Nice post Ursala. I especially liked the last paragraph.

Respect women's choices? Tell that to the GOP, of which you are a member!

You knocked it out of the park Ursula!

Ordinary soccer Mom she is not...

Therein lies the problem, the middle class recognizes 'pious' bologna when they smell it!

im a true blue dem, but lay off ann romney. unless you know what it is like to struggle with disease and raise children while trying to put balance in your health you are fighting the wrong battle.

this will not help the cause!

Ann Romney says there is a voter gender gap for the GOP "because people haven't had a chance to listen to or hear us." Oh Ann, that is the whole problem. We have heard and listened to and heard you, and you want to set women's rights back 100 years. Women need republican legislators like a fish needs a bicycle.

kr- I agree - don't hit Ann about her illness. Everything else is fair game. And I know women who also have MS and are raising their kids and having to work at a full time job. It is hard - it's even harder if you are not among the 1%.

Once Ann decides to get into the fray - she assumes the same rules as all the rest. (except for her illness,but I hope she is more than just an illness)

I also agree a little more civility everywhere would be a pleasant change. :)

Wayne - we have heard them, but obviously they have not heard what the women of America are saying.

kr-2875346, I've only pointed out the differences between the Romney's and middle-class folks...and you've highlighted one more. If you've ever been denied medical coverage - or couldn't afford the treatment - then you're a world apart from the Romney's.

Ann Romney made choices to fly to California for the day, just to ride her horse.

Think Progress:

Yesterday, Mitt Romney’s campaign enlisted Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) to attack President Obama’s record on women’s issues, despite the fact that both had voted against two signature Obama administration efforts designed to fight pay discrimination against women. Today, the campaign announced a conference call to continue the bizarre attacks featuring three Republican women. The call will feature Rodgers and another Congresswoman, Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), who also voted against both the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act. A third Romney supporter on the call, first-term Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), was not yet in Congress when the votes came up.

*********

Come on young women. Don't be complacent. GOTV and stop this madness by the Republican Party - the men and women in this party are clueless.

I agree Pat. Women need to step up to the plate like my grandmother did 100 years ago to get the opportunity to vote. Use the right women fought for and won for themselves! Vote against the GOP! Don't let them "put women in their place."

"Look, I know what it's like to struggle. Maybe I haven't struggled as much financially as some people have, but I can promise you that I've had struggles in my life. And I would love for people to understand that Mitt and I have compassion for people that are struggling, and that's why we're running."

*************

Daily Kos:

Let me say out the outset that I have compassion for a struggle that I know she's had—living with Multiple Sclerosis, a monster of a disease. For that struggle, Ms. Romney you have my empathy.

But when you talk about economic struggle? Let's just be absolutely clear as to what the Romney-Ryan budget would do to women who do know what it's like to struggle financially. The budget your husband has embraced will shred every bit of support women and their families need through every stage of life.

• At least $291 billion will disappear from WIC, nutrition assistance, Head Start, child care, job training, Pell Grants, and more programs that support struggling families.
• $134 billion from SNAP, or food stamps, will mean something like 8.2 billion meals not served, in a single year; food out of the mouths of children and the elderly, a disproportionate number of which are female.
• $2.4 trillion from Medicaid and other health services will mean mothers will have a harder time finding medical care for themselves and their children, and for their elderly parents, again which are disproportionately female.
• 56 percent of Medicare beneficiaries are women, and the Romney-Ryan voucher plan will make them pay more and more each year out of their own pockets, to try to keep their medical care.

If Mitt Romney really has compassion for the people who struggle, for women who struggle, he'll not push policies that will make their lives demonstrably and horribly worse. There's not an ounce of compassion in this plan he's endorsed.

**********

Wayne, can you believe what the GOP is doing to people in this country?!?

Ann and Mitt have zero empathy for people. If they did, they wouldn't be Republicans.

Odd that no one attacked Tersea Heinz Kerry like this 8 years ago. Her main job appeared to be to just keep marrying wealthy Senators.

These attacks must just be a Democrat thing. And it looks like they just may have overplayed their hand this time.

You have selective memory - they savagely attacked Teresa Heinz Kerry to the point of calling her a b****. The attacked Hillary to the point she had to prove her woman/motherhood by baking cookies. Both John Kerry and Mrs. were attacked for being out of touch and for the hypocrisy of their liberal views, basically and simply because they were too rich to be real liberals.

Ann Romney asks us to respect her choice, but has no intiention to respect our choice to make decisions about our own bodies. I don't get it! Or maybe I do get it, just pointing to the hipocracy.

These attacks must just be a Democrat thing. And it looks like they just may have overplayed their hand this time.

You couldn't be more right. Democrats pride themselves for representing minorites and women. Until they find out that their conservative thinkers. Black conservatives in particular are quickly labled oreo's or race traders.

All you have to look at is how NOW responded to Clinton's harassment and rape allegation. Clinton's victims got vilified no matter what their party affiliation was. But that's democrats. They have absolutely no moral compass.

Rob in ma: You couldn't be more right. Democrats pride themselves for representing minorites and women.

And they do it so well. Like the Democrats that represent the inner cities for decades like John Coyners, Maxine Waters and Bobby Rush. Their districts have improved greatly over the years as represented by these pols. Detroit, LA, and Chicago are running like finely tuned machines under these politicians leadership. They certainly show the rest of the country how to properly represent minorities. And they must do a great job because they are re-elected term after term.

Hillary Rosen on Michelle Obama in 2008 -

From CNN:

"You know essentially, you've taken on sort of the most sympathetic person in the candidate's realm, the wife, who is taking care of the children, supporting the husband, doing everything she can because she loves him," Rosen said on Anderson Cooper 360 according to a CNN transcript from May 19, 2008.

"Michelle Obama is a pretty terrific woman I have to say, and I think that attacking her is a dumb strategy on the Republican's part," Rosen added.

Hilary rosen, who has been to the White house 36 times in the past 3 years, is an idiot.

