Day: August 8, 2015

New York Times: “Republican Party leaders, whose presidential nominees have not won a majority of female voters since 1988, are setting their sights on making electoral gains among women in the 2016 presidential race and trying to close the gender gap in swing states like Florida and Colorado. But the remarks and tone about women at Thursday’s debate — and the sight of 10 male candidates owning the stage — may have only damaged the party’s standing among female voters in the 2016 general election, according to pollsters and some Republican leaders.” “Democrats were gleeful at the tone of the debate, already imagining future campaign advertisements featuring debate cutaways with Mr. Rubio saying that future Americans will ‘call us barbarians for murdering millions of babies.'” And that's just with policy positions with Rubio and Walker and Huckabee. With Mr. Trump, an open hostile display of the GOP's guttural misogyny is on full display. Donald Trump took his attacks on Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly “to the next level on Friday night, apparently insinuating that the moderator had been menstruating when she questioned him during Thursday’s first Republican debate,” Politico reports.

Said Trump: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her — wherever.” “Unlike undocumented immigrants, John McCain or Rosie O’Donnell, the Fox News anchor enjoys a huge following among the network’s viewers, who happen to make up the core of the Republican primary electorate. So picking a fight with Kelly — as Trump did when he chided her during a tough debate question about insults he’s lobbed at women, dissed her in the spin room, and tweeted his complaints about her — carries risks that Trump’s other feuds do not.”

Now, this would be an opportunity for the GOP to get support from women by defending Kelly and attacking Trump. But they are fearful of the voters who back Trump.