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Man, the traditional media really wants their consumers to believe that this horse race is neck and neck and the just overwhelming misogyny in the words and actions of the Republican Party isn't hurting them with women.

Because, it's all about jobs and the economy to the Republican Party, completely eliding the fact to these 'small government' fetishists who actively want the government getting into women's uteri, that this is absolutely an economic and jobs-related issue for women. Being unable to control when a woman has a child will play a major role in her economic future: what education she can complete, what jobs she can apply for, how much she will get paid, whether she and her child can break through multi-generational poverty cycles.

But that doesn't help the narrative that the tradmed wants to perpetuate that this is a close race and that the gender gap has closed for Mitt Romney, at best, an arguable position, though you wouldn't know that from the confident assertions made by David Gregory and Chuck Todd.

Carly Fiorina, speaking officially as a Romney spokesperson, had the unenviable job of trying to distinguish Romney from the crazies in his party. Now Gregory is game to let her, but it's a hard row to hoe when you consider that Romney hasn't pulled his ad for Mourdock. Fiorina bemoans the "bad timing" of Mourdock's statement, which begs the question left unasked by Gregory, when exactly would have been a good time to say that a pregnancy as a result of rape is God's will? But more importantly, as Rachel Maddow points out, it's hard to disavow the crazy extremism when Romney put crazy extremist Paul Ryan on his ticket:

MS. MADDOW: Right. But then, he picked Paul Ryan. They have the fight over forced ultrasounds, the government telling you that you need to have a medically unnecessary procedure at the order of the state regardless of what you want and regardless of what your doctor says. And then he picked a guy, who picked a forced ultrasound bill for the country, Paul Ryan was onboard with that. Paul Ryan was a cosponsor with Todd Akin with bill to redefine rape. Paul Ryan was a cosponsor with bill to have personhood federally, which would not only ban all abortion it would ban in vitro fertilization. It would ban most hormonal forms of birth control. If you wanted to avoid this fight, don’t put Paul Ryan on the ticket. There’s a reason that Paul Ryan has been in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina… (Cross talk) GREGORY: And the Republican platform talked about you should be able to do in vitro fertilization. That was in the Republican platform…

Oops...Rachel Maddow has hit on an uncomfortable spot for Romney's campaign. For all his alleged moderation, he chose one of the most extreme pro-life members in Congress for his running mate. Time for David Gregory to throw this conversation to Chuck Todd to direct back to the economy, a much safer discussion.

All I can say is that at this point, if women are voting for Romney, they ought to be willing to let their GOP flag fly free. I'm thinking this one is appropriate:



Just sayin'...