Posted on 03/11/2012 3:39:18 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
...somewhere between the baby name game and the gifts, what had been light conversation took a sharp turn toward the personal and political — specifically, the battle over access to birth control and other women’s health issues that have sprung to life on the Republican campaign trail in recent weeks.
“We all agreed that this seemed like a throwback to 40 years ago,” said Ms. Russell, 57, a retired teacher from Iowa City who describes herself as an evangelical Christian and “old school” Republican of the moderate mold.
Until the baby shower, just two weeks ago, she had favored Mitt Romney for president.
Not anymore. She said she might vote for President Obama now. “I didn’t realize I had a strong viewpoint on this until these conversations,” Ms. Russell said. As for the Republican presidential candidates, she added: “If they’re going to decide on women’s reproductive issues, I’m not going to vote for any of them. Women’s reproduction is our own business.”
.....Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania who is one of Mr. Romney’s rivals for the nomination, created a tempest late last month by speaking out against prenatal testing. Earlier comments about women in combat and the role of “radical feminism” in encouraging work outside the home also left some women ill at ease.
“Everybody is so busy telling us how we should act in the bedroom, they’re letting the country fall through the cracks,” said Fran Kelley, a retired public school worker in Seattle who voted for Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama in the 2008 election. Of the Republican candidates this year, she added, “They’re nothing but hatemongers trying to control everyone, saying, ‘Live as I live.’...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“As long as I do not have to pay for it.
If I pay for it, I can then dictate the terms of its delivery.”
Agree with your comment, and it should also be applied to ‘entitlement benefits’. Starting with drug testing for welfare recipients.
Silly Republicans just keep walking into these obvious Alinsky traps set for them. And then Rush foolishly took it to a whole other level. Mission accomplished for Team Obama: ripping away the women who abandoned the Democrats in 2010, with a single, contrived non-issue. And the GOPers handed it to them on silver platter.
More garbage from the NYT trying to make the issue about “Women” rather than the “Economy”. She’s following the DNC Talking Points real well.
Either the NYT is lying (would you be surprised?) or "centrist women" are just not that important a faction of the voting public.
“They only believe what their union tells them to believe”
I found something similar at my old workplace (non-union), only more frightening: the folks there felt and spoke conservatively in conversation (against a welfare state, against big government, and against government intrusiveness) and yet time after time I heard them parrot the main stream media’s talking points against prominent republicans in the news.
These people were so susceptible to whatever the talking heads were saying that they would vote leftist time and again against their own best interests. It was an eye-opener.
MSM propaganda works, and quite effectively. People do seem to be kind of stupid and trusting of the MSM. It’s really disheartening to see.
Really? It seems like every time I've reproduced, there's been a man involved.
If there's anyone on earth more ignorant and addled than a late-middle-aged public school teacher, I haven't met her.
What do 50 + year old woman anyway care about reproductive rights? Aren’t their reproductive years over by now?
I believe one of the worst segements of women is this 50-60 year old age group. These ARE the women who in the last 30 years or so who have aborted their children in such unfathomable numbers. Many of them are still living with their guilt and most are unrepentant, yet rotting on the inside.
It’s a hollow existence at best and denial of facts and reality is the only thing they have left to hold onto.
Any women who feel this way are feminazi moonbats without 2 brain cells with which to spark analytical, critical thinking--but then I become redundant. I DID say moonbats!
vaudine
“Silly Republicans just keep walking into these obvious Alinsky traps set for them.”
Wow. You really nailed it! It is unbelievable how stupidly Republicans have reacted to this manufactured issue. This is a huge win for the alinskyites and demonstrates how uncoordinated and stupid the republican party is behaving.
The alinskyites should have been made to look ridiculous every time they brought up this bone-headed non-subject. But unfortunately this worked so well for them, you just know they will try to gin up another closed non-issue: Perhaps we can expect Stephanopolus to demand that Romney address whether or not state’s have the right to put blacks in the back of the bus...
Let’s hope repubs learned something from this debacle.
They’re right about one thing:
dumb sluts ARE the center of American politics!
And the lifeblood of NYTimes’ advertising...
Please don’t paint with too broad a brush.
This is a winning issue for the GOP - and it is about religious freedom, not contraception. We are not losing women over this; Pinch just wants you to believe we are.
That said, Newt is the ONLY GOP candidate who can win this 'contrived non-issue'. Santorum has bungled it completely, showing what an amateur he is.
This is such a fake issue. No republicans have proposed any new policies whatsoever.
I bet if you could find Mary Russell’s FaceBook page, you’d find she’s no so centrist.
At 50+, I doubt these women have much to worry about in terms of reproducing. And, if their quotes are representative of their mental processes, we can only hope they used all means necessary to prevent reproduction in the past.
It’s not that you have a “strong viewpoint” Ms. Russel, it’s just that you’re easily fooled by a slickly packaged lie. You go ahead and vote for Obama, I’m just glad someone as simple-mided and easily fooled as you aren’t in the classroom teaching our children anymore.
She is simple minded and easily fooled. She is an ardent liberal trying to convince conservative to vote for the muslim Resident.
“Centrist” women - I guess to the NYT, need that free abortion and birth control above all other “freedoms” crowd is centrist - Fluke is also a centrist to them. They need to change their name to the New York Propagandist.
Correct.
I am not Catholic but am a Christian who does not intend to run from this fight either.
He assaulted the Religious Freedom of EVERY Christian, Jew and some other faiths. This MUST not be forgotten. It MUST be clearly understood.
Obozo aka Barry the Bastard is going down.
God Bless the United States of America and help us regain our place in your world.
Hahaha! On the money!
Yes. I can relate, have to deal with “teachers” as a computer tech, and add to that the disgusting sense of entitlement and I have a serious bad taste in my mouth for them.
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