GOP War Against Women...

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

AUSTIN, Texas - Big dollar Republican Mitt Romney minced no words yesterday in repeating his mantra against women, saying he will, if elected president, de-fund Planned Parenthood from any federal government money. It is, frankly, only the latest assault on American women by Republicans eager to feed their worst beast - the Far Right, extremist wing of their party.

How can this play in today's America? Are women simply going to take it? It follows Romney's main opponent's rant against contraception, that one being blustery, Born-Again Catholic Rick Santorum, a candidate whose own wife worked - and shacked-up - with an abortionist doctor before marrying Santorum. It is an eye-opener for the rest of the country.

Of course, it all comes after radio prankster Rush Limbaugh's cruel attack on a female law school student who dared to testify before Congress on the need for healthcare for all women, including programs such as those availed by Planned Parenthood for breast and cervical cancer screenings. Republicans want no part of that, and now the backward State of Arizona is seeking legislation against contraception in general. Birth control, once the darling of the conservative Zero Population Growth crowd that thought the country's population needed to be curbed, is now front-center as an issue they want to re-frame. Women are fighting back.

That "slut" slur against law student Sandra Fluke voiced by Limbaugh two weeks ago has cost him more than 50 advertisers. Others of his talk radio ilk are also feeling the pinch.

But what exactly is behind the party's strange attack on women?

Some pundits say it has come because women overwhelming support Democratic President Barack Obama, unlike men, both Democrats and Republicans. Yet, even if this is the reason, well, why antagonize them to band even closer, and in larger groups, to back the president? Republicans have a habit of blindly going after issues that ultimately sink them. It is the false bluster they seek, this idea that to go after anything related to President Obama will resonate with their crowd. It will, but, at last check, the number of Democratic Party voters in the country outnumbers their Republican counterparts. You'd think that, as with the Hispanic vote, Republicans would want to sidle-up to that important electoral bloc.

It's not happening for them.

Slowly, the Republican candidates still in the 2012 nomination race, Romney, Santorum, adulterer Newt Gingrich and fake Libertarian Ron Paul, continue to campaign as if only Republicans will vote in the general election later this year. Americans as a whole are listening, and these Republicans are in for another surprise this cycle. They have beat the drums for war against Iran, words that trouble the petroleum industry into raising gasoline prices at the pump. And they have continued to push tired lies about the president's religion and birthplace.

It all adds up, all collects in the part of the brain that says these guys are losers.

Women will make the diference in the upcoming election, and, again, sheltered Republicans will wonder where they went wrong...

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