Desperate Democrats

Desperate Democrats

A sea of signs proclaiming “We Built It” revealed the battle cry of last week’s Republican National Convention. We don’t need to wait for Los Angeles mayor and convention chair Antonio Villaraigosa to bring his gavel down in Charlotte on Tuesday to know the Democratic theme. It’s been clear for months: Republicans are waging a “war on women” and only Democrats can end it.


JASON SEILER

Three days after Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin elaborated on his bizarre belief that women’s bodies block conception from “legitimate rape,” Democrats sent out a press release listing 10 additional convention speakers—all of them women, a number of them focusing solely on contraception and abortion. The list included NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan, Planned Parenthood Action Fund president Cecile Richards, and “Georgetown University Student” Sandra Fluke. Added to names already announced, pundits guess it will mark a record number of women speaking at a national convention.

Democrats have taken one Republican’s (unanimously repudiated) remark and run with it. They quickly organized robocalls to tie other Republicans, including Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, to Akin. The day after Akin’s interview, the Associated Press quoted NARAL’s Keenan: “Make no mistake about it: Ryan is 100 percent behind the war on women agenda.” Media allies helped spread the message. On the eve of the Tampa convention, Jay Leno took a break from being funny and talked about the Republicans’ “war on women” and their lack of “compassion.” Fluke, the law student who became famous complaining she couldn’t afford her birth control co-payments, hinted at the theme of her speech in an email to supporters, writing, “There is a clear choice for women in this election.”