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Brian Snyder / Reuters
Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign stop at Alpha Graphics in Hartford, Connecticut April 11, 2012.
HARTFORD, CT-- Mitt Romney pushed back aggressively on Wednesday afternoon against the notion of a Republican-led "war on women," repeating his argument that any such suffering by women is actually the result of President Obama's economic policies.
"This is an amazing statistic ... 92.3 percent of all the jobs lost during the Obama years have been lost by women. 92.3 percent!" Romney said, holding a new piece of campaign literature produced today displaying various dismaying economic statistics. "Now the president says, 'Oh, I didn’t cause this recession' -- that’s true. He just made it worse and made it last longer, and because it lasted longer, more and more women lost jobs."
And while independent fact checkers have questioned the veracity of that number, Romney came prepared with other damning numbers he said were the result of the president's poor stewardship of the economy.
"Under President Obama, 858,000 more women are out of work. 858,000 out of work under this president. And finally the total female unemployment rate has gone from 7 percent when he took office in January 2009 to 8.1 percent in March of 2012," Romney said. "This president has failed America’s women and if I’m the next president of the United States I will go to work to get American women good jobs, rising incomes and growing businesses."
Mitt Romney pushed back against the narrative of Republican-led "war on women." Romney told a group in Hartford that President Obama's economic policies have hurt women. Video edited by NBC's Matt Loffman
While Team Romney has pushed back on the idea that the all-but-official GOP nominee has a problem with female voters, his campaign has begun an aggressive outreach effort -- surrounding the candidate with women on stage, as they did today, and having him meet with female business owners, as he did yesterday.
Democrats have touted stories of the GOP's gender gap, and today seized on a comment by a Romney surrogate on a conference call that called into question whether Romney would have supported the Lilly Ledbetter Act of 2009, which extended the statute of limitations for women to file wage discrimination lawsuits.
As the back-and-forth between the Romney and Obama campaigns flared over social media, the Romney campaign sent three press releases from prominent female surrogates focusing on the economy -- not the Ledbetter act, (which a Romney aide later said he would not change), a strategy Romney appeared to double down on towards the close of his remarks here today.
"This president will do, in his campaign, anything he can to deflect from his record. What I'm going to have to do every day is bring him back to his record. I have to show, for instance, that the policies of this administration have led to 92 percent of the people who have lost their jobs being women in this country," Romney said. "When he says, ‘Oh, there is a war on women,’ let's bring him back to the fact that it is the real war upon women that has been waged by his economic policies. Let’s hammer day in and day out what has happened under his policies, and recognize those policies, those things he believes, do not work."
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I'm surprised Romney didn't have those women bowing to him on camera.
Romney needs to pass the pipe and stop being so damn greedy!
This guy makes me sick. He's an out of touch, lying sack of cr@p. He's a wealthy elitist and thinks we're so dumb we won't remember all his gaffes and misstatements.
Women are not going to believe that one day he'll get rid of Planned Parenthood and the next day, there's no war on women. I call B.S. on him and his flakey campaign.
Women let's show this douche the door.
Is he going to be running against someone who is not a wealthy elitist?
Not sending our tax dollars to Planned Parenthood does not get rid of it. Most of the funding is from abortion procedures. I see no reason to fund it with tax dollars.
The women who don't need food stamps, government managed health insurance, tax funded abortions or help getting paid a good wage don't have anything to fear with Romney.
Suzq: well said!
123ang - you are lying. The use of federal funds for abortions has been banned since the 1970's. That includes Planned Parenthood. So federal funds are used for health care for women. Oh, that's right! You rightie men don't believe women should have any health care, letting alone family planning help, which helps to cut down on unwanted pregnancies. Once again, the righties showing how twisted and backward you are from lack of facts. You righties just run on hysteria and lies. Seems facts escape you very very easily.
