Obama Steps Up Abortion, Contraception Rhetoric to Win Back Women Voters
The Obama campaign team has made it clear they are going to focus on recapturing some of the women's vote that has drifted to Mitt Romney since the first debate. An ad that is now running in a key swing state says that Romney would overturn Roe v. Wade and that is just one example of what voters will probably see more of in the next 18 days.
Polls taken in September showed Romney picking up steam with blue-collar, Republican leaning women who have lately been labeled "Wal-Mart Moms." Yet when the former Massachusetts governor began cutting into the more educated women voters who tend to lean Democratic, that's when Obama's team leapt into action.
ABC/Washington Post conducted a survey of women over the last two weeks that has found Obama falling behind Romney among college-educated females – a group that the president captured easily in 2008.
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A more recent Gallup survey released on Thursday found Romney maintaining a 52-45 lead over Obama among likely voters, contradicting another ABC/Washington Post poll on Oct. 15 that showed Obama with a 49-46 lead over Romney.
Yet another USA Today/Gallup poll taken in 12 key swing states and released earlier this week found the two candidates in a dead heat among women voters with Romney leading 54-42 among likely male voters. These types of numbers have given the Obama team cause for concern.
But immediately after debate number two, Obama's talking heads brushed past foreign policy and oil and what was or wasn't said in the Rose Garden. David Plouffe wasted little time in defining where their campaign election strategy was headed.
"I thought the exchange on women's health issues was very important," he said, "not only for tonight but for the next 21 days."
One of the most obvious examples came in an exchange the two men had about Planned Parenthood during Tuesday night's debate when Obama accused Romney of planning to strip Planned Parenthood of government funding and for not answering questions about making it easier for women to sue over discrimination.
Now the Obama team is running an ad in swing states saying that Romney would "be delighted" to sign a bill making abortion illegal. What it doesn't say is that Romney believes a ban on abortion is "not where America is today."
The ad will run in Virginia – a highly contested battleground state.
"If Roe v. Wade was overturned, Congress passed a federal ban on all abortions and it came to your desk -- would you sign it? Yes or no?" ask the ad, which shows Romney saying, "I'd be delighted to sign that bill."
Amanda Henneberg, a Romney spokesperson commented on the ad.
"President Obama's campaign continues to mislead voters in a desperate attempt to distract from this president's failed economic record. Five and a half million women are struggling to find work in the Obama economy, and they are suffering from record unemployment under this president."
