all of the Obama regulation and tax (especially Obamacare) overreach and economic failures, where is a Republican economic plan? It’s like they don’t want to win. A real economic plan would answer a lot of womens issues.
Since "women" are not a coherent group, and there is no such thing as a "war on women", even within Islam, hopefully Republican candidates will not adopt the same stupid strategy that they have with "racism".
Republicans see, or should see, people as individuals. Once they buy into group identity, they lose.
+1.
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