TAMPA, Fla. — Readers of the Tampa Tribune woke up Tuesday morning to a full-page ad casting the stars of the Republican convention here as peas in a pod with the establishment GOP’s biggest pariah of the moment.
In a full-page newspaper ad, the DNC ties Romney to his running mate’s stronger anti-abortion views, as well as his own support for something resembling a so-called “personhood” law, which critics say would ban abortion in all circumstances, and could even make some forms of contraception illegal.
Paul Ryan said just last week that he personally opposes abortion even in the case of rape and incest. Romney drew fire last year when he said he supported “the constitutional amendment that would have established the definition of life at conception” on Mike Huckabee’s Fox show. Democrats saw that as subtle support for personhood.
Akin shed new attention on the draft Republican platform — which makes no mention of exceptions for rape and incest — when the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri talked about “legitimate rape” last week.
The Democrats are using Akin (who both Romney and Ryan have condemned) as a handy catch-all for the GOP platform and the personhood push, which they say shows the GOP ticket is well outside the mainstream. In addition to the newspaper ad, the party is flying a plane around Tampa carrying a banner reading, “Romney-Ryan-Akin: Too Extreme for Women.”
