Rep. Todd Aiken's stunning comment about rape has raised a firestorm of controversy both within his own Republican Party and well beyond it. Not only has the senatorial candidate now faced a flurry of pressure to leave his crucial race against Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill in Missouri, his comments have also seemingly opened up the consistently evergreen topic of abortion during the critical final months of the presidential campaign, and the reverberations are being felt far and wide.
On Monday the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney called Aiken's comments "insulting, inexcusable and, frankly, wrong?" Meanwhile, the Democrats have worked hard to try to link Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan directly to Aiken. Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, in an attempt to make that connection, called the Republican Partys' policies toward women "dangerously wrong." And on Monday President Obama told a White House briefing room full of journalists that "rape is rape" in response to Aiken's comments.
The Obama Campaign seems to have embraced with open arms this opportunity to delve into the culture wars and tackle the abortion issue. They've worked hard, for example, to point out that Paul Ryan's position-at least until he joined Romney's campaign earlier this month-had been to support a ban on abortion for rape victims-basically the exact same position that Aiken has on the issue. Meanwhile, in the swing state of Iowa, the Obama Campaign released a television advertisement that squarely attacks Romney and Ryan on their anti-abortion stance. The timing is clearly meant to take advantage of the Aiken affair and there is good reason for it. Recent Democratic polling data suggests that likely voters in Iowa seemingly view Romney as "too conservative" on women's issues and this represent a weak point for the Republican candidate that Obama can exploit. In fact, research suggests that the majority of swing state voters-in particular, those voters in swing states who are truly undecided-are women. Clearly this gives the Obama campaign even more reason to keep the abortion issue, and women's healthcare issues in general, on the front burner for as long as they can.
And the Democrats have been getting help from their enemies here as well. On Tuesday '80s television sitcom star and staunch evangelical Christian conservative Kirk Cameron stoked the flames further by defended Aiken-one of very few of any ideological stripe who has-on the "Today" show Tuesday, calling him "a good man."
All of this comes amid a controversial bus tour lunched across the five swing states of Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, and Florida by the anti-abortion group the Susan B. Anthony List. Known as the "Women Speak Out: Abortion is Not Health Care" tour it runs through the end of the month and the timing couldn't be better (or worse, depending on your position on abortion and what campaign you work for). The Susan B. Anthony List hopes to draw attention to what it calls "President Obama's extreme record on abortion" but it might just end up backfiring. Given the propensity of women voters who make up the electorate in swing states, the abortion issue will more likely than not help Obama gain some critical ground over Romney.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/aiken-abortion-issue-stands-help-obama-key-swing-185000070.html
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