Or a Democrat, take your pick.

Hey Ursala... spare us the "pity me I'm a martyr talk!"

What do you know about the details of what went on in the privacy of the Romney house... how she ran her house or raised her children.

Why do you vilify everyone that may have more than you? I certainly do not consider myself "rich" but I earned enough that my wife was able to stay home and raise our children. She worked hard at home - taking care of my three sons and making our home a HOME.

You talk belittles women that make that choice.

My wife and I have talked about it and we both agree that we would have earned more if she continued her career as an accountant, but it was worth the sacrifice to have her constant influence in the daily lives of our sons. She made them the fine young men that they are today.

Your attitude is once again nothing more than the perpetual "SOMEONE OWES ME ME ME" that we hear from the left. It is tired and old.

(show me the clown nose, fisty!)

Who was it that said, politics make strange bedfellows?

Get a load of this... lol

Fox News' Greta Van Susteren defended Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen in a blog post on Thursday.

"In making her remark about Mrs. Romney and her choice to raise a family and not work outside the home, I know Hilary knows raising children is hard work, really hard work...the absolute hardest work," she wrote. "Hilary has children. That is the best way to know the challenge of raising children - have them! Hilary is not anti-stay-at-home mom."

Van Susteren said she took Rosen's comments to mean that "raising children without financial pressure is easier than having financial pressure," and were not an attack on mothers who chose not to work.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/12/greta-van-susteren-hilary-rosen-romney_n_1420914.html?ref=media

Once again, the rabid right is running on empty & all they have left is another nontroversy! lmao

*yawn*

A "nontroversy"?

Must be why Michelle Obama personally responded negatively in a tweet to Rosen's remarks.

Nontroversy?

David Axlerod must not have gotten the memo.

All this shows is that the Left is actually raging the "War on Women"

Feisty Redhead Roselle, ILFox

News' Greta Van Susteren defended Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen in a blog post on Thursday.

LMAO!!!! O-M-G!

THAT'S a moron's idea of a "gotcha?!?!?

That would equivalent to me saying that John Heilimann (MSNBC) agreed with Janeane Garofalo (Looney Lib) implying that somehow John is a conservative (sheep's clothing)

Love Greta but she's hardly a conservative, however, wee-minded folks (think DumbFux) see a Fox logo and the door is shut.

Be sure to gain knowledge from more than just one source folks....LOL

Romney/Rubio 2012!

Those of us that have made personal sacrifices for our children certainly understand what motherhood/fatherhood means.

Michael unless you are a woman or a stay at home Dad I suggest you refrain from commenting on the subject.

With all due respect to Ann Romney, even with this one commonality, I still cannot relate to her or her husband. One commonality is not enough. To me, they are that far removed from the average American trying to stay afloat. A situation caused by the same people they indeed represent.

Doubt you can relate DCIA.

Do you have MS or Breast cancer?

Isn't it cute when WCA tries to stake out the high moral ground? He can never find it because he's never been on it, of course, but it is so darling to watch him try!

You cant say it any better. So can we move on?

"Every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected. –mo" she tweeted from her campaign Twitter account. (Tweets signed "mo" come directly from the First Lady, not campaign staff.)

What a waste of time, talking about Ann Romney never worked a day in her life, and Mitt Romney's dog abuse. What about the issues?

I knew you couldn't back it up Sailcat.

Pathetic fail.

Thanks for playing.

Michael - Do you qualify? Nope. Not for anything you suggest. I'm picky.

WCA -- According to you one has to have a serious illness to understand motherhood or fatherhood? Sorry but you fail to make a point.

Well DCIA, according to you one has to be in poverty to understand Motherhood/Fatherhood.

So I guess you have failed to make your point. You are the one who said you couldn't relate. I just re-iterated that.

Isn't it cute when WCA tries to stake out the high moral ground? He can never find it because he's never been on it, of course, but it is so darling to watch him try!

'Moral' & WCA have no business being in the same sentance! ☺

But, come on now, let's not pick on WCA too much, poor little guy is having a rough time now that he no longer has Spanky's skirt to hide behind... lol

WCA -- Unless you are having a hard time reading, I acknowledged Ann for her commitment to her children, as a mother myself. The one commonality we share.

I did not mention poverty either. Nor wealth. It's all the things they say that prove they have no understanding of the plight of people.

"Corporations are people..." etc.

Understand now?

WCA: "Doubt you can relate DCIA. Do you have MS or Breast cancer?"

I can't speak for DCIA or anyone else, WCA - but since what I posted on this subject on First Thoughts got collapsed under one of Damage123's posts, can I at least speak for myself again today?

"Ann Romney even started a Twitter account and said this: “I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work.”

I'm sure it was. I saw what my mother did just to raise three kids. Of course, my mother didn't have the same range of choices available to her that Ann Romney did, which is why once we were all in school during the day, my mother made the choice to become a bank teller so she could help my father provide for us and save for us to go to college if we chose. And she still did all the same hard work that Ann Romney did on top of that, putting off her own dream of going to college until she was in her mid 40's and we were all grown and out of the house.

Like Ann Romney, my mother is also a breast cancer survivor. She was "lucky" in that it didn't hit her until she was 63, re-married and comfortable enough financially to be about to retire anyway, and lucky it was caught early. I, on the other hand, was just 45 when I was diagnosed. I was single, had no family living in the area at the time, and doing a bit better than just making ends meet, but I could not afford disability insurance, the company I worked for was pretty stingy about sick days, and I really needed that job, so I only took a couple of days off to recover from surgery and then spent six weeks driving 22 miles round trip from my job to the hospital every day on my lunch hour to get my radiation treatments and then staying later each night to make up the lost time. It helped a lot that I never really felt all that sick the whole time I was "battling" cancer, so I'm the first to admit that I was one of the lucky ones.

