Mitt Romney’s Michigan victory speech earlier this week showed a candidate desperate to avoid social issues and focus on the economy — his remarks were heavy on debt, credit ratings and little else.
That plan unraveled just a day later, thanks to Senate Republicans and a local Ohio news reporter — and the results have been a gift to Democrats.
In an interview with the Ohio News Network Wednesday, Romney appeared to voice opposition to Sen. Roy Blunt’s (R-MO) amendment that would allow employers to nix employee insurance coverage for any treatments they find morally objectionable — a seemingly stunning turnaround. Romney quickly clarified, saying he was 100 percent behind the Blunt amendment, which died in a Senate vote Thursday. Part of the confusion can be chalked up to an imperfect interview question but his inability to deliver a vague and safe answer — something that should be second nature — forced the Romney camp to spend precious time clarifying their his position, drawing the discussion out far longer than they’d wanted.
Democrats wanted to force Romney to comment on the Blunt Amendment, which they see as a huge liability to the GOP in the fall. And they got precisely what they wished for — in fact the Obama campaign couldn’t have scripted it better themselves.
“In one hour, Mitt Romney showed why women don’t trust him for one minute,” Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter said in a statement. “It took little more than an hour for him to commit his latest flip-flop. Even worse, he ended up on the wrong side of an issue of critical importance to women.”
The Romney campaign did not respond to a request for comment on that characterization of events. But in an interview later Wednesday, Romney said he didn’t see what all the fuss was about.
“I didn’t understand his question,” he told a Massachusetts radio show. “Of course I support the Blunt Amendment. I thought he was talking about some state law that prevented people from getting contraception so I was simply misunderstood the question and of course I support the blunt amendment.”
Democrats and Obama quickly seized on the debacle, firing attack after attack on Romney.
Democrats say that that with the Ohio primary approaching, they won’t relent. Republican candidates and commentators have cried foul, claiming the issue of contraception and access to women’s health — which is proving quote the boon to Democratic support with women, according to polls — is a Democratic plot to make Republicans like Romney look bad.
In Ohio, Democrats say the issue is a problem of Republicans’ own making.
“I’m not sure that we drafted the amendment for Roy Blunt, so any conspiracy for us to take advantage of this political issue would mean that we were working with Roy Blunt to offer this amendment,” Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said on a conference call with reporters. “The fact of the matter is the most extreme members of the Senate, the most extreme members of the Republican Party, have taken this up as an issue. The access to contraception is an issue.”
The issue will have staying power, Redfern said. And Romney is playing right into Democratic hands by standing with the Blunt Amendment.
“I’d like to say this was 1952, rhetorically, but I don’t remember Eisenhower ever having a position on such issues. I don’t remember FDR, thinking back and reading back,” he said. “This is one of those moments in time that in this case women will remember when they’re making their important decisions at the ballot box this November.”
