While Ed Schultz was rapping up his show and literally moments before The Rachel Maddow started, I wondered to myself what RedState was talking about today. So during the commercial between the shows, I wandered over there to take a peek. I could hardly contain my laughter when I saw Eric Erickson's most recent headline and post (click only if you have a strong stomach to read the comments):
Blowing Up the “Paul Ryan Will Turn Off Women” Meme
I have always thought it was both vapid and shallow for the left and a whole lot of the supposedly objective media to claim that women voters vote with their uterus, or more specifically whether or not they get to kill kids.
All this talk about “Republicans will defund Planned Parenthood so women won’t vote for them” is ridiculous, not borne out in polling, and all involves a religious devotion to killing kids . . . errrr . . . abortion on the left.
If we’re going to use the left’s presumption that women are so shallow that abortion trumps all, we can play the game as well and presume Paul Ryan will not have a problem getting women to like him. Here are the top four searches on Google over the weekend related to Paul Ryan.
He followed that with a big image which he obviously borrowed from
Politico:
The Top 4 related search terms with Paul Ryan
#1 Vice President
#2 Shirtless
#3 Wiki
#4 Budget
(Based on National Google Related Search Terms on 8/11/12)
I was beginning to compose a diary in my head, responding to Erickson's ridiculous assumption that it was all about "abortion" based on data from one day of Google searches. Erickson failed to even mention Paul Ryan's position on birth control. Oops and then
The Rachel Maddow came on. Eric could wait! Rachel was on and I had to watch!
What a great show! Every segment was wonderful, but when Rachel used the second segment to talk about women's issues and Paul Ryan, I knew I had to transcribe it and get it up here because Rachel homes in on the facts better than I ever could. When everybody is talking about the Ryan Budget Plan, and Rachel certainly did too on tonight's show, Rachel turned her eye on women's reproductive issues, introducing the next segment after her interview with Dan Rather by saying:
Paul Ryan's spot on the ticket will help with one constituency. Hasn't been talked about much lately, but if there are women voters out there who are really psyched about Republican policy on women's health rights right now. If you were already psyched, Paul Ryan has some policy positions for you. This is under covered, as yet, but I think it's going to end up being really important.
Of course, Rachel would be one of the first to home in on this issue, and I'm sure that Paul Ryan's position on women's issues will also be incorporated into the Obama campaign in good time. I mean really, the announcement of his selection was only made a few days ago, and Ryan is such an extremist on so many issues, we do need to give the team a little bit of time to finish putting all their ducks in a row.
In 2008, Colorado voted on personhood. Colorado residents were asked that year if they would like ban all abortions, as well as the most popular forms of birth control, as well as in vitro fertilization, and maybe also to criminalize some women's miscarriages. Colorado voters said No to that by a three to one margin. The effort to criminalize abortion and birth control and IVF by means of declaring a fertilized egg to be a personhood, just got crushed in Colorado in 2008 [26.7% Yes to 73.2% No].
Then the personhood folks gave it another shot two years later in 2010. How's about it Colorado? No. When given a second chance at personhood for fertilized eggs, Colorado said No again [29.4% Yes to 70.5% No]. Again, by a huge margin by more than 40 points. But they are doing it again. The anti-abortion, anti-birth control, personhood folks have already turned in enough signatures to get the personhood amendment back on the Colorado ballot this Fall [see Signatures turned in for Colorado anti-abortion measure, The Denver Post, August 6, 2012].
Isn't Colorado considered a swing state for the presidential election? I wonder if Eric Erickson thinks all the women in Colorado are only wondering what Paul Ryan looks like shirtless?
Again! Which obviously this is good news for Democrats running for office in Colorado this year. I mean think about it. If you're a Colorado Democrat and you're worried that the presidential race, or maybe your race, won't be enough to get your voters to come out to the vote, come out to polls. How about the prospect of banning birth control? Do you think that might motivate some folks who would otherwise not bother to turn out? Because they can read polls too. Colorado Republicans this time, even the super conservative super anti-abortion Colorado Republicans, are sprinting away from this year's personhood thing as fast as they. A spokesman for Republican Congressman Mike Coffman's tells the Colorado Statesman "The congressman doesn't take positions on any state and local ballot initiatives." The same goes for Republican Congressman Cory Gardner's office, "As a federal legislator, Cory will not be taking positions on state initiatives." Even Republican Congressional candidate Joe Coors says he's refusing to endorse personhood 3.0 in Colorado. The same Joe Coors donated $1,000 to the personhood campaign just two years ago. [See Personhood proponents turn in ballot petitions, The Colorado Statesman, August 10, 2012] But this year, as a candidate, Person who? Person what? Leave me out of it!
