Women, 2012 Presidential Election | featured news

President Obama's latest television ad is designed to appeal to an important demographic: Women. Entitled "first law," the commercial emphasizes the first bill Obama signed as president, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

A boom in users on the social media site — and the fact that more than two-thirds are women — is attracting political messages to the site best known for recipes, crafts and I-want-that images. In political persuasion, as in marketing, "it's always the next big hot thing," says Zac Moffatt, digital director for Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. "And it's kind of hot right now."

After Hilary Rosen’s remarks about Ann Romney’s life as a homemaker, some thought Democrats might tread more cautiously in their attempt to paint the GOP as being anti-women. Nope.

In a year when the war on women rages, Nugent’s words leave a sour taste and conjure up unsettling, violent images. Of course, under the constitution, Nugent has the right to say anything. But, as my mother always says, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

We criticized Republicans last week for promoting the “true but false” assertion that under Obama, women have lost seven times as many jobs as men. This did not stop the Mitt Romney campaign from trying to promote this idea, which Treasury Secretary Geithner on Sunday labeled “ridiculous and deeply misleading.”

Women who stay at home to raise their children should be given federal assistance for child care so that they can enter the job market and "have the dignity of work," Mitt Romney said in January, undercutting the sense of extreme umbrage he showed when Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen quipped last week that Ann Romney had not "worked a day in her life." The remark, made to a Manchester, N.H., audience, was unearthed by MSNBC's "Up w/Chris Hayes," and will air during the 8 a.m. hour of his show Sunday.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pushed back on Mitt Romney's statements that women made up almost all jobs lost during the Obama presidency. "It's misleading and ridiculous," Geithner said on CBS News' "Face the Nation." "It's just a political moment." On the campaign trail, Romney attempted to turn the discussion to women and the economy, blaming President Obama for hurting women's checkbooks.

The Romney campaign has been repeating the stat all week: Women account for 92.3 percent of jobs lost under Obama. That number is, everyone agrees, misleading. But that’s politics.

Several of Mitt Romney’s most prominent female surrogates charged Thursday that a Democratic strategist’s comments about Ann Romney’s role in the home reflected President Obama’s views on women — prompting the Obama campaign to quickly respond that Hilary Rosen has no role in the president’s reelection effort.

Mitt Romney is starting to hone his appeal to women voters, acutely aware as he turns to the general election that he has little choice but to narrow President Barack Obama's commanding lead among this critical constituency.