On the 4/4/12 installment of his MSNBC program Politics Nation, Al Sharpton and his guests (NOW president Terry O'Neill and HuffPo writer Laura Bassett) discuss how the GOP has alienated many women voters and whether or not the likely Republican presidential nominee (Mitt Romney) can turn it around by November.You can watch the segment below.
Do you think the GOP can win back women voters in time for the 2012 presidential election?
19 comments:
This is one I just don't understand. I can't even work up a quasi rant about it.
I don't get how anyone has alienated women voters.
Is the want for free birth control that widespread amongst women voters? And if so, is the fact that some Republicans are against the idea actually a "women's rights" or "health" issue?
A "war on women"? Seriously?
I guess we'll see come election time if it's true or if it's a storyline being forced to make it true.
But on a side note: Glad to see Al's still healthy enough in his latter years to whip up racial sentiment when the Bat signal comes on while still holding down a show. Holla.
The GOP talking points is to deny that they're waging a war on women. But when the Tea Party ran their candidates in 2010, their mantra was JOBS! JOBS! JOBS! When the GOP regained control of the House, among the first bills introduced were bills to control women's access to abortion and health care.
Just look at GOP state controlled legislatures and all the restrictive abortion [Mississippi is on target to ban it completely] bills; bills to wipe out Planned Parenthood; the legislation introduced in Virginia that would be state enforced rape [it's already the law in Texas], the effort to disallow contraceptive coverage under the guise of "religious freedom," and tell me what the hell any of those pieces of anti-women legislation has to do with JOBS!?
All of the above legislation is aimed at controlling women's lives and taking away their choices--IOW anti-women legislation, and it is the GOP that is behind all of it.
BTW, Malcolm--very clever play on Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique!"
"Washington Post/ABC News polls at roughly the same point in the political calendar show McCain was viewed favorably by 47 percent of women at this time in 2008, while Romney currently stands at 30 percent favorable among women." ..if Mama ain't happy. IMO, he
will flip-flop once again, but each flip and each flop cost him
votes.
Josh: Your comments remind me of the typhoon scene from "The Caine Mutiny". Captain Queeg (Humphrey Bogart) says "We're not in any trouble". Immediately following that line is a shot of the ship being beaten to hell by the typhoon!
The birth control aspect is but a small part of the GOP's war on women. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently repealed the Wisconsin Equal Pay Law:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/06/scott-walker-wisconsin-equal-pay-law_n_1407329.html?view=print&comm_ref=false
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell supported transvaginal ultrasounds for women seeking abortions until he faced a severe backlash:
http://prospect.org/article/virginia-backs-down-mandatory-transvaginal-ultrasound
The Republican's opposition to the Violence Against Women Act:
http://jezebel.com/5893572/republicans-oppose-violence-against-women-act-because-ladies-cant-vote-right
Although a majority on the right want to ignore the GOP's problem with women voters, there are a few Republicans who can see what's happening:
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/04/06/459702/murkowski-becomes-third-republican-senator-to-criticize-gops-war-on-women/
If you guys don't like the term "war on women", maybe you'd feel better if we referred to it as a "police action on women". :-)
Shaw: As you correctly pointed out, the GOP flat out lied about their intentions in 2010. If I didn't know better, I'd think the GOP was intentionally alienating women voters. They can continue pretending they don't have a problem with women voters. However, looking the other way isn't going to make the problem disappear.
I wish I could take credit for how the title of this post is a play on Betty Friedan's classic book. I borrowed it from the title of the segment on this topic that aired on "Politics Nation with Al Sharpton".
BB-Idaho: This morning on "Up with Chris Hayes" one of his guests talked about how Romney's lack of support among women voters isn't a new thing (they cited one of his previous campaigns for office). Although the Republican party's female problem could lie with Romney himself, the GOP's stances on women's issues hasn't helped.
I think you are right about Romney trying to flip-flop on women's issues once he becomes the GOP nominee. Given how far to the right he has moved in order to appease the GOP base, it's going to take great political skill and the collective amnesia on the part of the electorate for that to happen.
@Josh...if you do not think the GOP has been pushed to the extreme fringes on woman's issues by the Tea Party and Rush Limbaugh ditto heads you are very out of touch. You need to get out of the Fox News bubble/echo chamber. One side note: Rush wants his Viagra free or given to him under a false name but he doesn't want women to have contraceptives covered by health care insurance...strange.
The possibility of a GOP woman VP candidate seems remote, given their last selection...
"The birth control aspect is but a small part of the GOP's war on women. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently repealed the Wisconsin Equal Pay Law"
IS that a law that prevented sex discrimination on the job? Or one of those similarly-named efforts that demands equal pay for different jobs of different worth?