Wow! Look at all those Republicans running away from that issue. That can't bode well for their prospects in November.
Another one of these personhood measures was on the ballot in Mississippi last Fall. If it can pass anywhere, right? In October of last year, Mike Huckabee was one of the political celebrities working to try to pass personhood in Mississippi, to try to criminalize abortion and hormonal birth control. In that capacity, on his Fox News t.v. show, Mike Huckabee asked Mitt Romney if he would have supported personhood in Massachusetts. [Plays video from Huckabee with Mike Huckabee Show on Fox News.]
Mike Huckabee: Would you have supported a constitutional amendment that would have established the definition of life at conception?
Video of Mitt Romney: Absolutely.
Absolutely. That was Mitt Romney, October of last year, signing on to a policy that would ban all abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest, it would ban most forms of birth control, It would likely ban in vitro fertilization. That's what Mitt Romney said he would absolutely support as of October of last year. But in Mississippi, a totally grass roots opposition movement grew about around this issue. Personhood opponents held a Save the Pill Rally in Oxford, Mississippi, in October. Billboards like these ones went up around the state: Vote No to Personhood for Eggs and Amendment 26 Makes Birth Control A Lethal Weapon.
Wow! Mississippi is a real red state. Surely it's a safe haven for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Eric Erickson can certainly be assured that women there only care about what what Paul Ryan looks like without a shirt on, and would wholeheartedly agree with his stance on a personhood amendment.
And with that, Mississippi said NO! to personhood by a big double-digit margin [42% Yes to 58% No]. That's Mississippi. The thing that Mitt Romney said he would absolutely support was so extreme that not even the uber conservative electorate of the Great State of Mississippi wanted anything to do with it. The Romney campaign has been trying to run away from that position, Mr. Romney took, pretty much ever since he took it. When the Obama campaign started running ads [see Obama for America TV Ad: "Troubled" ] last month attacking Mr. Romney for holding exactly that position, for advocating a ban on all abortion with no exceptions, the Romney campaign push back was immediate. They called the ads viciously negative and false [See Obama attacks Romney on abortion stance, campaign calls new ad false, Fox News, July 7, 2012]. In order to prove it was false, they pointed to another time last summer when Mitt Romney said something different about his position on abortion [see My Pro-Life Pledge by Mitt Romney, The National Review Online, June 18, 2011].
Wait a minute here. You're telling me that Mitt Romney went on Fox News and said he would
absolutely support a personhood amendment, in October 2011, but said something different in June 2011? Oh, I forgot, it must be time to use that etch-a-sketch.
The Romney campaign did not want Mr. Romney to be seen as the guy who wants to ban all abortion, with no exceptions, even though he has said he would like to do that. And it's empirically proven to be a massively unpopular position, even in the reddest of red states. And that is why Paul Ryan is such a baffling choice for the Romney ticket.
Congressman Paul Ryan, now presumptive vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, co-sponsored a bill in the House that it is a federal verison of of the personhood amendment, the abortion and hormonal birth control ban. The same one that even Mississippi voters rejected last Fall. How'd ya like it for the whole country? The national personhood bill that Paul Ryan co-sponsored declares that, quote the life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent... at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood. And they got really specific about when precisely an egg becomes a person, quote The term "fertilization" means the process of a human spermatozoan penetrating the cell membrane of a human oocyte to create a human zygote, a one-celled human embryo, which is a new unique human being [See Bill Text, 112th Congress (2011-2012), H.R.212.IH]. That's Paul Ryan. That's Paul Ryan's bill. That's who Mitt Romney put on the ticket.
Rut row. Maybe Eric Erickson should reconsider whether or not he really can blow up the “Paul Ryan Will Turn Off Women” meme. I mean if the good people of the Great State of Mississippi rejected the personhood amendment 42% to 58%, how are they going to feel if the Romney/Ryan White House tries to make it a federal law?
