The Planned Parenthood and Sandra Fluke (remember her?) controversies earlier this year exposed the paternalistic/chauvinistic mindset that still prevails among Republicans and gave the impression that they are waging a war on women. But these controversies also demonstrated why Democrats are winning the fight for women voters this election cycle.
This is why it is hardly surprising that Republicans are doing all they can to turn the working-woman outrage political strategist Hilary Rosen expressed this week into a new manifesto on women that makes the Democratic Party look like it suddenly morphed into the men-only golf club at Augusta. Mind you, all Hilary did was to vent understandable indignation at Mitt Romney for claiming that he relies on his wife to tell him about women’s economic concerns:
What you have is, Mitt Romney running around the country saying, ‘Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues… And when I listen to my wife, that’s what I’m hearing.’
Guess what: his wife has never really worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kind of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future.
(CNN, April 11, 2012)
What’s more, every word in this statement is true – notwithstanding the clearly inadvertent swipe at stay-at-home moms. For, as Mitt himself intimated, the only kind of economic issues his wife faces has to do with deciding where among their many mansions to spend Thanksgiving and which among their many cars to drive once their private jet flies them there.
This is why it is so surprising, indeed disappointing, that Rosen’s Democratic colleagues are venting such “faux anger” over her statement they are drowning out that of Republicans.
Hell, none other than David Axelrod, the campaign manager for the president’s re-election campaign, was so eager to distance Obama and the Democratic Party from her remarks that he insisted Rosen was speaking more as an employee of CNN than as a Democratic strategist. Boy, with friends like these….
Granted, Rosen would have been well-advised to heed President Obama’s admonition to spare political spouses when trying to score political points. Especially since, in this case, she failed to appreciate that Mitt was merely referring to his wife as a gilded messenger conveying the economic woes of ordinary women.
In fact, his latter point hints at why I am so disgusted with Democrats for buying into this faux anger. Because they are so busy throwing Rosen under the bus that they themselves fail to appreciate the fallacy, if not mendacity, inherent in Mitt claiming that he looks to his wife to tell him “what women really care about.”
After all, what does it say about his regard for women that, after four years of campaigning, he still needs his wife to tell him what women are saying?
More to the point, women can now be forgiven for thinking that when they were pouring their hearts out to him about issues of real concern to them, Mitt’s mind was far away … perhaps wishing in those moments that he were playing a round of golf on the greens at Augusta.
Related commentaries:
Planned parenthood…
Sandra Fluke controversy…
Abortion … again?
* This commentary was originally published yesterday, April 15, at 6:51 pm