Archive for women voters

Poll-itics: Hey GOP, time to reinvent yourselves again. Most Latino voters favor tougher gun laws.

Source: Flickr

Source: Flickr

Every time Republicans try to reinvent themselves, another issue pops up that puts them in a bind(er?). It’s a little like playing Whack-A-Mole, and they always lose.

On 3, everybody: 1… 2… 3… Awwww!

L.A. Times:

A strong majority of Latino voters — Democrats, Republicans and independents — supports stiffer gun control laws, including more vigorous background checks and creation of a national database of gun owners, according to a new survey of that increasingly important slice of the electorate.

The poll suggests Latinos tend to lean leftward in the gun debate regardless of political affiliation, which could further complicate GOP efforts to boost Latino support after November’s poor showing.

54% even supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons. However, only 39% said they were for allowing teachers or security personnel to carry loaded guns on campus.

So GOP, your pretend outreach effort is hitting another brick wall, especially because women also tend to support common sense gun safety measures.

And you Republicans know what happens when you lose female voters. Coincidentally, Laura Bush just said that Republicans “frightened” women. And for anyone with any remaining doubts, two words: Mitt Romney.

Video- Laura Bush: Republicans ‘Frightened’ Women

Man, I wonder what Laura really thinks about everything. She’s still measuring her words. Via.

The ten females who cost Mitt Romney the presidency

Today’s guest post by the one, the only, Will Durst:

THE TEN FEMALES WHO COST MITT ROMNEY THE PRESIDENCY

Holey moley catfish. Well, thank god that’s finally over. Further thanks that the climax was quick and clean. Almost surgical. Not as long a night as many first thought it might be. Except for Karl Rove that is, who for all we know is still scribbling numbers to prove the call on Clinton’s re- election win in 1996 was premature. And as usual, Florida did all it could to gum things up, but was eventually rendered irrelevant. And long may it remain so.

In the end, President Barack Obama trounced, er, battered, um, eked out a victory, or to be more precise, Mitt Romney lost. Or shall we say, found a thousand ways to lose. Except for one brief shining moment in the first debate, virtually carrying with him a defeat diviner.

And each and every one of his failures can be traced directly to females. The distaff of life. Single women. Married women. Old women. Young women. Ladies and divas and flappers and baby mamas; duchesses, priestesses, shorties and floozies. So here they are, the top ten females who cost Mitt Romney the presidency, each of them representing one of the myriad factors that helped construct the unelectable mosaic that became Bain’s Captain of Industry

· Michele Bachmann. Mitt had to draft on her right wing to win the primary battle and when he tried to tack back to the center appeared not to be the Washington Outsider he claimed, but a typical politician with the core values of a hollowed out chocolate Easter Bunny. With really good hair.
· Newly elected US Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts. A state the former Governor lost by 23 points. Proof positive the man arouses the enduring passion of a broken garden rake.
· Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who took foreign policy off the table making the entire election about the economy which kept getting better, gol darn it. And who can forget her husband. He certainly won’t let us.
· Sandra Fluke who gave a face to the GOP’s Paleolithic Bronze Age attitudes towards women, further exacerbated by the fact that no man in the party could seemingly shut up about it.
· Michelle Obama who is just darn likable. As is her husband. A stark contrast to Romney’s cyborg demeanor and obvious discomfort around members of the human species.
· Superstorm Sandy for providing the opportunity for the President to look Presidential and for he and Chris Christie to French kiss on Atlantic City’s Boardwalk crystallizing the concept that bipartisanship is not the saddest word. That’s “goodbye.”
· Ann Romney who would have made a simply terrific first lady. For Dwight D. Eisenhower.
· Candy Crowley who single-handedly halted Romney’s momentum in the second debate by speaking way above her pay grade. Don’t you hate it when the help speaks out of turn?
· All the Wal-Mart Moms, who never really understood that whole Cayman Islands bank account thing marking him not as the poster child for the 1%, but as the poster child for the .0001% of the 1%.
· And the last female responsible for Romney’s loss; Rafalca the 15-year old mare who, while wearing the Romney silks in Olympic Dressage, failed to make the medal round and was probably shipped home strapped to the fuselage of a 747. Seriously, Mitt. Dressage?

5 time Emmy- nominee Will Durst’s new e- book “Elect to Laugh!” published by Hyperink, now available at Redroom.com, Amazon or any fine virtual book retailer near you. And don’t forget the Improv @ Harveys in South Lake Tahoe, Wednesday the 14th through Sunday the 18th.

