Republican Process Benefits Democrats, Again
“[Rick Santorum
has] brought contraception into this campaign – the issue of birth
control, contraception. Blunt-Rubio is being debated, I believe, later
this week. It deals with banning or allowing employers to ban providing
female contraception. He’s said that he’s for that – we’ll talk about
personhood here in a second – but he’s for that. Have you taken a
position on it?”
-- Question to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney from reporter Jim Heath of the Ohio News Network.
Asked by an Ohio reporter about legislation
that would “ban providing female contraception,” Mitt Romney was eager
to move on from the topic, saying, “I'm not for the bill. But, look, the
idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about
contraception within a relationship between a man and a woman, husband
and wife, I'm not going there."
Romney then offered up another backhand for
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, who first brought the issue into the
campaign, pressing the Republican candidates on their contraception
views at length during a Jan. 7 debate. That was two weeks before the
Obama administration issued its controversial rule requiring religious
institutions to offer health insurance policies that include birth
control, even if it violates their beliefs.
Santorum’s supporters and campaign seized on
the response as evidence that Romney has been insincere in his
repeated, strenuous objections to the president’s rule and to point out
what they say is evidence of Romney’s own religious intolerance in
Massachusetts by allowing government funds to flow to Planned Parenthood, etc.
Romney never misses a chance to praise Marco Rubio and has often cited the support of Roy Blunt,
who endorsed Romney five months ago. Romney might have been eager to
flee the topic, but should have been tipped off when he heard the names
of two of his favorite senators attached to anything, even though the
reporter described it inaccurately.
The Romney campaign quickly clarified that
he supported the amendment and put the candidate on the air with
hometown talk radio host Howie Carr to express his support for the
measure, saying that he thought the reporter was talking about some
unfamiliar piece of state legislation. But a tactical error by Romney in
ducking a question wasted several hours of the news cycle in the day
after two big wins for his campaign.
Democrats and establishment press outlets
were delighted. The key headline words for Wednesday night and Thursday
morning: Flip-flop, backtrack, reversal, gaffe, etc.
The story is hardly a clear win for
Santorum, who is trying to move his campaign away from a focus on social
issues and to woo women voters in Ohio with a pitch aimed at working
moms and economically struggling families.
But it’s an open primary and Santorum will again be hoping to bring socially conservative Democrats,
in great supply in the Buckeye State, into the Republican primary.
Unwilling to let Romney’s social issue stumble go unpunished, the
Santoristas dove back in to the topic of birth control. Rather than Ohio
voters hearing about economic proposals, they’re hearing today, again,
about The Pill.
Like Newt Gingrich’s
former attacks on Romney’s years at Bain Capital, the contraceptive
attack is a hard one to resist because it gets a multiplier effect from
establishment press outlets and Democrats. It’s difficult to get
establishment reporters to talk about tax policy, but no trouble to get
wall-to-wall coverage about Republicans who want to limit access to
contraceptives or a Romney flip-flop story.
But whatever this tempest in a TweetDeck
does for the chances of Romney and Santorum in Ohio, the clear
beneficiaries are the Obama Democrats.
The Blunt-Rubio amendment is up for a vote
today and already enjoys the support of some Democrats and will be a
brutal choice for many other Democrats from pro-life states. How many
Democrats will end up siding with Blunt and Rubio against the
president’s controversial rule is unclear, but it will be a moment when
divisions within the incumbent’s party are revealed.
The Romney mistake will soon enough fade as
the Republican frontrunner reiterates his support for the measure, but
for today, what was going to be a clean hit by the GOP
on one of Obama’s most significant political mistakes – picking a fight
with Catholic bishops, rather than seeking an accommodation – will be
muddied by the fight on the right.
The amendment is narrowly cast to provide only conscience objections for religious organizations and will be hard for lots of swing state Democrats to oppose, especially since many states already have similar rules.
The amendment, though, may still not get the
50 votes needed to advance, especially given the chance of the
defection of the Republicans from Maine and Massachusetts. There may be
some new, narrower version that emerges later that can win more
Democrats who are concerned about the Obama rule, but this could be the
only chance for Republicans to press their advantage on this issue.
While it will still damage Obama’s chances and those of key GOP targets in the Senate, like Ohio’s Sherrod Brown,
the storyline is significantly muddled. Had Romney made the same
mistake in a general election interview Republicans would have quickly
closed ranks behind him and squelched the story rather than encouraged
it.
As the Republicans fight over contraception
in Ohio, Obama will campaigning in another swing state, New Hampshire,
talking about high gas prices. The president’s pitch is that oil
companies should be paying more taxes in order to finance green energy
initiatives. It’s not something that would play well in many states, but
could get a good hearing in the only New England swing state. Obama
also campaigned on his oil tax idea in environmentally conscious
Florida.
The Republicans won’t be able to make him
pay the price for that policy elsewhere as they tussle over five seconds
of an interview on a local cable news channel.
Republicans can’t blame Santorum, a fierce
competitor, for trying to win. When the climb is steep and the odds are
long, it is hard to let any opportunity pass. And they can’t be too
frustrated with Romney for a botched dodge. On the scale of gaffes,
especially for Romney, “Blunt-Rubio” is a trifle.
But one understands why many Republicans have grown weary of the process itself.
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