Those little ladies who populate the Republican Party’s imagination aren’t going to rise up in fury against the GOP next November. No sir, they know what’s good for them. It’s the economy, stupid. Not the right to make their own reproductive choices. Not the denial of pap smears, mammograms and other life-saving health care. Not the trivializing of such monstrosities as rape and incest. Not the crusade to block food from getting to the tables of poor families. Not the campaign to end school lunches and breakfasts… And preschool programs… And…

No, sir, those little ladies know that whatever ails them,  it’s all Obama’s fault.

It’s the president who caused the hard times afflicting America. It’s the president who makes it hard for the little ladies’ hubbies to get a decent job and support their families as men are supposed to do. Before Obama came along, little ladies didn’t have to go to work did they? They could stay home and raise children, and have a hot supper ready when the man of the house got home.

Those little ladies don’t have very good memories, obviously. They forget that women have been breadwinners for a while – since Rosie the Riveter, which was before Obama was born.

I could be wrong about this. But that’s the picture I got from a recent Chris Matthews show. I was kind of half-listening to one of those Republican “strategists” that Matthews brings on from time to time so he can have someone to argue with. I think it was Todd Harris, but it could have been some other stooge.

Anyway, according to this pundit, the Republicans are counting on women to help them win back the Senate and keep the House in next year’s midterm elections. No, I am not kidding.

Women, he explained, are just as affected by the economy as anyone. More affected, even. They’re the ones who manage the household, after all. They’re the ones who put meals on the table. They know how the slow economy is hurting their families.

Did Chris Matthews dismiss this nonsense by explaining the real cause of America’s economic slowdown?

Not that I could hear.  He went off on some tangent as he often does.

I wanted to jump inside the TV set and get in their faces.

Who does this “strategist” think is really to blame for America’s hard times? Doesn’t he know the president has repeatedly tried to get a jobs bill through Congress? Doesn’t he know the Republicans will have none of it? That it’s the Republicans who block every budget, filibuster every appointment, and sabotage every program that could get the economy going?

Doesn’t he know that in their determination to throttle the federal government, dismantle programs like Social Security and Medicare, and siphon more and more of the nation’s wealth to the top one percent of the population, it’s the Republicans who are getting Rosie the Riveter laid off and keeping her ex-GI Joe husband from finding a decent job?

I’m confident that, in his heart,this “strategist” knows. But  he – and the rest of the Republican Party – must think America’s women don’t know.

And they’re counting on it come November 2014.

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