The Romney campaign is trying very hard to win back support from women with a really weird and illogical argument that Obama has engaged in a “war on women” because the recession hit women harder than men (as if Obama caused the recession that started before he got into office). And Mitt is throwing out some bizarre and wildly inaccurate claims:
“There’s been some talk about a war on women. The real war on women has been waged by the Obama administration’s failure on the economy. Do you know what percentage of job losses during the Obama years of have been casualties of women losing jobs as opposed to men? Do you know how many women, what percent of the job losses were women? 92.3 percent of the job losses during the Obama years have been women who’ve lost those jobs.”
But when the campaign was asked to defend that stat, they came up empty:
On a Romney campaign surrogates conference call to bash President Barack Obama’s stewardship of the economy Wednesday morning, officials faced a series of questions about the campaign’s recent argument that 92 percent of jobs lost during the recession were held by women.
Three separate times the surrogates, who included Lanhee Chen, the campaign’s chief policy adviser, were asked what specifically about Obama’s policies are bad for women, and three times the campaign offered no specifics.
And then Sam Stein of the Huffington Post asked about the first bill Obama signed as president, a bill lifting the statute of limitations for women who sue to receive equal pay for performing the same jobs as men.
“Does Gov. Romney support the Lilly Ledbetter Act?” asked Sam Stein of the Huffington Post.
After a six-second pause, an unidentified voice replied, “Sam, we’ll get back to you on that.”
The Romney press aide arranging the call did not immediately respond to requests to clarify Romney’s position on the act.
That last part is interesting because it reveals one of the most basic facts about our political system. Deciding which position to take on an issue rarely has anything to do with rational analysis or even the views and principles of the politician. Romney won’t know where he stands on that law until they have all kinds of discussions on the political risks and benefits of each potential position, probably aided by focus groups and polling. Because politics is simply an arm of marketing at this point; right and wrong almost never enter into the equation.
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anandine
April 16, 2012 at 12:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is philosophically pragmatism. A statement is true or false depending on whether believing it has good or bad effects.
reasonbeing
April 16, 2012 at 12:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Did you see that yesterday Geithner trashed Romney’s stats on women and the lost jobs. He pointed out that the recession started under Bush. That the first wave of job losses was the greatest and effected predominantly men. This occurred under Bush. The second wave did include effect females at about a rate of 93%, but this wave was far smaller than the first, and was a result of Republican cuts to things like education, etc. Romney is chasing windmills on this front….
The Lorax
April 16, 2012 at 12:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
*flips Romney upside-down*
*shake-a, shake-a, shake-a*
*flips Romney back up*
*repeat as necessary*
raven
April 16, 2012 at 12:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
IIRC, the Great Recession (started by the Bush Catastrophe) hit men harder than women. It was even called the Mannsession for a while.
raven
April 16, 2012 at 12:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Far as I can see the Tea Party/GOP plan for women is to:
Take away access to contraception.
Take away access to abortion.
Prohibit comprehensive sex ed especially contraception.
Then when women get pregnant:
Destroy the social safety net. Limit access to WIC and food stamps and ADCC and so on.
The net result would be a lot of involuntary mothers of young children with no money, shelter, or food.
I suppose the last step is to assure them as they starve that it is all the plan of the God of the Free Market and their own damn fault anyway. As if men have no role in reproduction.
D. C. Sessions
April 16, 2012 at 12:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That depends on how you define “job losses.” The breakdown I saw ran something like this:
* from peak employment to highest unemployment, 5,000,000 men lost their jobs.
* over the same time, 4,000,000 women lost their jobs
* Since peak unemployment to now, 4,999,000 new jobs for men
* Over the same time, 3,988,000 new jobs for women
* Net jobs lost to men: 1000
* Net jobs lost to women: 12000
* Women lost 92% of the net.
Now, to be a bit more specific about this, the fact is that for the past three years the private sector has been adding plenty of jobs for both men and women. However, the public sector at the State and local level has been laying off workers to the tune of more than a million net losses. The great majority of those job losses have been teachers and nurses, and the majority have been in Republican-dominated States.
However, the Press (as usual) hasn’t pointed out that those “92% women” losses have been sacked by Republican State legislatures.
John Hinkle
April 16, 2012 at 12:27 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Don’t forget that Quantum Mitt’s response to any question is affected simply by the asking of the question. He holds all positions on everything until asked, and then something precipitates out of him that he perceives will increase his polling numbers.