So if I - someone who didn't have Ann Romney's resources to fall back on - can admit that I was far more fortunate than millions of other women who have much harder circumctances to deal with, why can't the Romney campaign do the same thing?

I'm glad to hear Ann Romney is a fellow survivor. I just wish I thought the Romneys had even the slightest idea what MOST women with breast cancer and/or MS and/or five kids at home have to go through to survive too.

Wow, JoAnne, you speak so eloquently for thousands of women who have faced illnesses without the comforable cushion Ann Romney had. Not to belittle Ann, but your post goes a long way to explain what makes us so incredulous that Romney names her as his chief adviser on the issues women make. Especially when he comes out disparaging Obama's efforts to get women covered by health insurance.

YUP....

the GOP needs to RESPECT the CHOICES that Woman Make.

PRO-CHOICE

you heard it from the presumptive nominee's wife.

PRO-CHOICE

PRO-CHOICE

PRO-CHOICE

Pat -- Your story is an important one. Thanks for sharing.

Perhaps people like WCA will gain better understanding.

Stay strong survivor.

Santorum must of knocked Romney's etch-a-sketch off the table on his way out... wasn't it just the other week that Romney supported the blunt amendment (birth control exemption bill) 3 hours before he condemned it... now hes back on the other side today.... did his wife not approve of women's choice that day?

JoAnne: very courageous of you to speak out.

I think the Dems would be smart to re-state what they have been saying. Just as Rick Perry lost it all with one word ("oops") so the Democrats may have lost a great deal of momentum on this issue.

We can only hope that the Democratic party brings the Republican budget in which these very issues are present up for debate in the Senate. Perhaps the finance committee should hold hearings entitled "The effects the 2012 budget proposal has on women, the poor, the disabled and the elderly."

There should really be a national discussion on what we really want our government to be doing or not doing when it comes to women. Do we want the government regulating vaginas ? What about providing food or health care for the poor or elderly (of which there ARE more women) or even veterans care ?

I think we need hearings all summer long, with every single Senate committee truly exploring every aspect to determine exactly how the various proposals at the federal level impact women. And we need to bring in the various people with knowledge of the various laws at the state level to determine how they interact with federal laws.

Mike 1969 are you really that ignorant or are you portraying some one else, You seem to think its funny to speak like an idiot, but you do it almost too well. The picture is a redneck but that might not be you. Probably is though - oh well.

Correction above -- My sincere apologies I meant JoAnne. Reading too much today and I not thinking straight. Forgive me.

"...no one attacked Tersea Heinz Kerry like this..."

Bahahaha! There, now I feel better.

I read several libs here, including the great Feisty, telling us how Ann Romney, with all her money, can't possibly relate to middle class women. Uh, may I ask if the same is true of Michele Obama?

Oh, by the way, Ann's husband earned his wealth....Michele's....uh, not so much. Best I can discern from reading both of his books, the Democratic party has been carrying his load for him since college.

My wife chose to stay home and raise our kids until the last one entered junior high. I wasn't making much money at the time. She did without money, nice clothes, nice car and the nice house she has now. Why? Because her kids were more important to her than all that material crap.

As much as Ursula would like to paint the picture that if you're not privileged, you have to go out and work, it just isn't so (single parents being an exception of course).

I wouldn't bring up Teresa Heinz Kerry. It might make people remember who her husband choose as his Vice-President. His trial started this week. Good ole John Edwards. I am ashamed to say I voted Kerry- Edwards.

I would trust that someone in the Republican party will now pull the wife of the Republican front runner aside and advise she never use the words "choice" and "women" and "respect" in the same sentence again.

hs31, I'm glad you qualified your last comment - I was a single parent to my children with almost no support from their dead-beat father. Still, I had it a lot easier than many other single parents (not just mothers) who couldn't get much more than a minimum-wage job or two. But I could probably relate to their situation a bit more than Ann Romney could relate to mine - and that's the whole point of this discussion.

daryl-2183015, I'm 56, I always vote and Iv'e only voted Republican 3 times in my life. Your comment gave me a good laugh.

Why do you vilify everyone that may have more than you? I certainly do not consider myself "rich" but I earned enough that my wife was able to stay home and raise our children. She worked hard at home - taking care of my three sons and making our home a HOME.

How nice for you. You are in the minority...1% perhaps? The problem is that you simply can't identify at all with the rest of us. You continue supporting "trickle-down" economics (or as George HW Bush referred to it "voodoo economics" regardless of its disastrous impact on the majority of us. Your party hasn't listened to us for the last 30 years. November 2012 they will!

Really Mrs. Romney? Tell us about how we should respect a woman's choice to say... take birth control. Or, have an abortion. We should respect those choices as well, correct?

Are you in medicine Ursula? I am glad to read your story. Try as they may, the Romneys will never understand what it means to live your life as you have, and the pride you must take in what you have accomplished.

Are there really people in this country who are so STUPID that they would not vote for a President (Romney) because they feel they can't relate to his WIFE? Disagree on principle all you want and vote accordingly, but leave the man's wife out of it. Michelle Obama is not in charge of our country, and neither would Ann be if Mitt is elected.

The left will always villify prominent conservative women, all the while complaining about how the right hates women.

Why aren't we talking about the issues that actually matter?

Well kg, in the article she did discuss the losing issues that republicans have brought up yet again. We are responding to her comments. I bet she has some influence on her husband. It is important to discuss this.

kg -issues relating to a woman being forced to risk death and permanent health issues may not matter to you -but they matter to most women. Issues of a woman having recourse to fight violence perpetrated upon her may not matter to you,but they do matter to most women. Issues related to equal pay may not matter to you,but they do matter to most women.

Issues that actually matter.

Katheryn -

You're right, those are all important issues, but those are all off topic.

