The Obama campaign is talking a lot about a “war on women.” They cite recent comments about rape by Senate candidate Todd Akin of Missouri and the recently passed Republican platform. But that characterization isn’t sitting well with Florida’s delegation to the Republican National Convention.
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi told Florida’s convention delegates that she is, "...sick and tired of hearing that Mitt Romney is anti-women.”
Speaking to a breakfast crowd, Bondi complained, “First of all, his Lt. Governor, who’s wonderful, was a woman. His chief of staff was a woman. He’s put women in the highest places in his corporations, and he is in such support of what we do as women. And we can totally count on Mitt Romney. And that’s what every woman in this audience has to do today. You have to spread the word. What the democrats are trying to do, they’re trying to create distractions.”
Bondi says women should be unhappy with President Obama, because 400-thousand of them have lost jobs since he’s been in office.
President Obama is working to broaden the divide between himself and Romney. Last week, he said Romney has signed up for extreme positions relating to abortion and tax cuts that would harm the middle class. Obama also criticized Romney, a multimillionaire, for releasing only two years of tax returns.
Douglas Rankin, a delegate from Naples, thinks it’s a plot to distract from the high unemployment rate. He said, “There’s a whole bunch of women right now that are without a job because of him. This is the worst recession this country’s gone through since the great depression, and if we keep up in this, women are going to bear the big brunt of that.”
Republicans say they are united in taking back the White House.
Narda Enander, a delegate from Clearwater, says, “It’s poppycock. I don’t know what other word to use for it. It is all being manufactured, blown out of proportions. The Democrats are so desperate right now that they will say anything to make them look good.”
When he served as governor of Massachusetts, Romney supported abortion rights. Since then, he’s come out against abortion in most cases. He chose Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as a running mate – who supports a ban on abortion, including cases of rape and incest.
And then, Rep. Todd Akin, a Republican U-S Senate candidate in Missouri, told a reporter in cases of “legitimate rape,” a woman’s body can “shut down” a pregnancy – something experts say is simply not true.
Democrats say Akin’s views represent the mindset of Republicans, even though Akin’s own party urged him to end his campaign.
Incoming Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford says the Republican Party is the MAINstream party. He says. “If standing by your principles and believing that the government’s gotten too big and we’re taxing people too much and too many of our freedoms have been taken from us is extreme, ya know, I don’t know what to say to that. I think what we stand for are the very foundational principles that this country was founded upon. And so for those who would say that it’s extreme, I don’t think anything could be farther from the truth.”
Panhandle delegate Steve Zieman says Republicans have drawn a line in the sand with Democrats, offering voters very different choices. “It is what our forefathers based their liberty on. I don’t think it’s extreme at all. I think it’s a logical interpretation of where we need to go.”, said Zieman.
President Obama has made it clear he will continue to tie Romney to GOP House leaders and their so-called extreme positions until Election day.