But now, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has done the same thing.

At a roundtable on women’s issues in Milwaukee, Wasserman Schultz hammered Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), who is running in a tight race against Mary Burke, on women’s issues.

“Scott Walker has given women the back of his hand. I know that is stark. I know that is direct. But that is reality,” she said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She went on to detail Walker’s record on pay issues.

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“What Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back,” she said. “It is not going to happen on our watch.”

Wasserman Schultz is right. Her comments are stark and they are direct.

But, no, it isn’t reality to suggest that Walker, whatever his record on minimum wage or abortion, is somehow akin to an abuser or a cave man.

In 2012, President Obama liked to say that GOP policies on women were a throwback to the “Mad Men” era, a clever pop culture reference that other Democrats and their allies picked up on. They aren’t likely to do the same with Wasserman Schultz’s comments, which could hurt Burke. Her campaign distanced itself from the remarks.

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Polls show the race essentially tied, with Burke leading among women, 56 percent to 38 percent.

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The DNC went on immediate clean-up duty over Wasserman Schultz’s comments.

Lily Adams, deputy communications director for the DNC said in a statement reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “domestic violence is an incredibly serious issue, and the congresswoman was by no means belittling the very real pain survivors experience.”

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The strategy is twofold. It frames the candidates as both tough on crime and as champions and defenders of women. And women candidates running against men can possibly put their opponents on the defensive. They all remember former Republican congressman Todd Akin’s reference to “legitimate rape” in his unsuccessful 2012 Senate race