Former ABC News reporter Carole Simpson --who in 2008 insisted Hillary Clinton was the best candidate for president because of her gender -- is hoping that the women of America will rise up and demand that the presidential debate commission make a female journalist the moderator of at least one of the forthcoming presidential debates.
In a telephone interview with Politico, Simpson made perfectly clear her reasons, all but saying that the media-imagined "war on women" has something to do with it, making claims about Romney's positions on the issues that are woefully inaccurate:
She was less reserved over the phone: "Women see the world differently, we have different interests," she said. "Romney wants to make abortions illegal, he wants to kill Planned Parenthood, he wants to repeal health care on day one -- this election in particular has so many issues that matter not just to women, but to families. It's critically important that a woman be a moderater, and be able to ask woman questions, family questions."
Romney is not anti-Planned Parenthood, just anti-taxpayer-funding of Planned Parenthood. He does wish to repeal ObamaCare, but it's virtually impossible that he could do so on "day one" and he most certainly cannot unilaterally repeal legislation without a bill of repeal passed by Congress on his desk. What he has said he would do on his first day in office is to issue executive orders to grant waivers to states.
As to the claim that Romney wants to make all abortions illegal, that claim was circulated in an Obama ad that was judged as patently false by PolitiFact.
From her March 8 CaroleSimpson.com post "Fight Women, Reelect Obama":
Barefoot, pregnant and staying home. That’s where Republican men apparently want to see women of the 21st Century. They have begun their endgame by chipping away at women’s reproductive rights. Predominantly white male-dominated legislatures in 20 states have enacted onerous restrictions on women’s health, including Texas, which now forces women, who want an abortion, to submit to ultrasound probes of their vaginas. Cruel and unusual punishment for getting pregnant? I think so.
Simply put, Simpson is a radical pro-choice feminist. Granted, there are many of them in America, but also many more pro-life women voters who do not share Simpson's politics nor values.
Simpson cannot and should not claim to speak for them, nor can she claim to be able to pick who would be representative of the average Jane American, although she most certainly is willing to take a stab at it.
From Dylan Byers's item at Politico:
The question that stumps Simpson is, who would that moderator be? Both campaigns have to agree on the moderator, ruling out many of the women who work for conservative and liberal media outlets.
Three names come to mind: "Soledad O'Brien [of CNN] I think still has retained her solid news credentials. And she's half-hispanic, half-black," Simpson, who is African-American, said. "Diane Sawyer [of ABC] would be great, but she has the Nixon connection from years past, which she has hoped to live down. Christiane Amanpour [of ABC and CNN] would be great on foreign policy issues, not quite as strong on domestic ones."
