A Boehner ultimately wants what it wants, and what this Boehner wants is for women to vote for his party. It’s a sad turn of events, folks. It’s weird seeing a Boehner go back in on itself like this. Last time I saw something like that was in Amsterdam at 3 a.m. Let’s not talk about that anymore, capisce?
See, Boehner’s party has spent the better part of the last 20 to 30 years going against women — with actions like shutting down women’s health centers and limiting women’s right to even so much as say the word vagina (really, click on that link). But y’see, without women (those pesky creatures! can’t live with ’em! there’s no second part to that! you just can’t live with them!) you can’t get anyone to vote for you. Because, try as Republicans might to dissuade you of the fact, women are people too. Said our Boehner:
“[We’re] trying to get them to be a little more sensitive,” Boehner said of fellow Republicans at a press conference. “You know, you look around the Congress, there are a lot more females in the Democratic caucus than there are in the Republican conference. And some of our members just aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be.”
Females! Dude used, like, a scientific term! Maybe he’s a Charlie Feathers fan? However you want to slice it, Boehner is probably at his wit’s end trying to appeal to his party base of old white dudes … before rapidly changing tone in order to appeal to women voters. It’s a rather sad, weird world in which the GOP live in. Caught with their pants down while trying to change horse midstream, they’ve spent actual literal decades harping on about guns, gays and God, but haven’t once had a chance to maybe check in and see what women think. Ignoring an entire gender for that long is only going to get you the cold shoulder. The HuffPo article goes on to say:
“Some Republican members are receiving training from the National Republican Congressional Committee on how to run against female candidates in an effort to stop the GOP’s trend of poor performance among women voters.”
In the 2014 election cycle there will be at least 10 races where male GOP incumbents are challenged by women of the Democratic party. Let’s not forget that that number could very well increase as we get closer to election day. Republicans haven’t fared well among women voters for several years and most certainly don’t want another Akin moment: former Republican Senator Todd Akin (in)famously went on an extremely ill-advised “legitimate rape” word-binge in August of 2012, saying:
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
That comment ultimately cost him the election after severe blowback from women voters. The gaffe was pounced upon by the Democrats, who seized the moment and successfully painted the Republican party as waging a “War on Women.”