I would think that people like you would be rallying behind Ann Romney, decrying the insensitive and inappropriate comments made by Hilary Rosen. If I said "(Insert name of any wealthy prominent liberal woman here) has never worked a day in her life," would you be offended by that? Many posters on this very thread have said that because of the Romney's wealth, Ann is automatically considered "out of touch" with "normal" women. Are wealthy liberal women equally disconnected to the plight of "normal" women?

kg - Bottom line on this topic is Romney is losing the women vote because they say he is out of touch with females.

His strategy is to have his wife act as a sympathetic figure to whom women can relate and transfer that positive feeling over to Romney.

But Romney has not stood up for the issues that are central to women. Time and again he has missed opportunities to do the simplest thing -to say I agree with this issue or that event was wrong.

This is a social justice issue for women. Instead of standing up for women on social justice / declaring that women can make their own decisions concerning their health and reproductive issues, Romney is trying to steer this away from the fact he will not take a stand for women.And that draws women's ire.

By trying to make it into an economics only issue, he is highlighting the fact that he and his wife do not get what life is like for the middle class and working poor woman.

Being rich does not make you automatically unempathic to women who are working and struggling to make it. Historically, it has been those who have been blessed with plenty who have taken up the cause of reform for those who do not have the means to actuate those reforms on their own. Eleanor Roosevelt certainly worked for the less fortunate her whole life. But Romney and his wife are not taking up the cause of reform for women rights.

No,being rich does not automatically exclude you from understanding the woman who is struggling to make it,but it makes it a damn sight easier to understand the struggles women are facing if you have shared their situation at some level yourself.

The Romneys are upstanding people,both as a couple and individually. I know that they have no ill feelings toward women of less means than themselves.

But he still doesn't get that women want a Party who will actively stand up for their rights. And the Republican Party does not stand up for women's rights and Romney is the personification of the Republican Party.

And that is the real issue of this topic.Everything else is a diversion.

If Motherhood is so easy, why are their so many abortions?

I understand what Hilary Rosen meant with her comment... Mrs. Romney doesn't know what it's like to be in the work force and have to fight for equal pay for the same job a man does... Mrs. Romney has never HAD TO WORK... That's not saying being a full time stay-at-home mom isn't work... But she was able to chose to stay home...

My mother worked as a nurse and at the same time had ten children... Ma had to work because my fathers income wasn't enough to feed us all... And yes catholics we were... My parents birth control was to stop sleeping in the same bed after I was born... I'm sure my mother would have loved to be just a full time mom...

Respect women's choices. Then why would you support a party that doesn't respect women's choices?

Terry: if you're mother had thought of it, and her doctor was smart enough, she would have taken the route my mother and many others did and had a tubal ligation "for health reasons" (aka/ her sanity...LOL) after she had the last child she wanted.

However, if she did that, we wouldn't have you and the benefit of your postings... so I guess we are better off... contrary to SickOfthebickering's opinion.

Many women in the 40's,50's & 60's, before the advent of the pill and the ready availability of abortion, did have abortions and tubal ligations. They labeled it something different ( C&C ?) but the bottom line was the same. Really sharp doctors would have no issues with preventing women who did not want them from having more children.

My wife is a stay at home mom. She and I made a decision to forego many possible luxuries and to possibly have to struggle in favor of her being available to raise our children. Now that they are older, she is returning to college to obtain training in the medical field.

It is unfortunate that the Dem. spokeswoman used the terms she did. She should have said that Mrs. Romney hasn't worked in the business world and kept a home going.

Ah, well... politics is not meant for the timid. I do believe that Ann Romney would make a better first lady than her husband would make as President.... you know what I mean.

If Motherhood is so easy, why are their so many abortions?

Whitecollar,

Are you REALLY that stupid or were you really born that way?

Have you heard of rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, unable to provide, etc?

You people bitch and complain about not wanting to pay for contraception, and yet you bitch and complain about having to pay for kids. You bitch and complain IF a woman has an abortion, and you bitch and complain about the consequences that happens when one doesn't have one.

Is it no wonder that women consider your stupidity and regard you for what you really are?

Just saying that we live with the choices we make.

Until the GOP tells us we cannot make those choices, right SOTB?

Who is this Fisty you keep referring to? Your imaginary friend? Sounds like you wanna be fisted. And that would explain alot.

Respect women's choices. Then why would you support a party that doesn't respect women's choices?

Most abortions are performed because women feel it would interfere too much with school, work, or life in general, or because they feel they can't afford it, in other words, it's an 'unintended pregnancy'. If you can't afford to have a child or don't want it getting in the way of your life, don't have sex. If you're not ready to skydive, why would you strap on a parachute and take a ride in an airplane? Just for fun? I respect women's choices, including their choice to have sex with whomever and whenever they choose, but should pregnancy occur, I cannot support the murdering of that potential human being just so that it won't cause a perceived undue burden on the woman. Choice and accountability, people. For the 1% of abortions that are performed because of rape, I say the woman should be able to choose that, since the choice of sex was taken away from her. See? I'm pro-choice, too.

NewDay---imagine facing the illnesses Ann has faced with no medical insurance? And because they are pre-existing conditions, no hope of ever getting coverage for them. Yet Romney is running against "Obamacare"---which was modeled on "Romneycare".

And they want to defund Planned Parenthood, which provides mammograms to low-income women. Can't respect that.

I imagine, SF, she had a pretty good insurance plan. But they don't seem to extrapolate from that experience that others might like to have insurance too.

It wouldn't surprise me if Mitt and his wife qualify for health insurance paid for by the taxpayers of Massachusetts as a former government employee. Maybe Pat from Boston will let us know.

Heck, none of the Romneys need health insurance, though you can bet they have it. They have no idea what it means to the rest of us to have to hold down a job while you are sick. All of us need the health care law. Conservatives are always railing about "Not wanting to pay someone else's health insurance!" until they are the ones out of a job, and no health insurance company will pick them up.

Being a stay at home Mom is honorable work. I think its a little harder to be a mom who can't stay at home. In my days as a firefighter, I was often staying at home with the kids when the shift work allowed it. I feel that was hard work indeed, but I held down an exhausting job as well. The Romneys don't know what that is like.

