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The GOP’s woman problem is that it has a serious problem with women.
Stag Party
The GOPs woman problem is that it has a serious problem with women.
By Frank Rich
At the time, back in January in New Hampshire, it didnt seem like that big a deal, certainly nothing to rival previous debate flash points like 9-9-9 and Oops! But in retrospect it may have been one of the more fateful twists of the Republican presidential campaign. The exchange was prompted by George Stephanopoulos, who seemingly out of nowhere asked Mitt Romney if he shared Rick Santorums view that states have the right to ban contraception. Romney stiffened, as he is wont to do, and took the tone of a mens club factotum tut-tutting a member for violating the dress code. George, this is an unusual topic that youre raising, he said. I know of no reason to talk about contraception in this regard. The partisan audience would soon jeer the moderator for his effrontery.
Afterward, Romneys spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom accused Stephanopoulos of asking the oddest question in a debate this year and of having a strange obsession with contraception. It was actually Santorum who had the strange obsession. He had first turned the subject into a cause in October by talking about the dangers of contraception in this country. Birth control is not okay, he said then. Its a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.
As we know now, Santorum, flaky though he may sound, is not some outlier in his party or in its presidential field. He was an advance man for a rancorous national brawl about to ambush an unsuspecting America that thought womens access to birth control had been resolved by the Supreme Court almost a half century ago.
The hostilities would break out just weeks after the New Hampshire debate, with the back-to-back controversies of the White House health-care rule on contraceptives and the Komen Foundations dumping of Planned Parenthood. Though those two conflicts ended with speedy cease-fires, an emboldened GOP kept fighting. It had womens sex lives on the brain and would not stop rolling out jaw-dropping sideshows: an all-male panel at a hearing on birth control in the House. A fat-cat Santorum bankroller joking that gals could stay out of trouble by putting Bayer aspirin between their knees. A Virginia governor endorsing a state bill requiring that an ultrasound wand be inserted into the vagina of any woman seeking an abortion.
<SNIP>
All five pages of the article here: http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/gop-women-problem-2012-4/
Afterward, Romneys spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom accused Stephanopoulos of asking the oddest question in a debate this year and of having a strange obsession with contraception. It was actually Santorum who had the strange obsession. He had first turned the subject into a cause in October by talking about the dangers of contraception in this country. Birth control is not okay, he said then. Its a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.
As we know now, Santorum, flaky though he may sound, is not some outlier in his party or in its presidential field. He was an advance man for a rancorous national brawl about to ambush an unsuspecting America that thought womens access to birth control had been resolved by the Supreme Court almost a half century ago.
The hostilities would break out just weeks after the New Hampshire debate, with the back-to-back controversies of the White House health-care rule on contraceptives and the Komen Foundations dumping of Planned Parenthood. Though those two conflicts ended with speedy cease-fires, an emboldened GOP kept fighting. It had womens sex lives on the brain and would not stop rolling out jaw-dropping sideshows: an all-male panel at a hearing on birth control in the House. A fat-cat Santorum bankroller joking that gals could stay out of trouble by putting Bayer aspirin between their knees. A Virginia governor endorsing a state bill requiring that an ultrasound wand be inserted into the vagina of any woman seeking an abortion.
<SNIP>
All five pages of the article here: http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/gop-women-problem-2012-4/
A Good Read
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The GOP’s woman problem is that it has a serious problem with women. (Original Post)
Tx4obama
Mar 2012
OP
aquart
(69,014 posts)1. Democrats have husbands, wives, lovers, partners. Republicans have little women.
SamG
(535 posts)2. Great way of saying it. n/t
longship
(40,416 posts)3. A very good read
Quite a bit of history, too.