This is what happens when you tear the mask off and allow women to see what you really are.
Lots of fun stuff to delve through, but suffice it to say, if you lose women by double digits, you are looking at an epic landslide.
Being against contraception in today's day and age? Seriously? Even Alex Castellanos, Republican strategist, gets it:
“Republicans being against sex is not good,” the G.O.P. strategist Alex Castellanos told me mournfully. “Sex is popular.”
More info from the poll after the jump...
An AP-GfK poll conducted Feb. 16-20 showed that on overall approval Obama has gained 10 percentage points among women since December, from 43 percent to 53 percent.
and
Women also are the reason behind Obama's lead over Republican hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum: In one-on-one matchups, Obama beats Romney 54 percent to 41 percent and tops Santorum 56 percent to 40 percent among women, but virtually ties each Republican among men. Women are Obama's to lose: They are more apt to identify with Democrats and give that party higher favorability than are men.
and
Over time, there hasn't been much shift in women's views of the Democratic Party, but views of the GOP have become more polarized since the AP last asked about the issue in January 2011. Thirty-nine percent of Republican women hold a "very favorable" view of the party, compared with 27 percent a year ago. At the same time, 57 percent of Democratic women now give the GOP a deeply unfavorable rating, the first time that figure has topped 50 percent.
and from a Roman Catholic GOP-leaning independent:
"Republicans are making a big mistake with this contraception talk, and I'm pretty sure that they are giving (the election) to Obama," says Patricia Speyerer, 87, of McComb, Miss. "It's a stupid thing." She recalls that in 1940s New Orleans, where she was born and married, it was illegal to publish anything about birth control, "and I don't want to see that happen again."
Here is the link to the poll
Some info from the internals:
1. Right direction/wrong direction is up 26% since December (from -44 to -18)
2. Approve/disapprove is up 10% (from 44/54 to 49/49)
3. Deserves to be re-elected is up 13% (from 43/52 to 50/46)
Women make up more than half of the voting population, and they are a heckuva lot more difficult to demonize as "the other" than non-whites and the youth and the non-hetero.
I know many women, especially here in the northeast, that take their reproductive freedoms for granted, all of whom it must be said were not of age when Roe v. Wade was made the law of the land.
America is waking up to the reality that if they stop paying attention the neanderthals will take their freedom.
I am optimistic about our future.
*Title has been edited for clarity