I'd been under the impression that, while the Senate and the presidency are going to be legitimately hot contests, the Republican majority in the House is going to be the least of conservatives' worries. Apparently, however, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi thinks that all of this outrageous outrage over the trumped-up "war on women" is such a powerful demonstration of Mitt Romney's supposed incompetence that President Obama is falling back into the good graces of lady voters everywhere. Err... if you say so...
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that strong evidence of a gender-based support disparity between Republicans and Democrats makes her feel "better" about the chances for Democrats to retake the House in November. ...
The war between President Obama and Mitt Romney over female voters intensified this week, with Romney asserting that 92 percent of the jobs lost under Obama were women's jobs, and Obama and the Democratic National Committee firing back that Romney's campaign couldn't even answer whether he supported a major piece of equal-pay legislation.
"I would have said, two months ago, we had a 50-50 chance of winning the House," Pelosi said.
"Since then, so much changed because women have shifted in large measure to the president and to the Democrats," she continued. ...
"If this is an example of how Mitt Romney is going to run for president, I feel sad for the process and country, because either he doesn't know what the facts are or he doesn't care," she said.
The approval rating of the incumbent president is of course an important factor in forecasting Congressional elections, but just logistics-wise, it would take quite the shakeup for Democrats to regain so many of the available seats, and President Obama's approval rating has been all over the place of late: in a recent Gallup poll of twelve swing states, seems that the "Republicans want to ban contraception!"-hooey may have taken its toll, as Romney lost his lead among women voters in those states between February and March; but in a new Fox News poll, Romney is beating President Obama nationally, 46 versus 44 percent. As ever, with that evergreen disclaimer: plenty can change between now and November, and at the end of the day, it really is anyone's game. But be careful not to get cocky there, Ms. Pelosi -- especially with The One instituting an every-Democrat-for-himself approach to collecting campaign cash.