BTW 123ang, as far as food stamps go, how disgusting that you feel it is a problem that veterans and children receive food stamps, and that this program actually helps families and puts food on their table they otherwise would not be able to do. But hey you righties have no problem with promoting a sick and dying populace do you. Don't give food assistance, and most certainly, you believe that health care and the very lives of people should be taken away on some stupid ideology that has no basis in reality. We can sent our people to war, but hey, we won't take care of them or their families when they come home broken and when we grow old and become sick because of age. Oh no, you righties are such a righteous lot aren't you. You don't care about dead bodies all over the place, even though your policies would cost this country more by not promoting a healthy populace, because gee whiz, you all just need to keep feeding the rich because they are the masters of your universe. No thanks. Ideological fools.
Yeah right! Either you or your Candidate started it, so I don't give a damn..as far as anyone is concerned I can go on forever with a longgggg list of how it was your candidate and his party's fault. So I suggest you go and calm yourselves down with your ongoing blaming game.
yadda, yadda, yadda . . .
Clearly Romney doesn't give a rip about women.
He is after the big one, THE PRESIDENCY Of THE UNITED STATES
Ladies, get in line cuz your rights are not second, but last on the party agenda.
Good luck and sweet dreams, keep that aspirin - hey they are serious.
I don't consider abortion on demand and a pack of $0 co-pay birth control pills (which only cost me $8 without insurance) a women's rights issue. The Republican party's values are much more in line with mine than Democrat. I've never experienced discrimination for being female......just a stupid liberal myth.
8$ birth control pills? May I presume to ask where?
Also considering that republicans don't want abortion and the only way to continue a sexual relationship, which is healthy, without having a child is birth control not to mention the many other uses such as hormone stabilization and such I don't see any reason why birth control pills shouldn't be covered by insurance.
Walmart has an $8 prescription list with several generic birth control pill options. Target has pretty much the same list for $9.
Nearly all health insurance plans do cover birth control pills. However, I don't want the government telling me what I have to buy in my health insurance plan (including dictatating my co-pays and deductibles). Obamacare has done that as well as many other things that cost responsible citizens a fortune.
poor 123ang, seems you are not the compassionate type. Planned Parenthood also dies cancer screenings. and all you have is complaints about having to pay a portion of your own birth control pills, but you have a problem with Planned Parenthood helping cancer patients? Really? And women who receive help from Planned Parenthood are patients with a history of cancer who have no money because of the cost of their cancer treatments took all of their money, but yet, they still need after care and screening to check for reoccurance. And in many cases, contraceptives are used in cancer prevention. Oh, but that's right, you are still made to have to pay $8 for your birth control pills. Really? Hatred and bias against those who don't have what you have? You are envious of them? Really? So envious that you degrade those who need our help? Oh, you righties have fallen into the cesspool of greed and contempt, and what an ugly mess you are.
123ang: You obviously know nothing about your own health care plan. We do not have universal health care in this country. You do not pay the government for your health care plan unless you are a government employee. You pay a private health care company, and they dictate to you what your plan says, what it covers, and what you pay for your premiums, what your company pays for its premiums, and what you out of pocket expenses are dear. Now, if you all would listen up, the Affordable Care Act is a plan to take some of that power away from your insurance company and more to you so that you can dictate to them what you want to pay for and how much you think you should have to pay. But hey, go ahead and keep screwing yourselves because of big business and what they dictate to you what you need. Me, I will stick with the President's plan of getting more power to me so I can have a say on what I pay for. Meanwhile you righties stay in your fairyland of huge corporations being the masters of your universe while you are only their minions. In this country, and for the last half a century, the private insurance companies have dictated our health care choices. So your beef is with them, not the Government, and most certainly not with President Obama, unless you want to let private insurance companies continue to screw you on costs and types of coverages and dumping you when you are sick and broke. Blind fools.
For a bunch who want less government, why is it they think that more government intrusion in women's lives in okay?
Roe v Wade is a law - anyone who needs an abortion can get one. If you don't want abortion, don't have one - it's your choice.
