Friday, May 4, 2012

WTF, GOP?

Mother Jones

Hey, GOP? A bit of simple math: Women are 51 percent of the population and 54 percent of voters.

The gender gap between Republicans and Democrats, in presidential elections, has historically ranged from 4 to 11 percent; in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, it was 8 percent in 2008.

Fifty-five percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Sixty-three percent support requiring health plans to include no-cost birth control; 67 percent of independent women do. And a staggering 77 percent of Americans think a petty argument over contraception has no place in the national debate.

"Republicans being against sex is not good," one GOP strategist told Maureen Dowd. "Sex is popular."

This sanctimony is not playing as part of the genuine, profound disagreement between (and, guess what, among) liberals and conservatives about whether and when abortion should be legal.

It's playing as needlessly humiliating women with invasive procedures, as denying people the choice of when and whether to have kids, and, frankly, as straight-up slut-shaming puritanism (recall Rick Santorum admonishing married couples that it's not okay to have sex unless it's "procreative").

Let's have GOP strategist Alex Castellanos bring it home: "Republicans being against sex is not good," he told Maureen Dowd. "Sex is popular."

Not content to enrage people who like sex? Well, party of Lincoln, you've also bullied Latinos, a giant, socially conservative, upwardly mobile, and demographically growing bloc that many analysts see as key to securing the White House—and that as recently as 2004 swung 42 percent for George W. Bush. That was before GOP lawmakers spearheaded some 160 punitive anti-immigration bills in the last two years. Before Mitt Romney—whose own forebears fled to Mexico to avoid anti-polygamy laws—bent over backward to embrace such "self-deportation" measures. Before Rick Santorum demanded that Puerto Ricans switch to English. These days no more than 14 percent of likely Latino voters can see themselves casting a ballot for any of the GOP candidates. Hasta la vista, Nevada!

No one expected you to make nice with gays and their families. Ditto African Americans, Muslims, teachers, climate scientists. But cops? Firefighters? Every other middle-class independent who's watching his kid's school fire the lunch ladies? Seriously?

Read the full story @ Mother Jones

"Sen. Cornyn and Texas’ Congressional Delegation Has Met The Enemy, And It Is Planned Parenthood" @ Texas Observer by Eileen Smith

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