Things did not work out well for Republicans when they tried to campaign against health insurance covering birth control earlier this year. After a lot of bluster over it, and a failed vote in the Senate, the House Republican leadership just tried very quietly to walk away from the issue [see House G.O.P. Hesitates on Birth Control Fight, The New York Times, March 16, 2012]. Well, if you like how it went when Republicans invade against insurance coverage for birth control this year, how do you think it's going to go now that a federal ban on the most popular forms of birth control has just been put on the Republican presidential ticket? Are Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan both going to campaign on Paul Ryan's proposed national ban on most in vitro fertilization and the most popular forms of birth control in the country?
No, Rachel, I don't think they want to do that. That's one of those things that they don't want to talk about while campaigning, and will try to keep between themselves. They will propose it to the Republican House and Senate that they plan to win, only after they are installed as the President and Vice President. Of course, that's not going to stop progressives from quoting excerpts from that bill that Paul Ryan co-sponsored and sharing it with their friends, families, neighbors and coworkers via email, Facebook, Twitter and other social media.
When they announced the vice presidential pick, it was sort of surreal to see Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell there, right, introducing Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. The whole thing was staged in front of a decommissioned battleship in Virginia. Yeah, I mean there's Bob McDonnell, who hales from a true swing state, who has real executive experience, who actually served in the military, which makes it not embarrassing for him to be using that battleship as a political prop. Why couldn't Mitt Romney have picked him? Well, of course, Mitt Romney couldn't pick him because Bob McDonnell blew his vice presidential chances when he became Governor Ultrasound, right? Forcing medically unnecessary ultasounds on Virginia women, and forcing them to pay for it [See McDonnell signs Virginia's mandatory ultrasound bill, The Washington Times, March 7, 2012].
Yes, Bob McDonnell blew it, and so Mitt Romney went instead with the Republican budget wonk guy, with none of that baggage. Except Paul Ryan isn't just the Republican budget wonk guy. In addition to his sponsoring the ban on all abortions and the most popular forms of birth control and most in vitro fertilization for the whole country. In Congress this session, Congressman Ryan has also supported a federal version of Bob McDonnell's Virginia forced ultrasound bill. He sponsored a federal bill to force women to seeking an abortion to undergo a medical procedure regardless of whether or not they want it, regardless of whether or not their doctor thinks its the right decision, but just because the government says you have to [See Bill Text, 112th Congress (2011-2012), H.R.3805.IH and Bill Summary & Status indicating Rep Ryan, Paul [WI-1] became a co-sponsor on February 16, 2012].
The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll [PDF] has Mitt Romney losing women to President Obama by 15 points. So, I guess now is just as good a time as any to welcome Congressman Ultrasound to the Republican ticket.
Well, Eric Erickson, even with all these facts and data, I'm sure you still think you can
blow up the “Paul Ryan Will Turn Off Women” meme, especially when one of the only 30 comments to you posts was:
I think that’s part of the reason liberal women (and liberal men, for that matter) are so confused. They just don’t understand why smart, strong women find smart, strong men sexy instead of this generation of men they’ve brow beaten into a bunch of milquetoast, limp handshaking, metrosexual, crying whiners who wear mom jeans and can’t throw a decent pitch.
Just keep living in your Republican bubble, Eric, with all those strong, Republican women, but don't be surprised when Democrats and progressives have calmed down a bit after spending a few days analyzing the Ryan Budget along with his plans to end Medicare as we know it, and start talking about the two bills in Congress that Paul Ryan co-sponsored. You just might want to check those Google search statistics again after that happens.
You have to hand it to Upworthy.com ... they know how to get people to click. Just saw this on Facebook:
When you click, there's several examples of Tweets from "Paul Ryan Gosling," and it turns out
Paul Ryan Gosling is a Twitter account run by some anonymous genius, whose satirical tweets are easily ten times more honest than Paul Ryan himself. Laugh to keep from crying, everyone. Laugh to keep from crying.
He bills himself as
The better Paul Ryan and already has over 28,000 followers. This tweet goes with this diary better than the rest of them: