GOP Denial and the Gender Gap

The gender gap is real, and it’s bigger than it’s ever been since the dawn of political polls. So says Steve Kornacki.

Republican and their media sympathizers respond to this challenge by either denying the gender gap is real or by mistaking us for caterpillars. And then there’s the Michael Gerson route, in which Gerson admits the gender gap is real but denies it has anything to do with Republican maneuvers on contraception or other “women’s” issues.

The media — ever drawn to simple explanations that reinforce their own cultural expectations — have diagnosed Romney’s gender-based electoral weakness as the result of his opposition to the contraceptive mandate. This is both initially plausible and demonstrably false. More than 60 percent of American voters don’t even know Romney’s position on the mandate — a topic they rank near the bottom of their political concerns. And when pressed, a majority of women affirm that religious institutions should be exempted from the mandate.

First — the issue is bigger than just the contraception mandate. It seems that for the past several months there has been one “women’s” issue after another the GOP has bungled. Second, the gender gap is being driven by one particular slice of the demographic pie — college-educated women under the age of 50. They are stampeding to Obama in droves. And you can bet your Jimmy Choo spike-heel booties that those women understand the contraception issue (and everything else) better than Gerson does.

Hilariously, Gerson thinks Mittens can win women back by taking a page out of Dubya’s 2000 playbook, which was co-authored by Gerson …

In 2000, George W. Bush campaigned — in both the primaries and the general election — on increasing the quality of education for poor children, on humane immigration reform and on expanding care by faith-based organizations for the addicted and homeless. These issues were personally important to Bush. They also signaled to independents and women that he could think beyond normal ideological boundaries. This form of “compassionate conservatism” is now broadly reviled among conservatives. The need for an analogous agenda, whatever it is called, remains unchanged. To secure a decent shot at this election, Romney will need to offer some positive vision for the common good.

In other words, the guy already famous for his off-the-cuff remarks about the thrill of firing people, ending Planned Parenthood, and telling financially squeezed college students that they just need to find a cheaper college — and let us not forget the dog — will figure out how to fake caring? Well enough to fool anybody? Right.

See also Ed Kilgore.

Oh, and Frothy is suspending his campaign.

8 thoughts on “GOP Denial and the Gender Gap

  1. To me the most convincing factor that the Repugs are waging a war on women was the mandatory Vaginal Probe.. It shows a brutal mentality straight out of the dark ages that seeks no cover to hide it’s intended purpose of violating a womens dignity. Any civilized person with a speck of decency can see that that procedure doesn’t belong in the realm of politicans, and it’s a horrible barbaric attempt to subjugate women.

  2. Guess it’s time for Mittens to shake up that etch a sketch and draw us a new image of himself. I hope he draws us one without his Swiss bank accounts..That doesn’t sit well with my remaining patriotic residue.

  3. “More than 60% of American voters don’t even know Romney’s position on the mandate–a topic they rank near the bottom of their political concerns.

    Okay, I confess that my grasp of basic math is pitiful, but how does that translate into what Gerson infers that it means? He didn’t say 60% of women–he said voters. Assuming that 50% of those voters were women and 50% were men, for all we know 100% of the men could have ranked Romney’s position on the contraception mandate as the least of their concerns, and 10% of the women polled could have agreed.

    As for a majority (at minimum 50.01%) of those women saying, “If religious institutions want to deny coverage to their similarly religiously inclined employees–meh–whatever,” I fail to see how that translates into anything of any significance.

    As the Komen Foundation has discovered, you p*ss off women at your peril. And once you lose them, it’s pretty darn hard to get them back.

  4. Etch-a-Sketch only returns the screen to it’s original blank condition – not some setting with unicorns, rainbows, and ponies.

    “Baby Doc” Bush was a blank slate to the general public in 2000, so that they could market him as a “Compassionate Conservative.”
    Now that “Compassionate Conservative” is as dead as Cheney’s original heart, it’s going to be tough to sell Multi-millionaire MITT/2012, as a “Caring Conservative.”
    THEY’VE proven they don’t care – and neither does he!

  5. Gerson thinks Mittens can win women back by taking a page out of Dubya’s 2000 playbook

    Shudder. And this is the same party that assumed it would sew up the women’s vote in ’08 by naming Palin as VP candidate. Their own low opinion of women makes them unable to see why women would think they’re such a pack of bastards.

  6. They’ve got their work cut out for them in trying to pass that schmuck Romney off on the American public. The only chance they have is banking on the same stupidity that managed to get Governor Scott (skeletor) elected in Florida..Stupid people believing because he’s got tons of money that he understands the economy and is going to improve their impoverished lives.

  7. I’ve always had a lot of luck winning back women after I’ve treated them badly. Yeah, that usually works. Guys are dumb enough to believe you if you buy them a beer. Women have some pretty long memories. Sorry to sound all misogynistic and all but my belief is that if most guys ran into Hitler at a bar, and had a drink with him, would come away saying, “He wasn’t such a bad guy”, or “I know he did some bad stuff, but he was nice to me”. Women just aren’t that gullible.

    As for W in 2000, they did not personally go after and attack women and so the climb was not so high. This year, Romney not only has to reverse a lot of national mountains but many states (including WI) have instituted new anti-women laws. He’s got to run against those too.

    FWIW, am down in Florida for spring break. Drove through a pretty sketchy area of town, run down, poor, pretty depressing. Saw a couple of Mitt Romney for President yard signs in their front, I guess you could call it a yard but more like a dirt parking area for the extra six cars that don’t run. SIGH. I guess those are the ‘Soon to be Millionaires’ supporting their candidate.

  8. Swami,
    MITT/2012 will now try to move back to the center, while still keeping the rabid base engaged.
    The cowardly, compliant, and complicit MSM will accommodate any steps he takes, and broadcast to the world that he is, indeed, a center-right candidate in a center-right country.
    The want a horse-race.
    They need a horse-race between him and Obama, to keep the “Citizens” money flowing into the bean-counters in the back office.
    Watch as Chuck Todd, Wolf, and the rest of the TV clowns, try to mainstream a candidate who has no inner core, and whose outer core reflects, like a mirror, whatever someone want him to be to get their vote.
    This would all be highly entertaining, watching TV and print pun-TWIT’s twist their already pretzel shape into something like the DNA molecule – except for the fact that their mainstreaming MITT/2012, can help him, and the rest of the rabid wolves, win, and bring about the final ruin of this country.

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