RUSH: You know, liberals, ladies and gentlemen, are still in a state of shock and disbelief over the notion that “social issues” don’t hurt Republicans. You see the reason for the manufactured, false, it-doesn’t-really-exist attempt to convince people Republicans have a war on women… Which, again, as mayor of Realville: Republicans date women, they marry women, they have children with women.
They take women to dinner. They buy women diamonds and open car doors for women. Yet there’s this Republican war on women, and the Republicans want to actually somehow reach into their purses and grab their birth control pills and take ’em away from ’em. The Democrats actually think that they’re going to win with this! The Democrats in the media actually believe they can convince (in this era) the American people that Republicans hate women and are actually at war with them. The Democrats are like Obama. Obama spends money on green energy and expects it just to happen by magic. He invests in all this green energy infrastructure and when there aren’t any new jobs his literally befuddled.
“Why?” He asks his advisers. “I’ve invested in all the infrastructure! I’ve spent all the money. Where are the jobs?”
“Uh, the companies have gone bankrupt, Mr. President.”
“No, no, I spent all that money.”
By the same token, they go out and coordinate with the media about a Republican war on women, and then Republican women in Republican primaries go vote for Rick Santorum who’s leading the war on women in their minds. He wants to take away their contraception! Santorum wants them barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen all the time. Santorum wins and they can’t figure it out. It discombobulates them. They think that bringing up social issues will doom Republicans to defeat, and a lot of Republican establishment types think the same thing. They’re in a state of shock over a lot.
They’re in a state of shock over the fact that I’m still here, that you’re still here, that the “war on women” isn’t working. They’re in a state of shock that a guy like Bill Maher is a “casualty” of all this. He’s a hero to them! So last night on Hardball, Chris Matthews spoke with USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page about Republican primary candidates talking about social issues. And Matthews said, “On these social issues, these issues that women are particularly politically focused on — although they affect both men and women pretty darn well — is Mitt Romney getting in trouble, Susan?”
PAGE: Clearly the Democrats think this is a great issue for them because I got 115 e-mails today from Democrats decrying what Mitt Romney said about Planned Parenthood. But the fact is if you look at, uh, the data in both the Gallup poll and the Pew Research Center poll out just today, there isn’t evidence that this issue cuts disproportionately with women.
RUSH: (doing impression) “Ah, what’s going on, it doesn’t make sense. Women ought to be hating Romney. Women ought to despise the Republicans, and they like Romney, they like Santorum, it’s not happening. They’re voting on the economy. These women, they came out and they said the economy was most important to them and don’t they understand the Republicans are trying to take their health away?” They actually believe this, folks. They actually believe that all they’ve gotta do is level the accusation and then all of you are gonna believe that Santorum and Romney and Newt are at war with you. Now, Romney, Planned Parenthood, he didn’t say he was gonna shut it down. He said he was gonna take federal money away from it. He didn’t say that he was going to wipe it out. He said he was going to stop spending and giving federal tax dollars to Planned Parenthood. To the media and to the Democrats, that’s the same thing as shutting it down, as far as they’re concerned.
Last night also on Hardball, Chris Matthews had Melinda Henneberger. I think she used to be at US News or Newsweek or TIME. I forget which. Where is she now? Is she at the Washington Post? Yeah. I thought she was at a blog somewhere. Anyway, Matthews spoke with Melinda Henneberger who’s at the Washington Post. He said, “It’s astounding to me after all the talk on television, especially about what happened with regard to going after Planned Parenthood, right? All this talk about Rush Limbaugh, and all this talk about the Catholic Church, all this talk about contraception, all those issues which you would think would have put the Democrats with an advantage over the conservatives. Not a big, powerful impact yet in terms of big changing and how people are voting yet.”
HENNEBERGER: I do think that it’s a very powerful, good issue for Democrats because it energizes the base, it energizes women, they’re raising a lot of money on it. But to quote Ann Romney, women are concerned about other things besides contraceptives, too. So, you know, I mean a friend of mine who’s an independent voter said, “You know, I am worried. The top issue on my mind is not who’s gonna be paying for contraception with my tax dollars. Oops, I’m unemployed, I’m not paying taxes.”
RUSH: Ah, Melinda has an independent friend. That’s noteworthy. And even her independent friend is not worried about contraception and who’s gonna be paying for it. She wants a job. Shock. “I think it’s a powerful, good issue for Democrats.” You hear Matthews, he can’t believe it. All the talk about me. All the talk about the Catholic Church. All the talk about contraception. All this talk, all this talk, all this talk, and it hasn’t hurt the Republicans yet. Why not, Melinda? The whole point here was to hurt Republicans. Why hasn’t it hurt Republicans? They can’t believe it.