How important are women voters to President Obama's re-election strategy? The incumbent's latest ad once again focuses on reproductive rights -- the seventh ad the Obama campaign has launched on this issue in recent months.
In this spot, we see Romney during a Republican debate, saying he'd "be delighted to sign" a bill that would ban all abortions in the United States. The ad is intended to refute the latest Romney commercial that presents him as some kind of moderate on women's health.
Obama's ad concludes with this tagline: "Trying to mislead us? That's wrong. But ban all abortions? Only if you vote for him."
Every time the Obama campaign references this "delighted" quote, the Romney campaign is outraged, insisting that it's been taken out of context. Do the Republicans have a point? Not really -- the larger context shows the candidate adding, "That's not where America is today."
In other words, he'd sign the bill, but Romney doesn't think it's politically realistic, since the American mainstream isn't prepared to take such a drastic step.
As a matter of public opinion analysis, that's accurate, but when it comes Obama's ad, the context isn't exculpatory. Romney claims to support limited exceptions to his ambition to curtail reproductive rights, but given a choice, he would sign into a law a bill that would eliminate the right altogether. Whether he thinks the nation is prepared for such a move is irrelevant -- Romney's position is that he'd "be delighted to sign" a bill that would ban all abortions in the United States. Period. Full stop.
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Is there anyone in the USA who thinks that if the Republicans win, they won't go all in against a womens choice? Thats why the whining about this spot being somehow out of context is a laugher.
Sadly, yes there are. I work with a woman who is certain that all the anti-choice talk is really just a front to keep the evangelical vote.
Boehner said the same thing essentially, that he would focus on jobs jobs jobs. Now we can see what modern Republicans do when they get power, they immediately pander to the nuts.
Wait, so she's not worried at all about her candidate lying to get votes? That's totally fine? She knows that the party of her choice lies to the public in order to scam the evangelicals, and this is totally fine with her?
Interesting set of morals she has there.
And that, upon being elected, he will discard the disguise of an unethical, lying deceiver and show the world the true heir to George Washington who would die rather than lie?
OK, maybe not. How about "reveal himself to be the true heir to Machiavelli" who will, out of pure self-interest, knife the Republican majority in Congress and rule like a Democrat despite the fact that he is dependent on them to do anything? Despite the fact that that would doom his re-election chances from Day One?
I'm not seeing the game here. Is he a Boy Scout disguised as an ax murderer, or is he a blithering idiot who maneuvers to gain power and then plans to throw it away once he has it?
He is trying to play his way off the fringe and into the center so that he doesn't scare voters to much. That way if he is elected he can claim that if there were such a bill on his desk he would only be enacting the will of the people because it would have been passed by the congress, and can avoid it while going for a second term. On top of that most of the GOP know this would never really fly nationaly so they will very quietly legislate ways to turn this over to the states there by keeping the people in Washington politicaly "Clean".
Sketchy is FOR reproductive rights.
No, Sketchy is AGAINST reproductive rights.
What day is it? What time is it? Who is Sketchy in front of at this moment?
Because whoever Sketchy is speaking to defines his policy.
.
If anyone thinks "Moderate Multi-Choice Mitt" will do anything other than what he's ordered and thus votes for him, they will prove that Mencken was right about never going broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
"That's not where America is today."
OK, sure. What about 2013? You'd be president for 4 years. What if the GOP has both the House and Senate in 2015? What about then?
You'd still be "delighted" to sign that bill. And if you didn't, you can bet your Republican challengers in 2016 would be "delighted" to use that same clip.
It's exactly where the House Republicans are. And If Romney wins, the GOP controlled Senate would be there too.
Annie, we know this is the real Willard and we don't even need to unzip him.
It is amazing to me how many young women take ROE V WADE for granted and think that it would never be overturned. The number of attempts in the last two years to lay the ground work for this has been crazy.. I assure you that if the GOP are elected into office it will only take the appointment of 2 Supreme Court Justices to get this done. Please do not take your rights for granted, or you will wake up and find your mom telling you I told you so.. Women died for these rights, do not throw them away.
The thing is it's not just women and it's not just abortion. This goes right to the heart of the right to privacy. Take that away and being gay goes back to being criminalized and what consenting adults do becomes the subject of someone else's morality
Ginsberg is almost 80, and Scalia, Breyer and Kennedy are in the mid-70s. The probability of selecting 2 new justices in the next 4 years isn't too unlikely.
