If THIS is the worst his opponents/the left can do, he's in good shape. On the other hand, blaming his wife for lines about his own childhood... it's weak. He doesn't know about the quote in his own book, then says his wife wrote it? lame lie here. Just own it. He's in great shape to win the nomination despite little $ or organization.
George Stephanopoulos pressed Rick Santorum on sections of his book "It Takes a Family" in which "you seem to suggest that a lot of women feel pressure to work outside the home because of radical feminism," and asked, "What do you say to those who worry -- believe that those kind of comments are going to alienate women, make you an easier candidate to beat in a general election?"
Santorum emphasized instead, in the interview on ABC News' "This Week," that he thinks the choices about working are individual ones that should be "affirmed" based on whether it's right for each person, and that his wife gave up a career to raise their seven kids, and felt like people judged her for it.
"Well, that section of the book was co-written, if you want to be honest about it, by my wife, who is a nurse and a lawyer," he said. "And when she gave up that practice and she gave up, you know, nursing to raise a family, I mean, she felt very much that society was sort of -- in many cases, looked down their nose at that decision. And all I've said is -- and in talking with my wife and others like her -- who've given up their careers that they should be affirmed in their decision like everybody else and that these are choices, and they're tough choices."
He added, "You know, I grew up in a home where my mom and dad both worked. This was back in the '50s and '60s, and -- which was very unusual. My mom actually made more money than my dad. So I grew up in a home where that was something that -- that was a given, women in the workplace, and something that I obviously accepted. But I think it's important that women both outside the home and inside the home are affirmed for their choices they make, that they are, in fact, choices, and society, you know, treats them in a sense equally for whatever decision they make that's best for them."
Stephanopoulos pressed, "You say that now, but you also wrote in the book that radical feminists have been making the pitch that justice demands that men and women be given an equal opportunity to make it to the top in the workplace. Isn't that something that everyone should value?"
Santorum seemed to suggest he wasn't familiar with that line in his book.
"Yeah, I have no problem -- I don't know -- that's a new quote for me," he said. "I don't know what context that was given. But the bottom line is that people should have equal opportunity to rise in the workforce. And, again, if you read the entire section, I don't think anyone will have a problem with the fact that what I was calling for -- very clearly calling for is the treatment of an affirmation of whatever decision women decide to make."
The book "It Takes a Family" was written in response to Hillary Clinton's "It Takes a Village" in the 1990s, and it was not generally taken by women's rights groups as a tome of affirmation, and it's one of the reasons Santorum will keep facing questions about whether he can appeal to a key general election swing group.
