Why would any woman vote Republican?

There was a good recent story in The Hill about Mitt Romney suggesting
no young person should vote for Democrats, which leads me to ask why any
woman would vote Republican. Republicans are doing everything they can
to defeat Democratic efforts to fight for pay equity for women. They
attack a long list of programs that serve women, appear to be waging
a crusade against efforts to improve healthcare for women, have reopened
a conflict about contraceptives that I thought had ended before I was
born, and cannot even bring themselves to support Democratic efforts to
protect women from being battered.

So: Why would any woman in America vote for a party that behaves like this?

I thought Romney’s comments about young people were so silly they do not even need a response. And in fact, in all candor, when I suggest that no woman should vote for the GOP, I am overstating the case for effect, a columnist’s prerogative, though I will fess up:

{mosads}There are ideologically conservative women who should vote Republican, though their views, in my view, harm women as much as the views of ideologically rigid arch-conservative men. This is what makes a market a market, and what makes a two-party system a two-party system.

The key takeaway is that Republicans today are so bullied, afraid and intimidated by the far-right wing and so ideologically extremist compared to the history of the Republican Party that the overwhelming majority of women should not, and will not, vote Republican.

Actions have consequences. Republican actions hurt the interests of women, which is why they are accused of waging a war against women issue by issue, program by program.

Virtually all Democratic women agree with me. A large majority of politically independent women agree with me. And many Republican women agree with me.

As for Mitt Romney, when Rush Limbaugh made his latest sick and despicable comments insulting women Romney’s response was so pathetic, cowardly and pandering that I am compelled to ask:

How can any woman vote for Mitt Romney?

Even conservative women should be embarrassed and insulted by Mitt’s response to Rush’s misogyny.