Women dying in the streets, seeking back-alley abortions, having no way to get a hold of birth control, being forced to have unwanted children, no way to receive equal pay -- this is what I hear from people.
Some utter morons on the right would, per their idea of religious duty, take away abortion rights altogether. They would take away birth control altogether. I know this. We all know this. Since when have I ever stood behind any of those loons?
@ healthysouls: I'm assuming that you assume my failing to see eye to eye with you on this issue must mean I stand at your polar opposite politically. And you call ME out of touch? No sense in a rant. Good luck with all that.
My beef is with the whole "war" bit. The extreme hyperbole. If you don't believe that women deserve preferential treatment should they be victims of violent crimes, then you MUST be against women! If you don't sign off on more and more government intervention to ensure women are paid more, you MUST be against women!
For Walker in particular, one might argue that he's just eliminating redundancy. However, I don't have a problem with that particular legislation, even while I'm singing the praises of John Stossel's newest special which highlights how government simply CAN'T. Name it: they can't. So, in my mind, less government interference is always better. Laws on top of laws on top of laws on top of more laws....when does it ever end?
To that end, McDonnell doesn't need more legislation to intrude further. Being anti-abortion, however, isn't anti-women. It's more pro-babies. And I have a feeling that's the real beef behind that: The horror of a woman having to face the life she's exterminating. But big government to deter abortion is FAIL.
For the Violence Against Women Act: Why do we need an entire government organization for this one thing? Why do women--why does anyone--need special treatment for a violent act? Violence is violence; a crime is a crime. Standing against preferential treatment is just that. How is that anti-women? (Rhetorical question. I know the mindset there.)
In instances like these I'm glad that I have hybrid political views.
If folks think it's a "war," good on 'em. As I said: I don't understand it, and we'll see if women truly feel that or if they're all just being told they should feel that.
Healthy: There is nothing "extreme fringe" about the mainstream views being discussed. There is way too much of a tendency to label anything that does not match one's own ideology perfectly as extreme or radical. The Right does it <a href = "https://www.google.com/search?q=obama+extremist&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a>too</A>, of course.
It ends up being a meaningless insult without regards to whether or not the views are actually extreme, but mainly with regards to how much the user of the word really really dislikes the views.
dmarks: The 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act was meant to deter employers from discriminating against certain groups by giving workers more avenues via which to press charges. Also, it allows individuals to plead their cases in the less costly, more accessible state circuit court system, rather than just in federal court.
It may take more than a few election cycles for the GOP to wash Sarah Palin out of their proverbial mouth.
Josh: "Women dying in the streets, seeking back-alley abortions, having no way to get a hold of birth control, being forced to have unwanted children, no way to receive equal pay -- this is what I hear from people."
Now that's extreme hyperbole!
Since you are against the government intervening on behalf of women when it comes to them receiving equal pay for the same job a man does, what ideas do you have in eliminating the income gap?
The Violence Against Women Act isn't intended to give preferential treatment to women. It focuses on such crimes as domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Because women are more likely to be the victims of these types of crimes, I think it gives opponents of the bill the "preferential treatment" impression. I’m glad that women who are victims of these types of crimes have resources available to them. There was a time when women for the most part had to take it.
That women have mostly voted for Democrats isn’t a new phenomenon. However, if we are to believe the stats in the links below, the GOP’s eroding numbers among women has to be cause of concern.
http://prospect.org/article/women-flee-gop
http://www.people-press.org/2012/03/29/the-gender-gap-three-decades-old-as-wide-as-ever/
I can appreciate the beef you have over the term "war on women". I waver on the use of the term myself. However, can you at least understand why many feel the GOP isn't on the side of women?
Healthysouls: I found Rush's stance on contraception to be strange and hypocritical. It made no sense. However, when it comes to Rush's commentary, I've learned that it doesn't have to make any sense. His ditto heads will lap it up regardless.
What do you mean what ideas do I have? It's already against the law to discriminate. If women were being discriminated against with that law on top of the law, everything would have been too backed up and busy for Walker to pull it. So it seems the federal law was having the desired effect.
Ironically, in an instance where the federal government WASN'T doing what they were supposed to do, a state then came in and mirrored that law to pass it on the state level. However, Democrats quickly protested and even sued the state for instituting its own law in that instance! But they want it in this instance.
So, yes, I certainly do understand the mindset behind it all. It's because it's a Republican move. If Republicans are behind it, it's no good. It's evil. It's bigoted. It's discriminatory. It's political.
That women are going Democrat, that minorities have been gone Democrat -- no secret; no mystery. But how's that working out?
Do you honestly believe strides America has taken in any positive direction are attributable to progressive Democrats who expand government? I don't. I don't believe they're attributable to the other side either.