I respect women's choices! I do not respect a candidate for President who is in such a BUBBLE that he would believe his pampered wife would provide much NEEDED insight as to the true ECONOMIC issues facing women these days.

Good for her that she managed her household and child rearing and cancer; but NONE of that burden was ECONOMIC based,...which is the outrage MOST of us who work outside the home OR most of those working INSIDE the home on a shoestring budget are TALKING about.

They can twist and squirm and try to make this about US versus THEM; but the comment was germane, as is this response:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hilary-rosen/ann-romney-and-working-mo_b_1419480.html

Clara, I read her statement and loved it. She is spot on! Thanks!

newdayDAWNING...RETURNED - What has Mitt Romney ever done that would make you believe he would pursue a Christian Conservative agenda?

All you need to see Skup, is the (R) next to his name.

"We need to respect women's choices ?"

oops, there goes the Catholic, Muslim and Evangelical votes

It is possible that she did raise the kids back then. He hadn't dismantled that many companies yet in the 80's.

I got a HUGE kick out of the Unzip Mitt statement. I thought it'd have more legs than it did. It was a scream!

"No, my husband's not stiff. Let me unzip him and show you." Priceless.

bikerchick,

LOL, Why he's down right flaccid!

It is possible that she did raise the kids back then. He hadn't dismantled that many companies yet in the 80's.

Thanks to his dad, Mitt started out with enough money to make him filthy rich in my book. What do you want to bet that before she had her first kid Mrs. Romney had a maid, a cook, and a nanny already lined up, not to mention the best medical assistance money can buy. That "I have had a hard life" dog won't hunt. I look around at what some people are going through and I can only think 'lady, you are so lucky'.

Well, I did say that in jest MikeBravo. I am sure Grandpa Romney gave his grandchildren and his kids every possible advantage. See my post in 4.4 and you will know what I mean.

Thanks, Wayne,

and MikeBravo,

She said herself earlier this year that she didn't consider herself wealthy. Really?

Hubby was pulling in $57K per DAY and that isn't wealthy?

I think they are BOTH cluelessly and hopelessly OUT OF TOUCH,...

But I welcome the next seven months to, um, flesh it out, so to speak! Engage zipper now!

Umm, hasn't Romney been running for President for the better part of the last eight years? What's he waiting for?

Actually, you are correct. That's why people who have been paying attention want nothing to do with this guy.

BTW ... the Morman church has been running those "I'm a nice average guy and ... I'm a Morman" ads on TV for about the same length of time. Ever wonder who pays for those ads?

Amen, Katherine!

Or as Eliza Doolittle sang in My Fair Lady:

"Sing me no song! Read me no rhyme!
Don't waste my time, Show me!
Don't talk of June, Don't talk of fall!
Don't talk at all! Show me!

Exactly Katheryn! President Obama was working on women's rights as soon as the inaugural balls were over. What would Mitt do? Roll back women's rights as soon as he could.

Amy -

Well, as Rick Santorum famously said: "President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob!”

Which I guess by some convoluted stretch of logic means that Mitt Romney, who thinks only rich people should send their kids to college, is NOT a snob.

Only in today's GOP.....

Unfortunately, you have nailed the Conservative mindset - let things play out in the market - even if that takes 2 or 3 generations, and regardless of who suffers in the meantime. Everything to them is just a larger macroeconomic experiment. Their same logic applies to health care. They refuse to accept that we as a community have the collective wisdom and intelligence to better order our affairs.

Amy----it is the same thinking that had Mitt say to just let the housing market hit bottom so the houses could be foreclosed on and sold to investors for rental property. For a man who is living the American dream, he sure doesn't want to do much to make it possible for others---like college, owning a house, etc. Well, he does want health care for the people of Mass. but not the rest of us.

I respect the choices that Ann Romney made to stay home and raise her children. I hope she means it when she says she respects the choices other women make today about work/family balance. That doesn't mean that I think she can relate to the women who have to make choices of how to allocate scarece resources for their family. Her answer to that question in her own life was to "sell stock"--not an option for most of us.

Hey Amy...

What do you think that lady's point was?

Do you think she was looking to have her kid's student loans forgiven? Kind of sounds like it doesn't it?

Just another GIMME ME ME... SOMEONE OWES ME ME ME liberal, looking for handouts!

Student loans are just that! LOANS! My kids have them too. The difference is that MY KIDS ARE PAYING THEM BACK!

Nothing is free in this world, Amy. NOTHING!

Mitt responds to that lady using the most basic economic concept of supply and demand and you all want to crucify him... why? Because you are too unintelligent to understand it.

(show me the clown nose, fisty!)

Do you think she was looking to have her kid's student loans forgiven? Kind of sounds like it doesn't it?

How did you arrive at that conclusion? Or did you just jump there?

First of all... it wasn't a conclusion... it was speculation and an opening for continued discussion.

Second, YES. I just jumped... pretty much the same way every liberal on this site does. :-)

You do seem pretty Sick Bick

Sickof: I think a better opening that young women's question provides would be a discussion of the excessive increases in the cost of higher education. While the general rate of inflation for the last 20 years has been below 6%, the price tag for a bachelor's degree has been increasing by double and triple digits.

The young woman expressed a concern many young people are starting to feel, that coming out of college with five or six figures of debt is not justified by the jobs available. The cost of a college degree, if it has to be paid for entirely by debt, is getting to the point where it will not, in the long run, pay off. With the Mitt Romney plan, college will return to being an institution only for the elite. Maybe that is how the Republicans want it.

You betcha Pablo.

But the only choice you have is to do what she says, believe what she believes.

oh no Pablo - she is pro choice on women staying home to raise kids rather than go out to work.

Didn't we cover this in the 70s when we also covered Roe vs Wade - damn we really are going back in time if Ann Romney thinks that's a big ticket issue.