We don't know what some women's lives are like - that's why I lean more progressive as I care about people's lives and hardships ("walk a mile in her shoes"). - Planned Parenthood's dispensing of birth control pills is better for all of us than unwanted pregnancies. Let women be treated like first class citizens.
Not all progressives are wanting handouts. I personally don't mind helping others. God will judge others, not any of you.
they say he is a hell of a nice guy...
But nobody likes him.
Everyday he opens his mouth, you will know why.
And Rep. Allen West talks of Communist...
Look back at Germany in the 1930's ;
Nazi ideology advocated excluding women from political involvement and confining them to the spheres of "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" (Children, Kitchen, Church). Many women voted in favour of the Nazi Party, but once in power, the party introduced legislation that limited women's legal rights. Women's organizations and associations that had been permitted before the Nazi regime were banned, and the Nazi Party set up its own women's organizations.
The Republicans aren't even waiting, they are by passing steps B - X and going right for the throat. Ladies, are YOU PAYING ATTENTION ?
You think this bizarre, start following politics in Michigan and how the Republicans have taken over. Form your own opinion.
Anna Molly, hope you are sticking to flirting and wanting to fool around with only single men on this site and leaving the married ones alone finally!
Love the pic, are there any women under 50 in it? Or agree with him for that matter?
If you're a mormon: you believe in a man named Joseph Smith that declared himself a general against the American Government and then said he would create a Theocratic Monarchy with himself at its head. You also believe in a man named Joseph Smith that married a 14 year old girl – even though he already had plural wives – because he told the child's family they would receive instant eternal salvation if they gave her to him (Smith). You also believe in becoming a god after this life if you have committed to and followed all of your temple rituals sincerely and without deviance. You also believe that anyone that is not a mormon will NOT be allow to be with Jesus Christ or God, no matter how good they are, if they do not accept your gospel (religion) to be the only true church. For example. Mother Teresa will not be in heaven if she does not accept a posthumous baptism in the after life. You also believe that you must take on secret temple names, wear garments (underwear) that has secret symbols that are used in secret rituals in the temple as well as a blood oath that began in 1843, but ended in 1990 when there was a general uproar amongst non-mormons that found out about this particular ritual. You also believe Blacks and Native Americans were marked with dark skin for being evil in the pre-life or because they just displeased god. You believe that once you are a god of your own world, you with your heavenly wife will create spirit children that will then fill the earthly bodies of human on your own particular planet that you rule over...meaning that you are already (in certain terms) better than the God that created this planet. You do believe that Lucifer and Jesus were and are brothers. There is no way the south would vote for this man. We are die hard christian and will not fall for this man cult beliefs. Please check your facts before you cast your for this man.
Sign a die hard Republican.
what about having as many wives as they want, can they still do that?
Yes they do. Polygamists live in Utah as we write.
What a self-defeating bunch of drivel… To coin a phrase that Romney likes to use... He (Romney) "doesn't have a clue" as to why more women allegedly lost jobs than men. Even if there is truth to Romney's spin that women lost more jobs, it is not the President that goes into companies and decides who stays and who goes or which jobs get eliminated and which ones don't. It is the CEO's and the corporate managers, i.e., the type of folks that are most aligned with Romney and his self-touted business experience that create this disparity. More reasons why women may not want to vote for him…
LMAO at all of the irritated libs. You sure put a lot of energy into talking trash about a guy who you claim has no chance of winning. I can't wait until Obama packs up his stuff and goes back to Chicago.
Romney 2012 if there is any hope for the USA.
Hey 123ang, I live in Mass, and we dealt with Romney fallout after he finally left Mass as Governor. We actually had over 200,000 businesses leave Mass while he was Governor. The guy is con and is bought and paid for by Rove and the Koch brothers and he believes that the rich are the masters of the universe, and you 123ang are only one of his little minions. We opt out of minionhood, I assure you. Obama-Biden 2012.
