While campaigning in Colorado, Barack Obama warned the voters that Mitt Romney was planning to kill his health reform and get rid of Planned Parenthood.

Obama criticized that Romney’s policies were more suitable for the 1950s than the 21st century. To defend his position Obama stated that woman’s health decisions are “not up to politicians, they’re not up to insurance companies, they’re up to you.” The President is making a big effort to insure the female voters support in swing states like Colorado.

President Obama made a direct reference to his wife and his late mother; he said that women issues resonate in him because of them. Obama argued that he wanted his wife to be able to have control over her health care choices, that’s why he is insisting so much in this health-care reform. He defends that it will bring many benefits to women.

Also Obama made a very sentimental statement referring to his late mother to defend the Obama care benefits, he said she would have been 70 this year, if she had not died from cancer almost 20 years ago. He stated: “I often think about what might have happened if a doctor had caught her cancer sooner.”

Obama made a harsh criticism directed to Romney, saying that the next president “could tip the balance in a way that turns back the clock for women in the next decade to come.” It seems the Democrats are making a big effort to confront the Republicans with the female voters, arguing that if Romney wins, women will lose many of the rights they have conquered in recent years.

Sandra Fluke, the famous Georgetown student who has become one of the leading voices supporting Obama’s health reform, was the one that introduced Obama in Colorado to a crowd formed mostly of women. Fluke became popular after being called a slut by talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh said during his radio talk show that Fluke went before a “Congressional Committee and essentially said that she must be paid to have sex.” Limbaugh added that her comments made Fluke a whore because she wanted to be paid to have sex. Fluke demanded before the Congressional Committee that insurance coverage should cover contraception methods. Limbaugh said that Fluke is “having so much sex that she can’t afford the contraception, and she wants you and me, and the tax payers to pay her to have sex.”

During Obama’s introduction, Fluke said that when she was “verbally attacked”, Barack Obama was one of us. She added that Obama defended her right to speak without being verbally insulted, and condemned the criticism she had received. Fluke also had some words saved for Mitt Romney, she said that “if Mr. Romney can’t stand up to extreme voices in his own party, then he will never stand up for us.”

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Both presidential candidates are doing a tremendous effort to gain female and working-class voters support. Both of them know how crucial these votes will be in key states and are already doing all they can to gain their sympathy.

Mitt Romney on August 11 is making a trip to some of the swing states that could decide this election: Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio. During these visits he will be accompanied by three of his possible vice-presidential picks: Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Ohio Senator Rob Portman. There is a possibility that during these visits he will announce who will be his running mate.

It is not a coincidence that five out of eleven speakers announced for the Republican National Convention are women. Romney has also been accusing Obama of planning to double out taxpayer dollars, even for people who are not trying to find work. This accusation has the clear goal to gain working-class voters favor.

President Obama on the other hand had an appearance scheduled for August 8 with Sandra Fluke, the famous Georgetown University student who became a leader for pro-choice women. Fluke became known nationwide after being called a slut by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh for her support of Obama’s health care that requires insurance companies to cover contraception.

The President wants to take advantage of Fluke’s popularity to gain female voters support. Democrats have been accusing the Republicans of starting a war against women because of their opposition of the Affordable Care Act, which according to the Democrats will give the women many benefits and crucial protections. Obama is currently leading in female voters’ intentions in key states like Florida and Ohio.

President Obama has been insisting during his entire campaign that Romney wants to cut taxes for the rich and increase taxes for the middle class, and Obama on the other hand wants the rich to pay a little bit more, so in that way taxes for the middle class don’t have to increase. But Romney is intending to show that Obama plans would affect the middle class. Romney has warned that Obama is intending to undo Clinton’s welfare reforms by offering waivers to the states, in other words he is trying to convince the voters that Obama is a liberal, who wants to give the poor a free pass in expense of the middle class, which is the one he is supposedly defending.

The Democrats have not ignored these accusations, White House spokesman Jay Carney told Romney’s accusations were “categorically false and blatantly dishonest.”

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Mitt Romney’s Republican rivals have called him a weak candidate. Their motives are purely political, and wrong, but they’ve got the label right.

Romney’s constant backpedaling on issues he once supported, like universal health care, has given the impression of a man without a center. The most recent episode came during an interview with an Ohio news network in which Romney said he did not support a bill sponsored by Missouri Senator Roy Blunt that would allow employers to deny coverage of their employees contraceptive care on religious grounds. The bill was in response to an Obama administration mandate that employers pay for their employees’ birth control needs.

Romney said, correctly, that the presidential primaries needed to be about bigger things than birth control. “I’m not for the bill, but look, the idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and a women, husband and wife, I’m not going there,” was his response to the question.

But later that same day, Romney reversed his position. During an interview with a reporter for the Boston Herald, Romney said he had “always” supported the bill. When questioned about the sudden change, his aids claimed that he had misunderstood the earlier question. Transcripts of the Ohio interview clearly show that the reporter had accurately described the bill and the reasoning behind it.

Romney’s flip flops on controversial issues to appease conservative voters have become so commonplace that they’re no longer front page news. But a few days later, on the same question of employer support for employee birth control costs, Romney took another nose dive which could, and should, come back to haunt him if he manages to actually win the Republican nomination.

In response to a Georgetown Law School student, Sandra Fluke, who had testified before Congress that employers should pay for their workers’ contraceptive care, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute.” Worse, Limbaugh suggested that Fluke should post videos of herself having sex on YouTube, “…so we can all watch.”

When a reporter asked Romney to comment on Limbaugh’s rant, how did the Republican frontrunner and would-be leader of the American people respond?

“Not the words I would have used,” said Romney.

That almost sounds as if Romney agrees with Limbaugh’s deeply offensive comments. He would have just used less colorful language. Or does Romney believe, as is probably the case, that women who testify before the US Congress should not be subjected to vile, personal attacks by conservative media celebrities?

We’ll never know what Romney actually thinks about Limbaugh’s comments, and that’s not okay. Romney’s defenders point out that Limbaugh is just a right wing radio shock jock whose job is to sell advertising by vilifying Democrats, liberals, intellectuals, and all others who disagree with his angry, narrow world view. He’s not a politician or presidential contender, so it made no sense for Romney to take him on.

But Limbaugh is also one of the most influential opinion leaders of the Republican party. Romney should have had the courage to clearly and unequivocally condemn Limbaugh’s comments. He might have alienated ultraconservative voters who enjoy Limbaugh’s witless drivel, but he would have demonstrated to millions of American women, Democrats and Republicans, who were deeply offended by Limbaugh’s sexist comments that he has the backbone to do the right thing when necessary. Instead, Romney wimped out by uttering the most neutral, noncommittal comment his staffers could concoct.

If Romney can’t put politics aside for one moment and stand up to a bully like Limbaugh, who will he stand up to? He may be the best choice among the three remaining Republican contenders, but so far Romney has shown little of the leadership and judgment necessary for the office he aspires to.

Image Courtesy of  Gage Skidmore

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