(wait -with some of the Republican politician's attitudes -maybe having the choice to work will become an issue again!)

"And I think we all know that we need to respect choices that women make,"

Ann do you really respect choices that women make who disagree with you?

So David, how specifically do you think Romney's Mormon faith will change the way the government treats women and what has Romney said to support your claim?

Kind of like how Obama isn't suited to run this country because all he knows is how to community organize and vote present?

JFK.......you can disparage President Obama all you want and what way you want, however, he has something Mitt Romney doesn't have, a term of experience as a duly elected President of the United States and that really counts....a lot.

JFK-2112,

So far he's doing a whole hell of a lot better than his predecessor. Bush destroyed our economy, Obama is healing it. Bush allowed Osama bin Laden to run free, Obama killed him. Bush acted only in the interests of his peers and his party, Obama tries to work with his opposition to solve problems and opens op to compromise.

Rosen was an idiot for saying what she said, or at least for choosing that particular way to say it. Maybe it can't apply to Ann Romney directly, but it's not going to win any points from mothers. Being a stay-at-home mom is not all that easy, I don't care who you are.

flbikerchick,

Seriously? Win points for whom? This was a comment from a nobody commentator, not the Obama campaign. Women are well aware of which party is going to fight for their rights and it isn't the GOP (Republicans have made it quite clear in recent times that women's rights mean little to nothing to them.) This will have no baring on anything whatsoever, except to remind people of recent Republican actions against women.

Let us not also forget recent Republican attempts here in Virginia to force the rape of women seeking to terminate their pregnancies.

Tell me about it, VaDem. I'm in Virginia too. At age 35 our governor Bob McDonnell was writing how women in the workplace were detrimental to the family. Then, when running for gov, he insisted that he shouldn't be judged on some old paper (at 35 it was a youthful indiscetion, etc.), but by the fact that he has a wife and "strong women" around him. Now that he's in the governor's mansion, he is happy to push for the invasive vaginal probing bill. Don't trust big-daddy conservatives who gain election sensitivity to women's issues via the fact that they have wives. It won't affect their political instincts to payoff their Neanderthal base by limiting women's rights once elected.

Jeanne---and that's just the start of the day!

There is nothing wrong with this woman wanting to stay home and raise her children. Nothing. Not everyone is the same, you can not claim to be a better mother or wife just because you have different circumstances. Why this bothers women is only based on the party you side with.

16.2

We agree...YES, MANY woman would like to stay home and raise their children...it just isn't an economic option.

I wanted to stay home and raise my children too. Only rich white men don't usually marry poor hispanic women.

I decided early on I had to get and education and work to pull myself and my children out of poverty. My father died when I was young. I was on my own when I was a teenager. Planned parenthood and birth control were on my side when no one else was.

I had no choice to stay at home and raise my children.

Staying home to raise your children is not a choice; it is a perk of having a rich father and marrying a rich husband.

MRWSR,

You seriously think Ann Romney lifts a finger in raising these children? Let's take the above scenario of morning activities and apply it to Ann Romney, it would likely go something like this;

"My mornings are so hectic, first I wake up and dress in the clothes my personal assistant picked out for me after my personal shopper went and bought them for me. Then I have to watch the cook slave over a hot stove to feed the kids. After that, I have to instruct the maid to clean up the dishes. After the nanny scrambles around making sure the kids have everything they need for school, she gets them loaded into their Limo, and their driver takes them off to school. Then I have to sit and watch the maid clean house all day and do the kids laundry. I sure hope she makes sure to get the right amount of sugar in my coffee, otherwise, I may just have to fire her, although, my husband Mitt says he likes firing people, so I'll just let him do it!"

Sad that you can judge like that or say anything about her being anykind of mother.

Sad that Ann Romney thinks she understands the plight of any middle class American mother.

All you see is class or status. She is a mother and they earned thier money. You are jealous, you want it and don't want her to have it, because you don't.

Liberal, progressive hater.

Maybe republicans just don't understand that the slang "Mother F_cker's" wasn't supposed to become a political ideology

There you go Jim.

Core values of the left. What a wonderful thought process and keen sense of the evil you breath.

16.10:

This was my CORE DREAM:

Motherhood and apple pie

a picket fence

a collie

a steak dinner

a trip to the lake house

. . .

. . .

. . . and then there is reality.

Don't give a holier than thou lecture about CORE VALUES....

For MOST Americans, Motherhood's NOBLE profession is HUGE multi-tasking without the perk of a fat bank-account.

Loved your post, Jeanne---great to hear from Steeler Nation. Although a lot of sad faces around town today as the Penguins blew a lead and lost to the Flyers 4-3 in OT last night.

Where did he say you had no choice of birth control. What healthcare, that is not the governments job. Equal pay, where did he say that. Obama admistration men make more than the women.

The law forbids discrimination based on a number of factors. Gender is one of them.

by declaring a woman to be 'high-risk' simply because she is a woman, that is a form of discrimination based on gender.

That is illegal and needs to be nipped in the bud.

One of the many redeeming features of the ACA :)

Mrwsr: Does anything in your Rush Limbaugh talking points address why you think Hilary Rodham Clinton makes less salary as secretary of state than her predecessers? Or why Romney doesn't support the fair pay act? Why he thinks women can do without health care services provided by planned parenthood, (the ONLY health care provider of services for many women?) Still just one HUGE mystery for you about why Romney is down some 20 points in the polls among women? Nothing to do with his stands on health care...education...dismantling social security...slashing medicare by turning it over to the states....driving huge decreases in taxes for the wealthiest Americans? Yeah...going to be a very, very suprising November for you it looks like.

Rush is more right than you are. Plus, the government has not right to dictate private sector payroll. Is it fair, NO. You have so much hate and so much hope in a failed system. Proven to fail again. If obama wins he wins. That's why we vote. But be open to another view if it goes the other way. Who know's.