I beg to differ with Romney on this point. We already have Red States that have effectively banned abortions with draconian regulations of women's health/abortion service providers. It will only take a critical number of far Right anti-choice nuts at the federal level who will feel emboldened by a Romney Presidency to try to get a "Personhood Amendment" passed. The "mainstream" doesn't need to go along because the far Right has already proven on social issues that if there is a will, there is a way for them to get some odious law passed (see anti-gay marriage, vaginal probes, voter ID, etc.)
When the ones whose agenda, involves your pudenda and you don't want to bed or do not plan to wed, you'd better put a stop, to invasions by the GOP.
Romney can be a real deceiver can’t he? Romney’s constant lies and deceptions are trying to confuse the people actually into voting for him and Ryan. But you know everything that Romney and Ryan have to offer is only for the rich to get richer. This reckless campaign from the Republicans really does not help in bringing the American people together except cause division and hatred. It just shows how far these power craving, corrupt, arrogant, greedy, hypocritical, and deceiving people will go just to continue with their agenda of misery, despair, and death. Of course this is nothing new if we look at our past history of what these types of people have done in the world which is a very wretched lot only caring of themselves and putting everybody else under their foot to be crushed. These Republicans, extremists of hatred, and extreme rich can pretend they’re nice and wise, but are the bitter and spoiled food no one should ever have to eat or drink. They are the weeds in the fields that need to be pulled out and discarded.
funny how R/R have no problems in citing Obama out of context. Rather amusing to have them whine about it, especially when the real context of the "delighted" quote is so damning.
By all means, do not forget: "You didn't build that." Not only taken WAY out of context, but they built their RNC around it.
What exactly did Obama meant when he said "You didn't build that!"? I take him at his word.
This is how you effectively sway undecideds. Use Romney's own words.
That is just simple enough for these uninformed boobs to understand it.
Telling them what Factcheck or Politifact said doesn't register. But, words right out of Romney's mouth, gets their attention.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovHWulL3Ydw&feature=player_embedded
This is nothing. Why aren't we seeing endless loops of Romney's simple one-word answer to Huckabee's question: would you have signed Mississippi's "personhood" bill? Answer: "Absolutely." Not just an abortion ban, PERSONHOOD Ban all abortions, plus morning-after pills, birth control pills, IUDs and in-vetro (sic?) fertilization. Where's that tape in Obama's ads??? If even Mississippi can't stomach that legislation, neither can mainstream America
We need to keep Mitt and all republicans yapping about how they want to end abortion,contraception,gay marriage,voting rights,affirmative action and force religion into school to indoctrinate your kids in the right winged club.
Letting such evil lurk underground is like inviting termites to eat the foudation while you spray for flies.
If there's a slightest doubt in your mind about the Repub's war on women, check out the post "The Repuglican War on Women (pt 1: Oh, my Akin Ryan) on the "Grumbles From an Old Grouch" blog. (grumblesfromanoldgrouch.com)
http://www.seriouslyrolling.com/2012/10/romney-on-women-families-gun-control.html
"According to Mitt, there are 3 1/2 million women living in poverty right now, so why advocate cuts to birth control? Cut funding to head start programs which single Moms need? Fight against the Lilly Leadbetter law to help insure equal pay for equal work? If he’s so concerned the disintegrating family structure leads to violence, why taking away things, which help support parents raising health productive families?"
Why must tax payers pay for women's birth control? Dems take away more and more personal responsibility. So sad. Every American should do whatever it takes to take care of themselves and all of their actions. My neighbors shouldn't be forced to pay for my lack of responsibility.
You know women's rights is a big part of the Presidential Election this year, Obama supporting Women's right of choice and Romney in "favor" of protecting the rights of the unborn. However, there is no mention of Romney profiting from aborted fetuses. As I understand Romney disposes of aborted fetuses at his company. Stericycle. I must admit this rich kid has done it again; cornered the market in Stem Cells. No legislation will be passed unless he makes a buck off it.
Its' been our privilege to have participated in this forum. We will miss Senator G. McGovern. I, (We), worked with him, back in the days. Reproductive rights is one of a few number of junctures from which core freedoms, justice, rights and liberties are promoted or suppressed. Were departing to less violent, off shore environs. Thank you TRMS, your staff and family for this forum. American roots are in radical, religious fundamentalism, banned and persecuted in Europe who fought native Americans that taught them gorilla tactics defeating colonial Britain. Despite our hard gained achievements, its' questionable how far they can be advanced in this type of culture? The Tea Party represents a sophisticated and highly funded repudiation of social gains since the 1940s, which views a secular government as insufficiently constraining enough to stop such social gains which it regards is its' moral vindication to abolish as much of it as possible, through privatization and the depletion of trillions of dollars from its' treasury to pay for its' corporate frauds. (Preached as Prosperity or Dominionist theology). Experienced violence, is due to your being regarded as spiritual and moral criminals. This is hard for many to get their heads around. If they win as we predict, this will be a more dangerous place for you and many others. We've fought hard for our equal rights for over 40 years and are retreating in the sunsets of our lives. This is our last blog to TRMS. Good Night and Good Luck.
