Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen opened a can of worms on Wednesday night when she suggested that GOP front-runner Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann Romney, is not qualified to discuss the economic issues plaguing Americans because she “never actually worked a day in her life.”
The Romney campaign wasted little time firing back. ABC News reports that shortly after Rosen’s comments, Ann Romney tweeted for the first time: “I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work,” Ann tweeted from her new account @AnnDRomney.
When CNN host Anderson Cooper asked Rosen about the Romney strategy in combating the “war on women” narrative, Rosen took issue with idea of the phrase and the idea that he is competently deflecting it.
“Well, first, can we just get rid of this word, ‘war on women?’ The Obama campaign does not use it, President Obama does not use it — this is something that the Republicans are accusing people of using, but they’re actually the ones spreading it,” she said “With respect to the economic issues, I think actually that Mitt Romney’s right that ultimately women care more about the economic well being of their families and the like. But he doesn’t connect on that issue either.”
According to Rosen, Romney’s attempt to connect to women through his wife is inartful because Ann Romney’s lack of real-world experience makes her unable to connect to real women.
“What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, ‘Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues’ and, ‘When I listen to my wife, that’s what I’m hearing,’” she said. “Guess what? His wife has never actually worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and how do we — why we worry about their future.’
Rosen concluded, saying that the war may be about words but that the real issue is Romney’s antiquated view of women.
‘So I think it’s, yes, it’s about these positions, and yes, there will be a war of words about the positions, but there is something much more fundamental about Mitt Romney — he just seems so old-fashioned when it comes to women, and I think that comes across, and I think that’s going to hurt him over the long term,” she said. “He just doesn’t really see us as equal.”
ABC News noted that later in the evening Rosen attempted to clarify her comment, tweeting, “I’ve nothing against @AnnDRomney. I just don’t want Mitt using her as an expert on women struggling $ to support their family. She isn’t.”
Rosen works for a public relations firm with close Obama ties, SKDKnickerbocker. The firm represents noted contraception advocate Sandra Fluke and was involved with the D.C. roll-out for the movie “Game Change,” which critics on the right believed unfairly portrayed former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin
