In my experience living in western Michigan, many Republican women in the state are truly single-issue voters. They oppose abortion and won’t even consider voting for the Democratic Party despite being aligned with them on most issues. That’s why I’m not surprised that Santorum’s positions have not created a gender gap among the Republican electorate in Michigan.
Among Republicans in that time period [since December], Santorum has shot from 37 percent to 70 percent favorable.
There’s evidence that Santorum’s comments about social issues may not have hurt him so far among women.
The former Pennsylvania senator has been unapologetic in his opposition to abortion and his concerns about working moms, women in combat and contraception – some of the many examples he cites while making the case that he would draw a clearer contrast than Romney against Obama.
For all that, there’s little evident gender gap between Romney and Santorum, the AP-GfK poll showed. Santorum, who made some of the comments while the poll was being conducted Feb. 16-20, runs even with Romney among both Republican men and women. And Republican women may be rallying to his defense: Seventy-five percent of GOP women have a favorable impression of Santorum, compared with 66 percent of Republican men, the poll found.
Michigan has an open primary, so there probably will be a gender gap in the exit polls, but it won’t be coming from the Republican women, especially outside of the Detroit metro area.
It’s probably possible to create a wedge between being pro-life and screwing around with women’s health care coverage, but Romney, Gingrich, and Ron Paul are incapable of exploiting that distinction.
VA’s new rape Bill even has McDonnell waffling suddenly. The Powers that Republican be are recognizing that this WarOnWomen’s health is giving them severe pushback. I’m sure they thought it would be a good dog whistle and Santorum by any measure relihed delivering his version of the meme.
But the stalwart single issue voters who rally loyally around pro life candidates who can usually count on going to a rally and listening to nothing but abortion hoohaa have to listen to a litany of attacks and a Rep’s version of the truth about the other candidate.
Perhaps for the first time, there is an education on issues going on here for even the most incurious. It must be harder and harder for a single issue voter to close their ears.
I agree, but you have to draw a contrast to Santorum to get any benefit out of his radicalism, and his opponents, excepting (in some cases) Ron Paul, are unwilling to move to the left of Santorum on anything.
Definietely. And so the connundrum will be passed to the RNC and SuperPacs to logistically change the compass of the debate. They’ll have to draft talking points to move away from the instant gratification of calling out all that is woman a Nazi plot to instead follow us off the cliff, we’ll give the first 100 free parachutes.
And while VA Republicans work to take away rights from women, they quietly give themselves a pay raise.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Could you provide some more explanation of why that attitude exists.
What about the discussion makes these folks not grasp that the issue is not pro-anti abortion but about who makes the decision? Why is government intrusion deeply into peoples’ lives acceptable to them on this one issue? Is it their self-perceived role as enforcers of morals?
Isn’t it time we stopped skipping over this question?
“What about the discussion makes these folks not grasp that the issue is not pro-anti abortion but about who makes the decision? ”
That’s just it, Tarheel, they DON’T grasp the issue that its about who makes the decision. They grasp the issue that it’s (to them) murder. Period. Exclamation point.
To them, this government intrusion is EXACTLY the same as the government intrusion of arresting you for killing 6 children in a driveby shooting at a suburban school.
For the most part, these people believe this as a response to religious training. They are true believers. As such, you stand very little chance of getting a change of mind without a complete religious change of mind.
It’s kinda like arguing with a wall …
It’s not just traditional religious belief. I lived in Wisconsin in the 1970s. It was not until 1976 that there were any folks talking about the issue in the terms used today — even among conservative religious folks. The first encounter I had with this attitude was with a conservative Roman Catholic woman (when most RCs in the area were still in Vatican II thinking) who had recently had a miscarriage.
Within two years the GOP had co-opted the movement, the organizations became dominated by men who were associated with GOP operatives, Jerry Falwell and some Texas Baptist ministers had come on board in an alliance with Roman Catholic conservatives to elect Ronald Reagan.
It was at that point that a lot of politicized preachers (mostly men) started whipping up their congregants to keep the issue alive. And like the POW-MIA issue before it, it has spawned and industry that keeps going on about the issue and expanding the scope of it. Meanwhile you have pandering politicians writing laws to criminalize abortions after the first trimester, not realizing that most of those are peformed to save the life of the mother. And other legislation that would effectively criminalize miscarriages.
Why is western Michigan suddenly the poster child for this politics as opposed to other parts of Michigan or other parts of the country? Is there something peculiar there that we should pay attention to?
Somewhere out there is the discussion juxtaposing the invasion of women’s privacy and civil rights while simultaneously bolstering protection for the secrecy of corporate beings.
Baffling that we can talk about a sonogram probe invading a woman’s most private parts against her will and the direction of her own doctor while in the same sentence glossing over disclosure of say Romney’s Bain offshore accounts, much less Koch and Exxon.
Institutions are protected by the Constitution. Individuals not. Apparently.
And apparently the limited liability privilege granted through government charter comes will no strings attached.
DerFarm is basically correct.
The Dems are the party of baby-murder and there’s no point in really looking at any other differences between the parties. It’s part of their religious instruction and it’s just a given.
Bush moved some of them through the immensity of his incompetence and stupidity. But, in my experience, it wasn’t until Schiavo and Katrina that there was any movement at all.
Being firmly anti-Choice is a strong predictor of whether or not you will vote in a Republican primary…
Once upon a time, abortion was a back-alley crime forced by men upon their pregnant girlfriends whom they refused to marry.
What does that tell you?
Think that has changed? Or better said, the good ole days have returned, haven’t they?
Who here remembers the terror of a girlfriend having “stomach problems”?
Who here remembers the “Midnight Flight to San Juan”? Hint: it wasn’t a country song.