VIDEO: “You know what women Romney loves? Women who are working in factories, living in subhuman conditions, making low wages.”

This is the second impressive video in the past week or so from one of my favorites on Twitter, @liberalease. The other is “If you like having sex…” which is also must-see. Please share both, because the points she makes are absolutely dead-on.

“When I hear Ann Romney claim, ‘I love women!’ I say to myself, ‘Really??’ If you love women, why are you and your husband trying to set back the women’s movement by 50 years? I don’t think these people love women, I think these people love money, as long as it’s in their pocket.”

“You know what women Romney loves? Women who are working in factories, and living in subhuman conditions, and making low wages…. Because you know what? They improve his bottom line.”

“Mitt Romney’s about profit, no matter what the cost to human dignity… Cheap labor is what it’s all about for Mitt Romney.”

“If you care about equal pay, you will NOT vote for Mitt Romney.”

PhotOH! Women According to Mitt

I get emails. This one’s from Ultraviolet, and it rocks, plus it directly relates to my previous post, Mitt Romney appears to be in a bit of a bind… er:

Did you see the part in the debate where Mitt Romney refused to endorse equal pay protections but said that women needed to get home early to cook dinner?1

Or the part where he blamed single mothers for gun violence?2

Or when he said there weren’t enough qualified women to serve in his cabinet so he had to have his staff go out and create a “binder full of women?” (A story that actually isn’t even true.)3

Or when he lied about birth control–when the truth is that he thinks employers should be able to take contraception coverage away from women?4

Women have to know what happened at last night’s debate.

So we put together a cute infographic that just about sums it all up. Can you take a moment to share it with your friends? Studies are showing that people trust the information they get from their friends on social networks and catchy infographics like the one we created are a great way to engage your friends around information that is important for them to have.

Sources:

1. Mitt Romney’s ‘binders full of women’, Washington Post, October 16, 2012

2. Stop Gun Violence: Get Married, The American Prospect, October 17, 2012

3.Mitt Romney’s Answer To Pay Equity: ‘Binders Full Of Women’ Lie And ‘Flexibility’ To Cook Dinner, Mediaite, October 17, 2012

Mind the Binder, The Phoenix, October 16, 2012

4.Romney clarifies stance on Blunt Amendment: “Of course” I’m for it, CBS News, February 29, 2012

Mitt Romney appears to be in a bit of a bind… er.

The second presidential debate is already being dissected to death, and since I’m on the west coast, I’m coming in late to the discussion. But that won’t stop me from having a little fun with it. Better late than never, right?

My take: A well-prepared, strong President Obama brought out Willard M. Romney’s defensive, inept, testy, and of course, elitist and out of touch sides. Then again, he has no other sides, so those were a given.

But anyway….

When Mitt Romney was governor, he was, what, in his mid-fifties, and that’s apparently when he had an epiphany. He finally discovered the problems of women in the workplace, and no matter how hard he tried to present himself as pro-woman, he put himself in a bit of a bind… er.

Sidebar: Why does Mitt feel the need to quantify everything? Rhetorical.

So it turns out that whole binder story he told wasn’t exactly true, per David S. Bernstein at the Boston Phoenix (please read the whole thing, it’s well worth it):

What actually happened was that in 2002 — prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration – a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. [...]

They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected… Secondly, a UMass-Boston study found that the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration

This didn’t exactly help his case either:

So much for his take on women’s equality. I mean other than that whole reproductive rights thing. And that equal pay thing. Other than that…

And finally, someone shared this tweet with me and I must share it with you, paraphrased: Mitt Romney’s favorite song, “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Binder.”

Oh but we kid Elder Willard…

Poll-itics: President Obama’s lead among women is pretty immense

Via Taegan:

A new YWCA-sponsored poll finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney among women by a stunning 18 points, 49% to 31%.

Gee, can’t imagine why. See graphic above.

Via YWCA:

In the presidential election: women prefer President Barack Obama to Governor Mitt Romney. African Americans and Latinas in particular favor the president by wide margins. Married women and seniors favor Governor Romney. Party identification drives women’s attitudes in the presidential contest: Democrats overwhelmingly support President Obama (by an 83-point margin), while Republicans favor Governor Romney by similarly-immense margins (82 points in favor of Governor Romney).