WHY THE DEMOCRATS NEED TO RETIRE "THE WAR ON WOMEN" AS A CAMPAIGN SLOGAN

I acknowledge that American women are more likely to vote than American men and that the Republican Party is clearly the party in the duopoly of power that is the American political system that is hostile to American women on a whole host of issues – income disparity, gender violence, reproductive rights etc.

That being said, I think it might be time to retire the “War on Women” slogan/meme after this election cycle for the reasons listed below.

1.) The War on Women as a blanket description ignores specific issues in place of a catch all phrase.  That was okay in 2012, a presidential election year with the wind at the Democrats back and a larger narrative for it to be part of.  It is much harder to do that when trying to save seats held by the same party as an unpopular president.  It becomes a meaningless slogan.  A much better way of campaigning would be mentioning specific legislation and court decisions by name (The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act or the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court Decision for example) educating the voter with a specific issue rather than a hyperbolic generality that could mean a lot of different things to different people.

2.) Bringing in Hillary (and even worse Bill) Clinton to campaign on these issues smacks of the worst sort of hypocrisy. At best, Bill Clinton has real boundary issues with women and is a serial sexual harasser.  At worst, he is a rapist.  Hillary, according to various memoirs and interviews with many sources, led the slander of Monica Lewinsky as a nut all the while knowing her husband had taken advantage of the much younger starstruck woman.  Just disgusting behavior from the always disgusting Clintons.

3.) The proposal by Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Colorado senatorial candidate Corey Gardiner, and other Republicans that birth control be sold over the counter rather than through prescription would eliminate the birth control coverage issue entirely.

4.) However important abortion and reproductive issues are too some, to a lot of other people they are only issues to be considered, second or third tier issues, after their bellies are full, they have job security, and money in the bank.  Case in point is the Colorado Senate Race where incumbent Mark Udall has reduced himself to a laughingstock and is now in danger of losing re-election for focusing almost exclusively on reproductive issues to the point of where he has been given the nickname “Mark Uterus” and lost the support of several reliable liberal newspapers in the state.  Compare that to surging female Democratic challengers (Michelle Nunn in Georgia and Allison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky) who never mention the War on Women and put women issues into a pocketbook blue collar context (The minimum wage affecting women for example).

If the Republicans win the senate and push through a lot of anti-women legislation in the next two years then maybe the War on Women slogan/meme can be recycled in the 2016 presidential election.  Until that time, the Democratic Party should drop the sloganeering and stick to the specifics.