They need to address their own party's war on women.
How the White House will use 'war on women' in 2015BY BRIAN HUGHES | JANUARY 26, 2015
President Obama and his allies plan to ramp up their focus on the Republican "war on women," using the campaign-style approach to paint the new GOP majority as out of touch with the voters Democrats badly need to mobilize.
But the White House is tweaking its appeal to women, developing a more economic-centered pitch rather than devoting so much attention to social issues.
“It can’t just be abortion and birth control all the time,” a veteran Democratic pollster with close ties to the White House told the Washington Examiner.
“You have to give people a reason to vote for us, not just against the other side,” the female pollster added. “That’s why I think you’re seeing the White House frame it more in economic terms. I think that message appeals to even more women.”
The “war-on-women” attack proved disastrous for Democrats in November, most notably in a very winnable Senate contest in Colorado in which voters accused the party of pushing a single-issue platform.
Central to the newest effort is a heavy dose of messaging on equal pay, paid leave and greater access to child care, issues that received major play in Obama’s State of the Union address last week.
“It’s time we stop treating child care as a side issue, or as a women’s issue, and treat it like the national economic priority that it is for all of us,” Obama told lawmakers.
Directly challenging Republicans, he later added, “Congress still needs to pass a law that makes sure a woman is paid the same as a man for doing the same work. It’s 2015. It’s time.”
However, Obama is hardly guaranteed to get much traction from the plan. The White House still lacks an effective defense for why female staffers earn less money on average than their male counterparts at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., analysts said.
Women at the White House make 88 cents for every dollar earned by a man, not all that different from the national average Obama so often highlights.
Those findings forced Obama spokesman Josh Earnest in July to admit, “I wouldn’t hold up the White House as the perfect example here.”
Critics argue that Obama’s message has another fatal flaw.
“Any woman who is a victim in this economy during the last six years is a victim of the Barack Obama economy,” said Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway. “Their own hand has brought any malady they are citing. They’re trying to run a challenger’s campaign as an incumbent.”
The White House isn’t dropping the issue of reproductive rights altogether — it recently issued a veto threat to a Republican bill banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy — but has put that message on the back burner.
Still, Republicans say the latest iteration of the White House attack won't work, noting their own efforts to pass legislation on worker training and flexibility, among other measures particularly appealing to women.
“It’s a strategy that failed in November, but for some reason, they’re going to double down,” said Doug Heye, former communications director of the Republican National Committee. “Republicans learned their lesson from dumb comments by dumb candidates in 2010 and 2012. Republicans are comfortable speaking about these issues."
Republicans fielded much-improved candidates in 2014, mostly avoiding nominees such as Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, who embarrassed the party when wading into a discussion on rape.
The White House is now essentially taking a new page out of an old playbook to beat Republicans.
When asked by the Examiner whether Obama would continue to grill conservatives on their approach to women’s issues, a White House official replied simply, “You better believe it.”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/how-the-white-house-will-use-war-on-women-in-2015/article/2559115
