The definition of the Republican War on Women heated up yesterday with Reince Priebus’ remark that compared women to caterpillars, President Obama saying the Augusta should allow women members and recent polling that shows a huge gender gap between Obama and Romney. As much as the GOP and the Washington Post say that there is no war on women, there is as Rachel Maddow shows us. Below the video is a transcript of the segment if you want to read along instead.
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>>> of the republican party has the best name in american politics. his name is rintz preef vows, the former republican chairman. he made himself the most famous he has ever been for anything other than his amazing name. he made himself very, very famous today by telling al hunt of bloomberg news that as republican party chairman he does not understand why everybody keeps karping about the republicans having some sort of problem with women. he says he does not understand why there’s a 30-point gender gap between the two parties in the presidential race in the swing states. he says he does not understand why everyone keeps asking him about the ridiculous idea that republicans have some sort of war on women.
>> the democrats, of course, say the gop is waging a war on women. i know you don’t agree with that. but looking at the polls, you have a gender gap problem. recent polls show a huge, huge margin for democrats with — among women voters. how big of a problem is it and how do you close it?
>> well, for one thing, if the democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every media outlet talked about a war on caterpillars, then we’d have a problem with caterpillars. the fact of the matter is, it’s a fiction.
>> i think there’s just one piece missing from what otherwise is obviously a perfect analogy of women as caterpillars. i think there’s just one thing missing. if democrats said that republicans had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media said we had a war on caterpillars, the republican party would not then just have a problem with caterpillars. there is a missing piece of this analogy, right? in this analogy what he’s missing is the part where the republican party introduces hundreds of pieces of legislation all over the country attacking the rights of caterpillars, which in his analogy is in fact what the republican party has been doing. the republican party in this analogy has to be seen as a radically, what, anti-co-couldn’t party? sacrifice the caterpillar? save the cocoon? meta more if i sis? there’s an empirical reason why the president obama is leading a two to one margin among women under the age of 50 in the big swing states right now. and it is not because of some allegation by democrats. it’s not the media reporting that republicans are doing things that republicans haven’t actually done. it’s because the republicans took control of the house. they said they were going to focus on jobs, jobs, jobs and then hr 3 literally their third bill, was an anti abortion bill. it’s because republicans said they were going to play hardball and shot down the government over the new found excitement over fiscal conservatism. when it came down to, they threatened to shut down the government over funding for planned parenthood. it’s because they consulted this all-male witness table and because republicans in the senate voted unanimously, except for olympia snow, to roll back access to contraception and even after they realized how that looked and got shy on the issue in the house, republicans in the house still moved last week in committee on yet another federal anti-abortion bill. these are not things that democrats are not just accusing republicans of doing. these are not things that the media is making up about republicans. this is your life. this is what republicans do. under your leadership. they are voting to eliminate federal funding. all four support personhood measures which denine life as beginning roughly at the time of the twinkle in your eye and banning all abortion and probably banning the pill. you don’t have a problem with caterpillars because caterpillars have been misled about your intentions. particularly because being chairman of the republican party is being chairman of the whole party, including republicans in the state legislatures. this is what republicans in the state legislatures have been focusing on since they won so meampb seats in the last election. watch what happened after republican big victories in 2010. here’s the number of new anti- abortion laws, each year through 2010. and, oops, that’s what happened last year. more than 90 anti-abortion bills signed into law in the states in that year after republicans took over. so far this year largely republican-led legislatures have introduced more than 400 anti-abortion bills. this is what you guys do. this is what you work on. sometimes it seems like this is what you work on under the exclusion of everything else. in mississippi today, republicans are sending to their governor legislation that the republicans are openly wishing and hoping is going to end all access to legal abortion in the state of mississippi. it’s one of the so-called trap laws. a law that radically ups the amount of regulation and red tape and rules that apply specifically to abortion providers. specifically trying to drive them out of business or shut them down through targeted overregulation. republicans have proposed anti-abortion trap laws in session in alabama, arizona, florida, indiana, minnesota, north carolina, oklahoma, tennessee, west virginia. the idea with these measures is that republicans are supposed to pretend that these laws aren’t anti-abortion per se. it’s just that in this particular field republicans like a lot of regulation. they think that red tape is good for their state in this one particular field. it has nothing to do with abortion. any impact in running abortion out of business is completely coincidental. that’s how you’re supposed to play trap laws, right? in mississippi they have for goaten that’s the way they are supposed to say it. here’s the state’s republican governor how excited he is to use overregulation in an effort to make it impossible for anybody in mississippi to get a legal aborlgs.