Romney thinks women are stupid. Of course there are some stupid women. His problem is that almost all of the stupid women who would vote for him are Republican. Doesn't look good for you Mitt! Can't wait for the debate.
and just how will romney and the gop get these women jobs? They hate government so they most likely will follow ron pauls ideas and ontario's ideas and legalise prostitution so the top businessman can make a huge profit off of them, I would hope romney being the godly Mormon he is this would never cross his mind
Romney is really loony...... Obama Policies to blame for war on women..... haha.... the Obama policies to fix the BUSH /(GOP)..... recession, wars, deficit and tax cuts....
So because of this the Republicans started a war on women.... i am getting this right? Okay lets go with this argument.. "Obama started that war..." so the GOP is just piling it on... yea.. "screw women over more...". They lost jobs... so take away their health insurance, take away their moral right... yayyy... lets pile it on....
But i guess that's the picture of a Mormon woman....
More left wing spin without substance. He has months of this type of BS to endure before he is elected President.
So let me get this straight! The sisterhood is now going to critisize Ann Romney for standing by her man? And for staying home and raising her boys? And for showing the courage to lead a moral life? And yet you champion that certain group that bears children by many different men, who dont even bother sticking around to raise those children? And you are all for taking my tax dollars to support that immorality? Gaad what mess this country has become!
sad but true.
No one is criticizing Mrs. Romney.... Thank God for the stand she has and is continuing to make. It is admirable.... But i think its very harsh to say we should not spend tax money to help raise children of fathers who do not stick around.
No matter how we come on earth we are all predestined by God... i think you should know that..... We cant blame the children for their parents mistake but we could help create an environment that ensures they dont repeat their parents mistake....
This is what politics has made ppl into..... Where is the compassion? Are we no longer our brothers keeper..... Seriously, what a mess this country has become when the party that stands for morality frown on pl because of their choices and mistakes.....
ssmike: since there are more woman working today than men, and since stats show that men are the ones to run out on families more than women, dude, you have lost the argument.
With all due respect to Ann Romney, she had millions of dollars, multiple homes, private schools, and lots and lots of staff to help raise her children. The average mother in this country doesn't come close to having those benefits when they are raising their five kids. Nice try by Ann Romney, but the circumstances and the wealth and the privilege take her argument out of this discussion. She is not one of the 99%, she is the 1%.
So whats youre point? My point was made and you refuted nothing except to say that you are in support of fathers who do not support their children and those woman who continue to crank out children to irresponsible men!
Demsrock would you be implying that mrs obama does not lead a privleged life?
My point ssmike is that men don't stay with their families, they run, and then they make babies with other women and it is the women who are going to work, since female employment outnumbers male employment in this country. Women are not responsible for the irresponsibility of men to take on providing for families they help create. But leave it to a man to blame the woman. And when you have the righties saying women should not be able to have access to or should not take contraceptives because it is immoral, dude, once again, you have lost the argument. Guys get women pregnant, they run, then scream how dare woman have babies. Women always clean up the messes you guys create, we even outwork you. Support dead beat fathers? No way dude, you do, by accusing women of having babies like they are conceived by what? immaculate conception. Hypocritical and deaming, but that is what you rightie men are when it comes to women. You have no clue, you are being outworked by women, so you demean them. Dude, you have lost this argument, but hey, keep digging your hole deeper like old willard is doing.
ssmike, the Romney's are worth a half a billion dollars, and have car elevators. That to me is privilege. The Obama's have worked for everything they have, even getting degrading attacks by folks like you. Romney has family money, as does Ann Romney. They were never middle class, and the Romney's are certainly of the privileged. Michelle Obama came from a middle class family, she had a father who suffered from multiple sclerosis, which greatly impacted their family in a number of ways. So no, the Obama's worked for what they have. Both Willard and Ann Romney were born to wealth and led very privileged lives from the time they were babies. The Obama's did not.
The obamas have had the privelege of gaining privelege without earning it! Nice try though. Mr Obama has never created a job. And would not know what hard work looked like! He is the one percent!