I had kids and worked. i made plenty of money. i wish now i hadn't. i missed a lot of my kids' early years because i was at work, making money. sure, i envy those that could afford to stay home, but i made the choice that i needed that extra money. coulda shopped more at Wal-Mart and less at department stores, coulda scrimped more. probably would have been harder for me than for Mrs. Romney, but the rewards would have been tremendous.

and why all the venom because they have money? do you think for one minute if he made $15.00 an hour he'd be running for President? do you think for one minute that any Democratic candidate or his spouse worked because they "had to" to make ends meet? there are as many liberals in the 1% as there are Conservatives, and you just ask one of them to give up being rich. vote your conscience, vote your beliefs, but don't vote against somebody because his wife could afford to stay home and not work, for cryin' out loud!

I had kids and chose to stay home, with no regrets. The problem with the Romneys isn't that she stayed home to raise her kids (although that is how some are trying to spin it). The problem is they really have NO IDEA what most Americans go through these days. Not even a smidgen of understanding. Remember John Kerry? Romney is like that. The difference between them is Kerry at least advocated for those with less than he had, something Romney doesn't. He has taken on the mantle of the far right, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-middle class policies of the teapubs and thanks, but no thanks, we don't need to double down on those policies.

No.

We should respect the personal choices each person makes.

Including whether they want to stay-at-home or work.

Including whether to keep a child, put one up for adoption, or prevent pregnancy altogether.

Including whether to vote democrat, republican, communist party or libertarian.

Including whether to smoke or not smoke, eat fatty foods and even post inane diatribe on-line.

The problem is, I can't help but feel a lot of people are trying to legislate and choose my morality for me. Not based on societal needs, but based on moral 'obligation' they feel.

That's unsat.

What morality? What social needs?

Its a fact of who has to pay for it. I don't care if you have 50 abortions, as much as I aginst it, its your choice. But you or anybody else can not tell me or make me pay for it. People's Moral obligation that is faith based does more good than harm. Its not needed in government and neither is social justice.

Social justice isn't subject to government?

So slavery was 'ok' by you? You have a 'that's cool, nothing wrong with it.'-attitude?

And planned parenthood doesn't have a 'general fund'. The money is not 'fungible' in any way. If government stopped giving them a pittance, they wouldn't suddenly do less abortions.

They'd do less cancer screenings and hand out fewer condoms.

And the government would now be on the hook for...medical expenses! Like they are until the ACA passes.

Meaning you'd pay for someone else's Clap treatments.

Old saying. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Spend 5$ to prevent a $1,000 treatment.

THAT is conservatism.

Coud not anwer one question.

Social justice is what is coming out of government funded programs. You are going to tell me that planned parenthood is the only place that a women can go to get screened. If you belive that is the soul pupose for planned parenthood then there is not point in debating the tax payer dolloars that goes to them. I am sorry to disagree with you, it should not be so hard to debate, but it is not the governments job to hand out condoms or make sure you get birth control pills. That is not thier job. Is has nothing to do with women or left or right. Its not thier job. You can not mandate morals or the act of giving.

No, but I can mandate positive societal programs. or those programs which have a net gain for the taxpayer.

If I spend $5 on prevention, or I spend 1000$ on cure, then I choose prevention every time.

That's a 995$ savings.

It's simple math.

You can not mandate that. That is socialism.

You can have congress tax it. It won't pass.

Its a fact of who has to pay for it. I don't care if you have 50 abortions, as much as I aginst it, its your choice. But you or anybody else can not tell me or make me pay for it.

But what about people like me who pay over $1000/yr more in insurance premiums because people like Mary Brown (woman who sued to stop the HCR mandate) refuse to get covered? I DO pay for that, whereas you do NOT pay for abortions.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/11/opinion/la-ed-health-law-plaintiff-20120311

You like paying for that? Or do I pay for you too?

Government lib50.

There is no doubt that premiums are out of control. I see it as a regulation problem. There has to be reform, not ACA. Sorry you don't pay for me, I am sure you got you income tax return. Spend it well.

Mrwsr: you're embarrassing yourself. You obviously know absolutely ziltch about Planned Parenthood...access to screenings, birth control, pap smears, for many women in this country outside large cities (yup, that would be Planned Parenthood's role). Your "50 abortions" per woman fantasy is about as ridiculous as your claim that taxpayers pay for those abortions (they don't...it's against federal law). Geez. Learn something before you rant, would ya?

Try as you might to think you got me there AP, those same procedures are done at 15 locations in my town. Never said 50 per woman, said I don't care if a woman had 50, that is her choice. Called sarcasim. If its against federal law the how does planned parenthood recieve tax dollars. And you can not claim it is for these other things only. You would be lieing and that is the truth.

I cannot legislate the availability of funds to provide preventative health concerns?

Yes I can :)

Reagan started this mess when he enacted EMTALA, a socialist program which demands treatment for all regardless of ability to pay.

WE, the democrats, are just getting sick and tired of paying for Republican Welfare (Mary Brown) and are protecting ourselves from the Republican welfare queens.

That's the bottom line of the ACA. We are trying to make the Welfare Recipients pay for their own medication, while ensuring that it's available to all in the spirit of previously enacted legislation.

The fact so many Republicans are against it is funny. Half of them are mad that they're going to help pay for others, the other half are the handout queens and don't want to pay their own way to the hospital.

/Truth.

Do you think that was the purpose of that program, you arrogant elitist. Look at the facts of the amendments that have drag there way into it and tell me republicans own the welfare state. You can never win this debate. You never follow the trail and the subtle ways you have destroyed our country. Yes you. But if you can tie to a republican before it became the monster dems made it all the power to you. You have no ground to stand on.

The Republicans own the Welfare State.

articles.businessinsider.com/2011-08-18/politics/30039546_1_blue-states-federal-taxes-red-states

And they make you think your self-sufficient while doing so.

Booyakah.

