Elizabeth Nolan Brown recently questioned the effectiveness of the Democrats’ War on Women rhetoric. Seth Masket asks for more evidence:
One of the races frequently singled out for the failure of the war-on-women strategy is the Colorado Senate race, where Democratic Sen. Mark Udall (or “Mark Uterus,” as some have taken to calling him) is running a few points behind Republican Cory Gardner despite a blistering series of ads portraying Gardner as trying to destroy all forms of contraception ever. Yet Udall is running at almost the exact same position in the polls as Sen. Michael Bennet (D) was at this point in 2010. Bennet’s come-from-behind victory was attributed by some to his aggressive war-on-women rhetoric, portraying his opponent Ken Buck as a retrograde sexist. Indeed, the gender gap in that particular race was an impressive 16 points. So if both Democrats were trailing by two points right before the election, and both were employing the war-on-women strategy, why was it deemed successful in one case and a failure in the other? …
Given the geography of this year’s election, it was always going to be a tough one for the Democrats. But it’s not clear whether focusing on abortion and birth control this year has made their task harder or easier, or whether it’s done anything at all.
Suderman focuses instead on the issues Democrats aren’t campaigning on:
Democrats are winning on issues like contraception, but Republicans are now more trusted on higher priority issues like the economy and the budget deficit. As Gallup concluded, “it has become pretty clear that Republicans have a distinct and emerging issue advantage in the 2014 campaign.”
Part of what’s fascinating is that this is happening despite how thin the GOP agenda continues to be. Republicans have campaigned heavily against Obama this year, but have been reluctant to offer specifics about what they support. Democrats are running on the wrong issues; Republicans are running on no issues. Yet voters seem to prefer whatever it is the GOP stands for to what Democrats have already done and still have to offer.
The Dish 