The larger point is that none of the contrceptive methods should be paid for by taxpayer money. Those issues are the responsibility of the women whose actions cause the reproductive issues. If they want to play they should have to pay.
How would abortion in the case of rape ("legitimate" or otherwise) work? Would the victim be taken at her word or would she be compelled to PROVE rape before being "granted" an abortion?
If the alleged perpetrator is identified, would due legal process be required to FULLY run its course (innocent until proven guilty) before the victim was allowed an abortion and then only in the event of a guilty verdict? This process, in most cases, would take much longer than a normal term pregnancy.
rainn.org reports that only 46% of all rapes are reported to police and only 12% of those reported lead to an arrest and only 5% result in a felony conviction. Given this, in the event that this abominable attack on Women's rights were to be enacted, 95 out of every 100 women victimized by rape would be ineligible under the law to be "granted" and abortion.
Since approximately 5% of rapes result in pregnancy, if 100% of all rapes were reported, the simple math of the situation is that only 1 in 400 women who were impregnated as a result of rape would be given "state sanctioned" permission to terminate the pregnancy.
For all practical purposes therefore we can expect, if this law is enacted that there will be no meaningful accommodations for women who are impregnated as a result of rape; instead they will be re-victimized by the legislature that fails to protect their rights whilst many rapists (some of whom may well have impregnated their victims) walk free.
Rachel, please cover the story about Romney taking over the company HART Intercivic. This company makes the voting machines that will be used in the election. The state of Ohio is one of the states that will be using them. This is very important:
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2012/4725#.UITDSeTspDE.facebook
This is really not rocket science. For those who tell themselves that the Republicans are better with our economy and managing our debt, consider the following (and it's factual): Bill Clinton, a Democrat, becomes President in1992. With a Democratic Congress he raises taxes, all Republicans vote against his budget but it passes anyway. The Republicans set about working on destroying his Presidency. In the meantime, Clinton brings us the longest economic expansion in US history, balances the budget, creates surpluses, and leaves them for the next President, who is Bush.
Bush, a Republican, has a Republican Congress. They immediately squander the entire surplus, and set about destroying the economy and creating record deficits, and two unpaid for wars. Cheney famously said, "Deficits don't matter," and the Republicans agreed. We go from a great economy with a balanced budget, to an economy headed toward a depression with record deficits. Obama, a Democrat, is elected, and again the Republicans set about trying to destroy HIS Presidency. Obama, under incredibly adverse circumstances, with the Republicans trying to thwart everything he attempts to do for our country, STILL is able to manage to keep us from falling into a depression and to turn the economy around with progressive improvement. Obama succeeded despite Republican efforts to sabotage the Obama recovery, like failing to act on the jobs bill Obama and the Dems have proposed and killing a bill that would have rewarded companies that bring jobs back to the US with tax credits and end tax breaks for companies that ship US jobs overseas. And yet now the country is actually considering dumping Obama to put another Republican in office who is a sociopath and a serial liar and promises to be even worse than Bush, implementing the same kind of policies that got us into trouble in the first place. How do you fight that kind of ignorance? Republicans keep screwing things up, Democrats keep fixing them, and the Republicans endlessly blame Democrats for the terrible results of GOP policies. And they get away with it. Consider Romney and his refusal to release his tax returns. Obama could never get away with that. Just think of the hailstorm that the Republicans would create if Obama lied us into a major war the same way Bush did. Not only would Obama be successfully impeached and removed from office, but the Republicans wouldn't stop until he was behind bars, delivering a staggering blow to the future of the Democratic Party. What would the GOP reaction be if a 9/11 type attack happened on Obama's watch? Would they rally around the President, like the Democrats did Bush, the way patriotic Americans SHOULD respond? Or would they use the occasion to attack Obama with the aim of destroying his Presidency? We all know the answer to that.
Ignorance and propaganda is a deadly combination. Is our country's too dumb to survive as a democracy? That's what the plutocrats are counting on.