Ohio GOP Senate Candidate Calls Women ‘Crazy’ for Caring About Abortion
This isn’t even the first time Bernie Moreno has made horrifically stupid comments about abortion.
AbortionPolitics
If I were a Republican running in a state where an abortion rights ballot measure triumphed over staggeringly aggressive voter suppression efforts, I’d be careful how I spoke about the issue. However, Bernie Moreno, the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Ohio, seems to be going a different route.
At a town hall last week, the Republican businessman running to oust incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown called women voters who care about abortion rights “a little crazy” in a series of head-spinning remarks that his own team is now trying to write off as “a tongue-in-cheek joke.” WCMH, the NBC affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, first reported the comments on Monday night.
“You know, the left has a lot of single issue voters. Sadly, by the way, there’s a lot of suburban women that are like, ‘Listen, abortion is it. If I can’t have an abortion in this country whenever I want, I will vote for anybody else,’” Moreno said. “It’s a little crazy by the way, but—especially for women that are like past 50—I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t think that’s an issue for you.’”
First, abortion isn’t a “single issue”: We’re watching abortion bans upend the entire health system in real time, push people deeper into poverty, and bankrupt individuals who have to travel out-of-state for the procedure. Second, even if forced pregnancy and birth were a single issue, it would be pretty fair to be a “single issue voter” for that. And third, just a little campaign advice: You should probably avoid using the word “crazy” to describe women voters who will likely decide the outcome of your race.