Daily French Roast

Anne is reading …

Sally Tepper, 12, watches her mother, Dana, vote in Nashville, Tenn., on Tuesday. Pew experts say Romney trails Obama among women, 38 to 59 percent.Can Republicans Win Over Women in November? NPR

At least for now, president Obama has opened a major lead among women voters, leading Republican Mitt Romney 59-38 percent in the latest Pew Research poll. Obama is even leading among white women, a group he didn’t carry in 2008. Men polled by Pew prefer Romney 50-45 percent.

Ohio working and single Republican women delivered Mitt Romney’s queak-though primary win over Rick Santorum last night, supporting the candidate over Santorum by a 8-point margin.

All sides agree that the recent barrage of discussion around women’s access to health care and contraception, followed by agressive language around his idealized vision of women’s lives by Rick Santorum and then the recent Rush Limbaugh attacks on Sandra Fluke, saying that “She (Fluke) wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.” have given millions of American women a 2012 reality shock.

USA Today reports that Limbaugh has lost more than 30 national and local advertisers on his syndicated radio program since calling Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute.” Liberal watchdog group Media Matters keeps a list saying that Limbaugh has lost 36 advertisers as of yesterday. Rush denied that he has lost any sponsors of significance and in a convoluted argument that I don’t truly understand, makes the case that his finances are better than ever. The talkster says he has two-three major sponsors signing on, and it wouldn’t surprise us. Plenty of people think as Rush Limbaugh does. Read on at Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh’s latest target is investigative journalist Tracie McMillan, author of The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s. Farm Fields and the Dinner Table. Referring to the author as a “babe”, an “authorette” and, more broadly, one of “these single white women.” Continuing, Limbaugh preached:

What is it with all of these young single white women, overeducated — doesn’t mean intelligent. For example, Tracie McMillan, the author of this book, seems to be just out of college and already she has been showered with awards, including the 2006 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. … Her degree is not in food or nutrition. She has a B.A. from New York University in political science.

More DFR

Over 1500 students have joined a Facebook group committed to fighting the hateful online exchange that broke out between Columbia College and Barnard students yesterday. Trying to create perspective, the Columbia Spectator wrote today:

After the announcement that President Barack Obama, CC ’83, would be speaking at Barnard’s commencement, some CC students took to Spectator and Bwog to criticize their peers across the street. While their initial complaints were directed at Obama for coming to Morningside Heights but not speaking at his alma mater, their anger led to many misogynist comments challenging Barnard students’ intellect.

Unlike the New York Times, Jezebel published examples of the comments made about Barnard, which remains a women’s college with the Columbia University system.

“While you guys were perfecting your deepthroating techniques and experimenting with scissoring and anal play, we were learning Calculus (usually by sophomore year of high school).”
“Barnard is full of academically inferior students that are able to use OUR campus, take OUR classes, and are stereotypically easy to get in bed. We feel like we worked our asses off to get here, and it’s annoying as fuck that Barnard can get the milk for free, so to speak.”
“this is why we hate you cum dumpsters.”
“Moral of the story is that ugly, feeble Barnard women need to shut their jizz holes and just be happy that Columbia let Barnyard pretend it was affiliated for this long.”
“This is a really shitty way to cap off our years at Columbia. The biggest marker of our time spent here will be overshadowed by the women across the street.”

Murkowski’s Chilly Reception

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski was reelected as a write-in candidate after the Tea Party dumped her re-election bid for being too moderate.

In Alaska for the start of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, the senator kept running into female voters who “were coming unglued”, furious with her for voting for Blunt. Murkowski went on record saying that she’s a moderate.

She supports abortion rights and contraception coverage. She also doesn’t line up completely with the Catholic Church when it comes to birth control. She regretted her recent vote.