Poor ssmike. Mitt Romney has family wealth, and he is worth a half a billion dollars. Ann Romney is from a wealthy family as well. Country club, nannies, etc. their whole lives. Car elevators, ocean front homes. And the Obamas go to college, work to pay their loans off, buy their first home in 2005, and all the while, for decades, the Romney's have built home after home, I think they have a total of like what, 6 different homes in different places? And Romney has been harboring his wealth in the Cayman Islands, and paying 13.9% tax rate. Dude, Romney's are the elitist. What a fool you are to think the life the Obama's have lived is elitism. But once again, lying to somehow protect your own bias, racism, and foolish ideology makes you a fool.
So stated by ssmike: The obamas have had the privelege of gaining privelege without earning it! Nice try though. Mr Obama has never created a job. And would not know what hard work looked like! He is the one percent
ssmike has described the Romney's perfectly in the above statement. Funny how ignorant stupid attacks on others turn and bite you hey ssmike?
I wonder if the liberals will ever figure out that they are aborting a huge future voting block? And if so how they will change their stance on the issue? BTW I believe in a womans right to choose. And will speak my mind seeing as how liberals make this a central campaign issue!
again ssmike, republican women are the ones who are upset at their party, and it is the republicans who are trotting out Ann Romney to try to stem the flow of the damage the repubs have done to alienate woman. And republican women do have abortions too. Only righties think "their women" are pure, are simpletons to the men. No wonder the righties are so backwards. Clueless, but hey if living in your fairyland floats your boat, so be it, but I can tell you, and the stats show, that women are not floating along with you on that fairytale boat you guys on the right are floating on. Women still and will continue to outnumber men for generations to come, so "liberals" are not worried that women's rights won't be addressed fairly. It is the right wing who are trying to take away women's rights, not liberals, and when you have romney having to trot out his wife, who is the perfect example of what the rest of the 99% of women are not, which is privileged as she is, to try to prove some point, well, it doesn't take a lot to realize they know they are in huge trouble.
Obama never held a job! And got a fine education for free! Why arent you picking on him?
ssmike, your bias is showing dude. President Obama, and First Lady Michelle Obama education was not free. I don't pick on people based on lies. What you are saying is in fact, lies. President Obama paid for college through student loans, scholarships, grants, and student jobs. He also received help from his grandparents. Both President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama finished paying off their student loans more than a decade later from income from his books as well as income from jobs they both held, he working in a law firm, and later working in Congress and she working in a law firm. So the President did pay off his own student loans, as did the First Lady. So there is no need to "pick on them". They went to college, had college debt, and paid their debt for their college educations. I do not begrudge anyone education, nor working to pay their debt
proof please! Not buying it! The woman most cheated by the process was Hillary Clinton! When the press in this country pushed her aside in favor of a black male with no experience! Or is he Irish? Oh well doesnt really matter! The fact is she was treated to total bias and disrespect by the liberal men in charge of what goes into the news today.
Obviously ssmike can't read. Dude, sorry the facts bother you so much, but since you are so obviously caught up in your racist crap, and bias of Secretary of State Clinton, well dude, your ignorance is just stinking up the place. If you are able to read, use google dear. It will bring you some very interesting and worthwhile information to you. But then again, since you are obviously a rightie radical racist, we don't except much from you, let alone decent and respectful discourse. I ain't lying dude, you are. Facts are on my side dear. Do go away. Your kind is not acceptable in grown up discourse.
You have proven nothing! More talking points from the sheeple! Is Mrs Obama leading a life of privelege or not? Has president Obama ever created a job with his own money or not? What jobs did either of them hold and please prove that they paid for their own educations!
ssmike, I can assure they both have held jobs. I suggest you go onto the White House website and read their tax returns and look at their 1099's. They have multiple years of tax returns for you to look at and review. BTW, since you are the accuser, I suggest you prove to me your claims they never earned a paycheck.
