Contraception activist Sandra Fluke’s introduction of President Obama at a Colorado campaign stop Wednesday is not the key to this year’s presidential election, according to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus.
Priebus reacted Tuesday to news that Fluke will be campaigning with Obama in Denver by pointing out that her presence says nothing about economic issues, which will likely drive Americans’ election-day decisions.
“Obviously [it’s] her right to do what she wants but, at the end of the day, in Colorado, this election is going to come down to the economy and whether or not this president fulfilled the mission in regard to jobs, the debt, the deficit,” Priebus said during a Tuesday conference call with reporters.
“The president ran at a time when people wanted answers on the economy, he ran on the economy, he ran on the idea that he would fix the economy and everything has gotten worse,” he said. “So to me that is what the election is going to come down to in Colorado and states, like Colorado, all across America.”
While Democrats and the Obama campaign have used Fluke — who came under fire from such figures as radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh for her government-mandated contraception coverage advocacy — as a figure to stoke the “Republican war on women” narrative, Priebus shrugged off the continued attempt to portray Romney a weak on women’s issues.
“If that is what [Obama] wants to do that’s fine, but at the end of the day, this is going to come down to the economy and women are worse off under this president after four years than when President Obama took office,” he said, adding that a poor economy is not what Obama promised the country four years ago.