(I’m stealing the meme from that Quantum Mitt article the other day).
Jordan Genso
April 16, 2012 at 12:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What I think is even more important is Romney’s recent flip-flop on whether or not all moms really are working moms.
The Regressive Republicans’ policies (in contrast to the Progressive Democrats’ policies) are all that women need to pay attention to in order to see which party is waging a “war on women”.
howdini
April 16, 2012 at 12:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It wasn’t meant to be a factual statement.
eric
April 16, 2012 at 12:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ed:
You could be right. Or, possibly, Romney has a clear ideologcal position on it, the aids know exactly what that position is, but they didn’t want to discuss it in any forum about women’s rights. If Romney has any ideology at all, its corporate, and that Act is (AFAIK) opposed by corporations because it increases their liability.
So, “we’ll get back to you” in this case could’ve meant “…when hell freezes over.”
Or maybe “we’ll get back to you” meant “…when we’ve crafted a very careful position statement against the act which doesn’t make Mitt sound like an a**hole.”
Artor
April 16, 2012 at 1:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
To be fair, 92.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
davidworthington
April 16, 2012 at 1:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ 11
Always good to see a Todd Snider reference.
Doug Little
April 16, 2012 at 5:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Because it’s all about winning, actual governance be damned. The new HBO show Veep, which hasn’t started yet, has some short introductory clips on demand with one scene depicting this very thing.
decidenator
April 16, 2012 at 7:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The 92% figure is misleading, which is obvious because it’s being used by a politician, but it is in fact accurate: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/apr/10/mitt-romney/romney-campaign-says-women-were-hit-hard-job-losse/
Pierce R. Butler
April 16, 2012 at 8:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
… right and wrong almost never enter into the equation.
That’s half true. Guess which half?
holytape
April 17, 2012 at 12:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No, it’s not factual accurate. There have been a total of 9,000,000 job losses. Of that roughly 4,000,000 have been women. Therefor 44% of job losses have been women. You can’t mathametically compare directly the 3,988,000 job creations with the 4,000,000 job losses, because they are different people. Some women have left the labor market and others have entered it. You can’t go 4,000,000-3,988,000 = 12,000 women have lost their jobs. It’s crappy meaningless math.
busychick
April 17, 2012 at 3:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dear Ed– You gotta go to http://www.factcheck.org. I agree with you that it seems incredible but they describe where Romney got those statistics, and he’s right. But there are of course lies, damned lies and statistics. It sort of depends on which time line you use. I think Obama has been an unmitigated disaster for the USA, paraphrasing what Cheney said, so I have no problem with Romney pointing out negative issues with the present administration.
raven
April 17, 2012 at 3:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Darth Cheney isn’t a realiable source.
He and Bush crashed the economy for a generation, killed two of my friends, dead in Iraq, and slaughtered tens of millions of 401(K) plans, one of which was mine.
Another incompetent christofascist administration and we won’t have to worry about the USA. “It’s dead, Jim. Move on.”
Michael Heath
April 17, 2012 at 6:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
busychick writes:
Well that should be easy to validate given he’s been an unmitigated one. So please, enlighten me. Also please start off with how you define, “unmitigated disaster”; including whether you’re referencing a particular standard or grading him relative to past presidents.
Chiroptera
April 17, 2012 at 6:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
busychick, #17: I think Obama has been an unmitigated disaster for the USA….
I would agree that Obama hasn’t been very good for the USA…
…except that the “disasters” over which he has presided are either
(1) continuations of policies that were begun in the previous Republican administration,
(2) bad policies that are the result of compromise with a “say-n0-to-everthing” Republican faction that were determined to prevent any good policies from being enacted, or
(3) a heck of a lot better than what his opponents in 2008 or in 2012 would do.
In other words, yeah, Obama is bad, but (1) he’s no worse than his predecessor, (2) he has to make do with an obstructionalist faction in Congress and, in some areas, can be said to have made good progress, and (3) he’s a heck of a lot better than any conceivable Republican right now.
Of course, I’m just focusing on the complaints I have about him. I’m sure that if I wanted to be nice, I could point out some good things that he did accomplish, good things that would never come about in any conceivable Republican administration.
Now, what “disasters” do you hold Obama responsible for that the blame can’t be shared with (or even completely assigned to) the Republicans?