BTW, the President worked as a community organizer, which you disparage, but his work in that role was to find jobs for people who didn't have one. And as President, his policies have created 3.2 million jobs since he took office. Again, the burden of proof is on you to disprove the facts. Can you read? Go find out the truth, it shall set you free. Meanwhile, dude, get a grip, get your facts, speak the truth, or get out.
With Romney, Civil Rights will go out the window and life will be much like it was in the 1950's.
The Fosz, exactly! He would love to live the life of his daddy!
Had to laugh at Romney's statement that he will provide [good] high paying jobs for women. Mitty, when you ran Bain Capital, what percentage of women held management positions?
I can't believe that these women believe anything that this guy says. He has no clue on how to do anything but criticize Obama and pretend he can fix things. Another Bush Bin Lyin and his criminal gang. Remember, The Pope's boy Sanitarium called this guy the Etch A Sketch champion. H lies about everything.
Why should Nut Gingerhead or Ron (Puke) Paul concede until lyin Willardo the Mexican Mormon Moron tax evader and bankrupter proves he can win. Drain all of Willardo's funds. Get to the brokered convention. See which right wing nut can win.
Lyin Willardo may be the worst one of all. This guy has yet to provide his tax returns for the last 5 years. It should show how much he has evaded in taxes and how much unreported income he has stashed away in Cayman Island and Swiss bank accounts. He is your typical right wing thief.
There have been many rumors going around that little lyin Willardo was seen in a baby carriage in Tijuana. with a bottle of Corona Light in one hand and an Etch A Sketch in the other. The side of his carriage had the name "Little Lyin Willardo" on it. So when we see the long form of his birth certificate and it says Willardo on it and not Willard, we will know something is wrong.
Isn't it funny, that his new buddy Fox Top Trump never asked lyin Willardo for a copy of it?
What a joke. Less and less of the stupid right wing nuts come out to back lyin Willardo, the Mexican Mormon Moron tax evader and bankrupter and they rave about it. As most people know, the evangelicals consider the mormons an evil anti-christ cult. The mormons have been converting dead jewish people, without their knowledge to become mormons to enhance their religion. They baptise them when they are dead. These sick aholes were caught when they tried to convert Anne Frank to be a mormon. The Church of the Latter Day Saints has now ordered these mormon priests to cease this immediately.
These repuke dunces best bet is to bring back Herman (9Kampf) Cain, the dress slitherer. He can draft Jerry Sandusky for V.P. Who cares what they have done in the past, they are against abortion, that is all that counts.
CAIN/SANDUSKY 2012. The true repuke family values candidates
The key word here was...CHOICE!!!!! Many of Mothers do not have that CHOICE!!!! We MUST work to make ends meet. Typical GOP tatic to misconstrue what the true meaning of the message was. Yes, Ann chose to stay home. I'm sure she never had to feel the stress of how she was going to feed her children, or worry about how she was going to pay for the unexpected replacement of a new hot water tank and how she would pay for said replacement. When her Cadiallac needed service she didn't have to worry about taking hundreds of dollars out of her monthly budget to pay for it.
As far as the equal pay for equal work ... If that is true, women do not receive equal pay for equal work, why would ANY Employer hire MEN? According to the rhetoric that is being spewed, as an employer I would hire only Women to add money to the bottom line.
What do you think we are stupid? The WAR ON WOMEN was stoked with SID MILLER (R) Texas State Rep. authoring the transvaginal bill and the rest of the red necks in Texas passing the bill. Romney wants to suggest that women losing jobs during the Obama admin. is the real War on Women...does he not remember he was part of the slash and burn that caused people to lose their jobs? Bain Corporation! Remember that Mitt, your days as a corporate raider?
I believe there is a war on women by the republicans. Ann Romney is a phony, she is a rich person who can afford maids and other housekeeping services that the average woman/man can't afford. I would like to know where are the black, hispanic, asian and other cultures of American women at who appear on stage with Romney? As a black women I find this very appalling. No, Romney appears interested in winning this election with white women only. I don't think this will work for him.