A friend forwarded me a media advisory yesterday that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards were holding a press call to demand that Mitt Romney pull his ad endorsing Indiana U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock following his statement upholding the sanctity of life for children conceived in rape.
So I got on the call.
The schpeel was typical. Republicans are radically anti-choice. Republicans want to take away birth control coverage. “Mitt Romney threatens the future for women in America,” clamored Richards. “He and Richard Mourdock have pledged allegiance to the most extreme GOP platform in our lifetime, which would not only overturn Roe but also give rights to fertilized eggs.”
Richards said Romney would turn back the clock 40 years to the pre-Roe days, a new time regression, I noted. At other times she has said Romney would turn back the clock 50 years, and at still other times she has said Romney was stuck in a 70-yr-old time warp. So goes the Planned Parenthood fertility rights calendar.
But I digress.
Most interesting to me were the questions from reporters at the end. There were only a few. But they went somewhere unexpected, and they came from unexpected sources.
From a journalist at liberal Talking Points Memo: “What’s the thinking on the gender gap closing rather than expanding?”
And from a journalist at The Root, an online division of the Washington Post catering to African-Americans: “Why do you think this message hasn’t been gaining ground among women?”
The lame answer from a DNC spokesperson whose name I didn’t catch: “We had leads in both states and nationally, and demographics that were unsustainable. There was a gender gap 26-28 points that was never going to be sustainable. The natural contraction of these things shouldn’t be seen as anything but normal.”
I’ve been posting polls for months showing the “war on women” meme isn’t a Republican bra-burner. So shows the latest, currently spotlighted on Drudge, from the Associated Press. The new normal, I hope…
Those churning gender dynamics leave the presidential race still a virtual dead heat, with Romney favored by 47% of likely voters and Obama by 45%….
As the election nears, Romney has been playing down social issues and trying to project a more moderate stance on matters such as abortion in an effort to court female voters. The AP-GfK poll, taken Friday through Tuesday, shows Romney pulling even with Obama among women at 47-47 after lagging by 16 points a month earlier.
[Top photo via Drudge]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.