The "War on Women," the Gender Gap, and the 2012 Election

Politico Arena Topic: Will Mitt be damaged by Mourdock's rape comment?

Governor Mitt Romney was already in a bind over his “binders full of women” comment after the second presidential debate at Hofstra University. The gap that he had seemingly been closing among women in this country started to widen after that slip-up. But the latest volley in the “war on women” could blow that gap wide open.

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock’s comment on October 23 in a debate that rape is “something that God intended to happen” is as abhorrent and ridiculous a statement as one could utter and just the latest controversial comment on women that Republicans have offered up (hey Indiana Republicans—you sure you don’t want to bring back Senator Richard Lugar, a person as intelligent and respected as any person currently serving in Congress?).

If Mourdock’s comments were an isolated incident, it may not have had an impact. But starting with Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s comments this spring that Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, who testified in front of Congress on the topic of contraception, was a “slut” and “prostitute,” it’s been a pretty tough year for the GOP on women’s issues.

Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin’s comment in August that “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down” has put the modern Republican Party’s views on abortion and women firmly under the media microscope and at the center of the 2012 presidential campaign. Akin has since compared his female opponent, Senator Claire McCaskill, to a dog at a recent fundraiser, and subsequently news has broken that he had been arrested several times in the past at the scene of abortion protests.

And Akin and Mourdock are not isolated cases. U.S. Representative Joe Walsh, a freshman from Illinois running for reelection in a very tight race, said in a recent debate that he was against all abortions without exception, even when the mother’s life was at stake because “with modern technology and science, you can’t find one instance….There is no such exception as life of the mother, and as far as health of the mother, same thing.”

So how does Governor Romney repair the damage? After all, Governor Romney enthusiastically endorsed Mourdock in his senate bid. I don’t think he can at this point. His only hope is that his advantage among men is bigger than his gap among women, a prospect that is highly unlikely.

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Rush Limbaugh and the Death Spiral of Incivility

Politico Arena Topic: Has the 'War on Women' Gone Too Far?


Rush Limbaugh crossed the line last week with his offensive statements about Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown Law Student and Democratic activist. But crossing the line is nothing new for Limbaugh—he has a long and sordid history of attacking women, minorities, and Democrats. The guy is a school yard bully with a large megaphone.

I am heartened by the fact that many of his advertisers have pulled their ads—they clearly saw Limbaugh’s venom affecting their bottom line. Some like Carbonite CEO David Friend saw the moral debauchery in Limbaugh’s comments noting that Limbaugh “overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency.” However, I am disappointed but not surprised that so many of Limbaugh’s fellow conservative commentators have not only stood by his side, but have chosen to follow Limbaugh’s lead in attacking Ms. Fluke and women in general.

And where has the Republican Party been? Some, like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), have belatedly criticized Limbaugh’s comments, but GOP lawmakers are not exactly sprinting to the microphone to publicly repudiate him. As George Will said Sunday on This Week, “Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran,but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.” To top it off, we get Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential front runner, who gives Americans a half-hearted—“it’s not the language I would have used”—in discussing Limbaugh’s discourse. (So what language would he have used? Harlot? Strumpet?) What a tremendous missed opportunity. Romney could have demonstrated his moral backbone by publicly smacking Limbaugh. But Romney, like many in the GOP, are simply afraid of offending Limbaugh’s mythical audience or being on the receiving end of Limbaugh’s future tirades.

Perhaps what is most disheartening is this episode demonstrates once again that our politics are gripped by an ugliness and mean-spiritedness that pushes the bounds of basic decency. As a country, we seem to be in a death-spiral of incivility that wounds the body politic and makes it increasingly difficult for our institutions to govern. Politicos and members of the media across the ideological spectrum will need to publicly and forcefully repudiate the destructive speech of personalities like Rush Limbaugh in the future if we are ever, as a country, to escape the spiral.


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