DiscussMormonism.com

This has been a tough week in Tampa for the stars of the mainstream media, so called. The Republicans aren’t acting like the bigots, zealots and wild-eyed extremists the boys and girls on the campaign bus want them to be.

There was grumbling in the seats of the press elites when the Republicans put so many women, blacks and Hispanics at the podium that it was hard to make believable the stereotype invented by the left — that the Republicans are all old white guys out to send women pregnant and barefoot back to the kitchen, and blacks in chains back to the cotton fields.

The speeches at the Republican National Convention were nearly all good ones; some, including Paul Ryan’s and Mitt Romney’s were very good. One or two (or three), like those of Chris Christie, Condoleeza Rice and Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico — were even better, rousing the fever pitch of the delegates as convention speakers are hired to do. If this is a war on women and blacks, bring it on.

Chris Matthews of MSNBC, forever obsessed with race, tried to goad Republican guests to say nasty things about black folks, but nobody would. David Chalian, a correspondent for Yahoo.com, was caught unaware on camera accusing Mitt Romney and the Republicans of being “happy to have a party with black people drowning,” presumably meaning black people in the path of Hurricane Isaac in Louisiana.

When Mr. Chalian offered the inevitable abject apology, tugged at his forelock and was sacked anyway by Yahoo.com, his friends on the campaign bus rose at once to his defense. Gwen Ifill of PBS (naturally), channeling the wishes and dreams of lovestruck spinsters everywhere, was willing to overlook “one mistake” because “David Chalian is God’s gift to political journalism.” Her colleague from New Yorker magazine twittered a rebuke for Yahoo.com managers (“terrible, cowardly decision”).

Nothing captured the zeitgeist of the glitteries (as they imagine themselves) like E.J. Dionne Jr. in The Washington Post, who reviewed his tender feelings and sensitivities at length, just short of discussing his prostate and nervous bladder, making a full report on how tough life was for the proper correspondents in Tampa. E.J. himself is a decent sort, well-meaning if a bit of an old woman. But his column speaks volumes about the closed loop where he and his like-minded colleagues dwell, illustrating once more that we’re afflicted not with a media conspiracy but worse, a media consensus, where everyone thinks identical thoughts, speaks in identical clichés, and writes with identical partisan inclination.

http://www.worldnewstribune.com/2012/09/02/tough-times-in-tampa-for-elites/

The Romney camp has finally gotten it.

No, not about whether rape can ever be "legitimate". Or whether contraception is a fundamental right. No, what they have finally gotten is that they are likely to lose this election because of women.

Clear evidence of this is the volte-face the Romney camp has done in the past few days on "Romneycare", a topic that it had treated as thoroughly radioactive until now. And the Obama camp is banking on a case of irreconcilable differences between the Republicans and, come November, a majority of voting women to put them over the top.

In a sane Republican party, Romneycare, the healthcare overhaul Romney implemented as governor of Massachusetts and which Obamacare closely resembles, would be a major selling-point. It's overwhelmingly popular in Massachusetts, delivering to residents the highest percentage of insurance coverage in the country.

But sanity long since quit the Republican party. Republicans just plain hate Obamacare and they've pledged to wipe it out, root and branch. Romney, ever compliant towards the radicals in his party, ran away from his own signature governing accomplishment during the primary season as fast as he could.

Until now. In a Fox News interview on Sunday, Romney declared:

"With regards to women's healthcare, look, I'm the guy that was able to get healthcare for all the women and men in my state."

The host, Chris Wallace, parried, "So you're saying, look at Romneycare?" To which Romney replied, "Absolutely. I'm proud of what we did."

In belatedly embracing Romneycare, Romney is trying to make up lost ground on a policy that women are significantly more likely to support than men. By a wide margin, women are more likely to support health insurance requirements than men. Yet Romney, as always, hopes to have it both ways. He hopes that the public won't notice that, in order to satisfy his party, what he is really promising is not only the repeal of Obamacare, but also the destruction of Medicare, to be replaced by the Ryan voucher plan.

So, it's unlikely that a few insincere words delivered via a Fox News interview is going to mend Romney's broken relationship with women. And the fact is, it was never good to begin with.

Romney has consistently suffered from a significant gender gap, with Obama's lead among women clocking in at between 16 to 20 percentage points in April. Although that has since narrowed, a recent ABC/Washington Post poll gives Obama a 6 percentage point advantage nation-wide among women. Obama's advantage with women continues to more than offset Romney's advantage with men – enough, at this point, to deliver victory to Obama in November.

What the Romney camp is trying to come to terms with is that, in this election, caring and compassion are trumping perceptions of competence in managing the economy. In a recent CNN poll, 53% of likely voters stated that Obama is more in touch with the problems facing middle-class Americans, compared to only 39% who stated that Romney is more in touch. In contrast, Romney bested Obama by 48% to 44% on competence in managing the economy. Tellingly, though, Obama leads Romney 60% to 31% on the question of who is more in touch with the problems facing women today.

In reality, Romney's plan (that is, Paul Ryan's plan) for the economy would be an utter catastrophe, with savage cuts to government spending leading to a severely depressed economy, a skyrocketing deficit, and untold misery for the average American for years on end while the rich benefit. Despite Romney's unmerited reputation for competence in stewarding the economy, voters – women voters, to be exact – are signalling that Romney's vision of America is too extreme, too callous, too destructive.