Saxby Chambliss and Phil Bryant have both made controversial comments recently. | AP Photos 'War on women' returns

Not every Republican learned Todd Akin’s lesson from 2012 – and Democrats noticed.

This week alone: Sen. Saxby Chambliss blamed sexual assaults in the military on hormones, conservative pundit Erick Erickson credited biology for male dominance in society and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said working moms are making kids fail in school.


Democrats and liberal groups are seizing on these comments to reignite their 2012 strategy — rally the base to raise big money and put Republicans back on defense with women voters ahead of the mid-term elections.

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“Women voters are paying attention — this week was a big reminder that the GOP assault on women’s rights continues,” said Jess McIntosh of EMILY’S List.

The group, which helps pro-choice women get elected to office, is planning to use Chambliss’ remark in an email blast and social media campaign called “Great Moments In GOP Women’s Outreach.”

Inside the Senate, Democrats are beginning meetings to strategize their messaging on the issue, according to a Senate Democratic aide.

“This is not an issue for Harry Reid or Chuck Schumer to jump into. This is an issue for Patty Murray and Claire McCaskill and the women senators to jump into,” the aide said. “We will take advantage of it, but this is the mold of the Planned Parenthood fight and the Blunt amendment fight. The female senators will take the lead. Part of the advantage of having a large number of women in your caucus is having people who are effective messengers on issues like this.’

( Also on POLITICO: Wasserman Schultz hits Chambliss on 'hormones')

Republicans pushed back at the moves, accusing Democrats of politicizing issues like military sexual assault that should be bipartisan.

At the National Republican Senatorial Committee, GOP operatives sought to squash the controversy, trying to head off a rehash of lessons learned from the last election cycle, after which Republicans promised to be more sensitive when talking about women’s issues.

“As a woman, the politicization of sexual assault or rape is offensive in and of itself. This is an important conversation to be had in congressional committees – it shouldn’t be used as a page in Democrat politicos’ playbooks looking to exploit this tragedy for political gain,” said Brook Hougesen, NRSC spokeswoman.

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“If Democrats want to debate the ‘war on women’, look no further than the agenda set by Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer,” Hougesen said, turning the issue to the economy. “Women have had a difficult time finding work, and juggling multiple jobs and their personal lives with Democrats controlling the economy and the government for the last five years.”

Still, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is cooking up state-by-state releases calling on possible GOP Senate candidates to condemn remarks from GOP leaders.

“These comments make Todd Akin look moderate. Republicans have offended women across the country,” said DSCC spokeswoman Regan Page. “This was a defining issue in 2012 and will certainly be a problem for Republicans again in 2014.”

The playbook worked well for Democrats in 2012, when they turned controversial comments about rape by then-Senate candidates Akin and Richard Mourdock into a national discussion that contributed to Reid hanging onto his majority.

Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway acknowledged the comments don’t help Republicans with women, but she argues it will be difficult for Democrats to harness electoral victories off of them.

“These unfortunate, untoward completely baseless comments are unhelpful in an environment where the left still seems to be obsessed with a war on women,” Conaway said, who was quick to point out that the 2012 election was really about abortion politics. “Rape is four a letter word, so is debt to many women.”

But Republicans have a lot of explaining to do.

At Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on military sexual assault, Chambliss appeared to dismiss the severity of the issue when he cited hormones as a factor in the high rate of incidents.

“The young folks that are coming in to each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22-or-three,” said Chambliss, a two-term Georgia Republican who plans to retire in 2014. “The hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur.”

Erickson stepped into the fray this week by saying on Fox News that “when you look at biology, look at the natural world, the roles of a male and female in society, and the other animals, the male typically is the dominant role.”

And Bryant, speaking Tuesday at a Washington Post forum, blamed poor academic performance among youths on “both parents started working. The mom got in the workplace.”

While Chambliss also said “we simply can’t tolerate” sexual assaults, and he’s a cosponsor of two bipartisan bills that try to deal with the latest spike in violent crimes, the Georgia Republican’s comments nonetheless prompted rebukes from Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The Florida Democrat slammed the GOP and argued that their public remarks are a better indication of where the party stands on women’s issues.

“For a United States senator or anyone to write off sexual assault and the personal violation of a woman or man to raging the hormones of youth shows just how dramatically out of touch the Republican Party is,” she said on MSNBC.

Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the lead sponsor of legislation that would take prosecution of military sexual assault out of the normal chain of command, during a separate appearance Tuesday on MSNBC, also took aim at Republicans.

“Rape and sexual assault are crimes of violence, crimes of dominance. More than half of the victims are men. These are not crimes of lust. They’re not crimes of romance. They’re not dates that have gone badly,” she said. “They’re not issues of the hook-up culture from high school or hormones, as my colleague said. We’re talking about predators, often serial predators who are targeting their victims in advance, making them vulnerable through alcohol or other means and actually stalking them.”

Even some Republicans looked to distance themselves from Chambliss and other conservatives.

Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.) declined to comment Wednesday when asked about the recent remarks from her GOP colleagues.

“You’re going to see a bipartisan effort here today in the Armed Services Committee,” she said just outside the Rayburn Office Building hearing room where the panel held an all-day markup of the Defense Authorization bill.

Votes on several amendments dealing with sexual assault were expected Wednesday.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham conceded Chambliss could have spoken more eloquently about sexual assault but still defended his GOP colleague.

“I think what he was saying is you’ve got a lot of young people in the military and we just have be realistic,” Graham told POLITICO. “I don’t know where you were at 17 to 23. I don’t know how you were. But these are formative years. I know Saxby very well. Anybody knows Saxby is not suggesting that he’s justifying rape.”

To address the issue, Graham said any sexual predators serving the military “need to be sought out and pounded, driven out of the service in such a fashion to deter others.”

The South Carolina Republican also warned about “off-color jokes being told, where there’s an uncomfortable work environment where you’re showing disrespect for your female comrades in arms.”

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said Chambliss’ remarks are part of a larger problem with the makeup of Capitol Hill.

“The reason these guys say these things is because they really believe them,” she said in an interview. “When you still have 80 percent of Congress that’s guys, you’re going to have people in leadership positions who think these things. It’s a shame because it really hampers our efforts to make sure we have a system that really works for all the victims of violence.”

Illinois Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky said the Republicans’ remarks won’t just hurt them politically — it might also make for trouble in recruiting women to join the armed forces. “Women, particularly women contemplating going into the military, would be very offended and also put off by that comment,” she said. “Because it sounds like it tolerates, it understands that these young men can’t control themselves. That’s just counterproductive and really offensive.”

John Bresnahan contributed to this story.