Government has been subsidizing lives for decades. They've been throwing more money at schools for decades. They've been passing thousands of pages of anti-discrimination regulations every year.
The one thing that does change: More positions open up for government workers to handle it all.
At some point, I believe we will all (not we in particular, but our great grandchildren most likely) will realize that the issue isn't R and D but rather government in general.
The more government gets involved in what people are paid and how people are treated in the workplace, the more chaos it causes. The government has to grow. The government has to spend. Bureaucracy exponentially expands. It becomes a jumbled web of regulations.
In the case of a guy like Santorum or McDonnell (religious zealots), I can see the case for anti-women. Religion is something I'd keep my daughters away from. Zealots are scary. But I see no anti-women sentiment in Walker's repeal, or not wanting subsidized birth control, or not wanting a specialized arm of government to focus only on crimes against women.
But when a Republican is behind anything, it's always the extreme.
So I'm with ya via a few percentage points. The rest eludes me.
Josh: That anti-government rant was AWESOME! It was one of your best!
The fact of the matter is, there is an income disparity between the genders in this country:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male%E2%80%93female_income_disparity_in_the_United_States
"So, yes, I certainly do understand the mindset behind it all. It's because it's a Republican move. If Republicans are behind it, it's no good. It's evil. It's bigoted. It's discriminatory. It's political."
For a so-called political hybrid, you sure do a helluva job of waving the GOP flag! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!
If the GOP wants to believe they don't have a problem with women voters, that's their business. However, the impression that they don't give a damn about women is there. If they were smart, at the very least they'd be working to turn around that mindset. It'll be interesting to see what the GOP does or doesn't do.
If only I could see an upside, I wouldn't mind the laws.
But what does a new law and another and another do to ensure women earn more? If more women are unemployed after all the wage spikes, the median may rise, but what's that actually worth?
Look at the constant increase of the minimum wage as an example.
The intent, as honest and good-hearted as it is: To pull people out of poverty so they can afford to live.
The result: Employers need to discriminate because they cannot afford to hire more people or lesser qualified people. Then the need for college goes up. Then the demands of the workforce go up. Then the average Joe or Jane off the street finds competition in even applying as a burger-flipper, much less as a factory worker.
What's the difference here? If an employer is legitimately discriminating, they can be sued. Discrimination is illegal. Beyond that, what can government do? Mandate equal pay for all people based on...what? Position? Time at work? Competency?
That link you provided shows an extremely broad median income of all full-time jobs.
Look at single women and their income, or educated women and their income, or women who wait until marriage for children compared to single moms, etc, etc...
Look at the same link at the Time Magazine article that has a lot of women actually earning more than men.
"Women" is extremely generic. Ironic for me to say, I realize, since I don't approve of people being broken down into groups. But if you're going to break people down into groups to locate cause and effect and subsequently find a solution, i.e. women vs. men, you have to be scientifically honest to figure out which women are earning less. You can't fix shit by just contending that "women" earn less. We are not biologically equivalent to begin with.
There is no problem pinpointed there, Malcolm, that doesn't use the same obvious line of "discrimination."
I wish you could see me wanting to pull my hair out right now. LOL!
Government wants to fix something and they don't even know what the F'N problem is!!!!!!! O_o
The whole "Sources of the Gender Gap" section, although very thorough I must say, is all over the place with results that read to me contradictory from one assumption to the next conclusion.
Josh: The fact still remains that there are many people who feel the GOP is waging a war on women. The polls bear this out. However, since I have a level of skepticism when it comes to polls,I'm also looking at what female GOP senators such as Lisa Murkowski have said. If Reince Priebus's "catepillar" comment is any indication, I think the male Republican establishment is going to continue giving Lisa and co. a proverbial pat on the head and tell them not to worry. We'll see how this strategy works out for them come November.
By the way, if you shaved your head like me, you wouldn't have to worry about having the urge to pull your hair out.
Too true with the shaved head bit. But I'm going bald naturally.
And I do realize that many feel the GOP is waging a war. And with how some of those loons act, it's really no wonder why. But a lot of it still is the fact that it's Republicans. Especially in Walker's case, he's hated immensely by progressives and proponents of larger government. You're damned if you do or don't in the nasty world of partisan politics.
But if it turns out that women do decidedly believe Republicans are waging a war, the Republicans might actually declare a war. They tend to love their wars.
I don't see any evidence of those accusing the GOP of waging the war on women of doing so simply because it's Republicans. The same goes for Scott Walker. His repealing of the Wisconsin Equal Pay Law may have become more of a story because he was doing the repealing. However, I doubt the ire would have been less for any other politician.
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