On both sides of the aisle, the upcoming midterm elections will be a proving ground for the ‘war on women’ narrative.
For Democrats, the election will be a lesson in just how far it can be taken. For Republicans, the lesson will be about how to defend against the narrative.
The Senate race in Colorado is the best example of both those lessons. If Democratic Sen. Mark Udall loses, it will — or should — stand as a stark reminder that a near-total focus on the “war on women” could spell doom. That’s evident by the fact that Udall looks poised to lose in a state that has been turning reliably blue since 2006.
This week, NARAL Pro-Choice America released an ad depicting a dystopian, condom-free world if Udall’s opponent, Republican Rep. Cory Gardner, is elected.
“Cory Gardner banned birth control,” a man in the ad says. “And now, it’s all on us guys. And you can’t find a condom anywhere.”
The ad was rightfully mocked across the political spectrum. The reason it was so absurd wasn’t just because of its implication that a single U.S. senator has the power to ban a multi-million dollar a year product. It’s absurd because, as Udall has tried to claim Gardner is anti-birth control, Gardner has repeatedly proposed making most common forms of contraceptives over-the-counter.
If Gardner had so much power as a senator that he could ban birth control, wouldn’t he also have the power to make it over-the-counter, as he’s suggested?
Gardner’s response to Udall’s focus on “women’s issues” (that is, the only issues liberals think women care about, which are usually uterus-related) was smart and simple. He didn’t just say Udall was wrong, he came back with an actual solution, something the GOP isn’t really known for.
But Colorado isn’t the only state where the narrative will be tested. In Texas, Wendy Davis was a candidate born entirely of the “war on women” narrative. Her 11-hour filibuster of an abortion bill briefly made her a national sensation. Democrats must have thought her national appeal could translate into headway in Texas for the Left, and many liberal-leaning journalists openly speculated about the possibility.
Obviously, that didn’t work out well for them.
Sandra Fluke, another 15-minutes-of-feminist-fame candidate, is trying to take the message local in a state Senate race against a male Democrat. It’s quite unclear whether she is getting anywhere, her own campaign’s push poll notwithstanding.
Democrats took full advantage of the “war on women” narrative in 2012. This time, they believed they could just repeat the claims that the GOP hates women, hates birth control and pretty much hates all things involving a uterus and ride to victory. But suddenly it seems women aren’t buying it.
A September NYT/CBS poll found women split evenly between supporting Democrats and Republicans. If it’s even close among women, Democrats are in trouble because they do so poorly among men. In 2012, President Obama won women voters, 55 percent to Mitt Romney’s 44 percent.
Democrats have an overall disadvantage in Obama’s second midterm, but things seem especially dire for Democrats in races where the once-winning “war on women” theme has taken on the largest role. Udall, who has actually made “women’s issues” the theme of more than 50 percent of his television ads, has been mocked as “Mark Uterus” and is widely expected to lose a race that once seemed a sure bet. As for Fluke and Davis, they have at least tried to highlight other issues. But as candidates whose very identities were shaped by the “war on women” theme in the first place, they seem unable to wash off the stink of the swamp they come from.
Note that this is not so with all Democratic female candidates. Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky and Michelle Nunn in Georgia are each running relatively strong races that will be decided on a whole different set of key issues.
The election is only five days away. Exit polls will show the true extent of how the war on women narrative played out this year, but both political parties will have something to learn for 2016.