>> it has been seven years since we have got good pro-life legislation passed out of the mississippi legislature. that is a bill that gives us a great opportunity to do — to accomplish what our goal needs to be. our goal needs to be to end all abortions in mississippi. i believe the admitting bill gives us the rights to do that.
>> this is your life when your party at the federal level and at the state level and in hearing rooms and in state houses and even on the presidential campaign trail is constantly and tirelessly and relentlessly waging war on women’s rights. you don’t need the democrats or the media to help give you a reputation for that. dude, you have earned it. you guys are earning it every single day. either own t. don’t be afraid to run on your record, or stop doing it. those are your choices.
>>> joining us now is karen finney a. columnist for the hill and msnbc contributor. it’s good to see you. thank you for being here.
>> good to see you, too, rich chel.
>> as somebody who has been a professional in this field, how would you respond to rights preefs argument about the war on women. he says it’s fake, as rid dike cue louse as the republicans waging war on caterpillars.
>> they don’t believe in science either. we’re going into science biological areas? on the one hand, they are not stupid. they know behind the scenes even though they won’t admit it publicly, this conversation is hurting them. when you talk to moderate republicans who won’t say so publicly, unfortunately, privately they see the same polling numbers that the rest of us do. it’s not only like the usa gallup poll that shows president obama with a 19-point lead. it was looking specifically at virginia and how they have increased their popularity in virginia. there is polling that suggests that they are starting to lose men over this issue. the problem is, pra preefs is trying to do, they want to pivot. that is a classic communication tactic. they want to change the conversation. unfortunately, what he doesn’t get is trying to demean and diminish the importance of what is going on here by talking about caterpillars is not the way to do it because the accumulative effect of all of the laws that you were just talking about really served to undermine women as credible, thoughtful human beings and equal participants in our society. that’s what women are feeling. the language that women have been using is so disgusting. you’ve had state legislatures in more than one state talking about the fear that women will use rape as a loophole in order to get access to an abortion. i mean, that’s just ridiculous. women are really tired of being talked about in that manner because, again, it sort of demeans and undermines us as human beings.
>> the general ger gap in politics, in elections broadly speaking, usually tends to favor democratic candidates. not always but usually. but that gender gap, as you point out, really is huge right now president president obama and mitt romney. you’ve just described a lot of things that you think preefs is doing wrong to try to turn that around as chairman of the republican party, what do you think would be a better way for them to do that if they are going to turn it around and they have to and what do you think will be their best approach?
>> well, certainly they don’t want to continue to have this conversation about contraception. for starter, they could stop talking to women like they are idiots where we couldn’t vote or take care of our own money, for heaven’s taksake. i don’t think most women want to have this conversation about contraception because we all thought it was settled. we do care about the economy. most women– the white house will talk about this tomorrow — would rather talk about access to their capital. would rather talk about ways that the economy is going to come back. women, we are the majority of the workforce for most families in the middle class class. women make a lot of these decisions for families. so that is what we want to talk about. but if you start to threaten our basic fundamental access to things that we thought were settled, that’s when women say, wait a second. that’s so too far. if they were to change their rhetoric and start talking to women like thoughtful human beings on a range of issues rather than — you know, mitt romney saying, well, my wife and reports back to me on what women talk about rather than just go talk to women, right? president obama gets it. talk to us about the irons we care about and understand we care about a range of issues but we’re not going to let you treat us like we’re less than equal human beings.
>> karen finney, columnist for “the hill,” msnbc con brib butte for and one of the people least likely to be accepted.
>> true.
>> thanks, karen. appreciate it.
>> thanks