I won't deny being a slightly arrogant elitist though. Comes with dealing with a highly republican district (20% college attainment and 20% povery, HOOYAH! That's the 11th most conservative district in the nation, fellaz!) and watching the unfolding of republican government over decades.

We went 65-32 for McCain in 2008.

Obviously an enlightened and thoroughly prosperous section of California, right? :)

No point in this. Sorry don't have cute little extras to put out there. But your link is not only been debunked, it is not even backed up by any other numbers I could find. You take a republican's program, yes, welfare based, but never see what the dems did to it. So all credit goes to the one who brought it to the table. Not what it became. You will never take credit for that. Just where it started. You take first place in the I think I got you catagory. Sorry. Keep trying.

Getting better...... Did you see the job numbers this morning, gas prices this morning or how is the market doing this month.

Yeah, that market.

We should keep a conversation here :)

Bush came into office, on day 1, with a 10,587. The day he left, it was at 7,949.

Day 1 of Obama was 7,949. Today it sits at 12978.22.

Let's keep talking about Bush vs. Obama, my friend. This is a good conversation for us.

mrwst. Another who cheers for America to fail. You should be ashamed.

Wow the Bush aliby.

You have to let go of it. You show you have no understanding of markets. I will put Bush up against obama any day. Call me what you will. This man can not run on his record, just blame Bush for his own administration failures. Bush inherited a recession, so! Go back read the left's headlines. Compare and contrast fed regulations, this has to do with the market numbers you put up. Apples and oranges.

Not ashamed of being right.

MRWSR,

You missed the point completely. The simple fact is that the economy is better today than it was on January 19, 2009.

Lies,

Spending and debt have engulfed any positives you can find. We have spent our way in to a false sense of security of a so called recovery. You check your numbers.

I know that won't happen, because you worship at the alter of barak. Sad.

Yeah, but MRSWR doesn't like talking facts, because they illuminate why Romney is going to fail so badly...Let's see how Romney fares with the 'we need to stay in Afghanistan" line too, now that even his own party is abandoning him on that absurdity after 11 years of war. Gee, can't convince women, those with the most education, and every ethnic group in American that they'd really be better off under the rich guy with the Cayman Island bank accounts....Even the mommy war thing isn't working...what's the irrelevant party to do?

MRWSR,

If you have a problem with spending and debt, I suggest you redirect your anger at the GOP congress. They do the spending, not the president.

I don't need to let go of it.

Bush is going to guarantee my party wins the 2012 election, and likely the 2016 election as well.

He is, literally, your Jimmy Carter.

57% of independants put the blame SOLELY on Bush.

25% on Obama.

And the gap blames both.

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/the-economy-its-still-bushs-fault/2012/01/17/gIQAE7Dy6P_blog.html

This is a great narrative for us. Keep focusing on Bush, there is no excuse for him and the Republicans know it and try to deflect every chance they get.

You libs vomit your psychobable all you want. Because you really believe what you say. I am not here to change your minds or link facts that I know you won't look at. But to blame the spending on a GOP congress is the best y'all have done today.

Heck yeah.

You see how quickly the spending increased, as a percentage, under Bush?

It was astronomical!

Glad we got to at least taper off the increases, now we're working on winding it down.

Y'alls obstructionism isn't making it easy though. Can't wind it down without jobs, and can't get jobs passed without kicking the republicans out of congress :)

bfitz......If you have a link showing Mrs Obama saying this please provide.

This garbage was originally mentioned in a piece posted in the Washington Times, a conservative newspaper that specializes in conjecture. The right wing bloggers and any and all mean spirited people, looking to try to make a problem for the President, speculated with glee that this is what she said.

It is very unlikely that Mrs Obama would ever say something like that, and the only ones willing to believe it is true, are those such as yourself, who presumably do not wish them well. Otherwise, why would you post such drivel?.

bfitz - You are a flat out liar, like so many of your kind. You so called "conservatives" are becoming a blight on the country. You constantly talk about freedom but only your freedom on how the rest of us should live, talk, think, and, even pray.

You know in your heart that Michelle Obama did not say anything like that or close to that or even in that vain. Do you think we are all so stupid?

I have nothing against Ann Romney; nor do most of the people on this post, they are just pointing out that even though things were not easy for Mrs. Romney the same things happening to the average house hold is a completely different situation.

I give up on you "conservatives" you cannot be reasoned with, you have nothing positive to say about anything and live under the "sky is falling" environment. Good luck in your misery.

bfitz,

You're acting as if this comment came from the Obama campaign, instead if the nobody commentator that it did. The Obama campaign IMMEDIATELY denounced this woman's remarks, but I suppose Fox wouldn't report that, so you wouldn't know (even though this very article, which you clearly did not read, says they condemned the remark.)

We've GOT

a

FABULOUS

First Lady!

Yes, a stay at home mom living in free government housing.

Anne Romney and Mitt will never get it. They hob nob with the rich and famous and have no connection whatever with the poor and hard working middle class. I'm sure neither of them have ever had to cash a pay check that was mostly eaten up by bills already due or late and just hope there was enough left to get through the week.

EBO.......Mrs Obama is the First Lady of the United States. Her husband Barack Hussein Obama, is the duly elected President of the United States and of course they would live in the White House.

Would you dog whistle, a subtle racist of some sort if it was the previous occupant or any white occupant?

Stop this nonsense, as you hide behind a moniker. Coward!!

Yes, she would make a fabulous first lady for rich mormons.

Mrs. Obama works for the rest of us and we love her.

Gingerbread Mom,

Thanks for clearing that up for me. However, I said nothing about the race of the Obamas. You did. So, who is the racist? I merely stated that Mrs Obama is a stay at home mother and she lives in free government housing. That is a fact.

Maybe republicans just don't understand that the slang "Mother F_cker's" wasn't supposed to become a political ideology

OH, EBO......you devilishly disingenuous twit. After what you posted you really expect me to believe you. Nice try, but typical, play the victim....it is a favorite ploy of those opposed to the President. Go play somewhere else!