Headline of the Day

Swing States Poll: Women Push Romney Into Lead. "As the presidential campaign heads into its final weeks, the survey of voters in 12 crucial swing states finds female voters much more engaged in the election and increasingly concerned about the deficit and debt issues that favor Romney."

There are, of course, other issues about which female voters are interested, but President Obama isn't talking about them. As I said last week: "The Democrats' silence on reproductive rights does not treat it like the marked party distinction it is; it treats it like an issue they don't even think is worth talking about."

So it all comes down to Other Stuff, and it's too late now to go back and not concede the Republican talking point that the deficit is A Problem so that the entire economic conversation isn't on conservative terms. Whoooooooooops!

"In every poll, we've seen a major surge among women in favorability for Romney" since his strong performance in the first debate, veteran Democratic pollster Celinda Lake says. "Women went into the debate actively disliking Romney, and they came out thinking he might understand their lives and might be able to get something done for them."

That's the cost of President Obama taking female voters for granted, of coasting on "Lilly Ledbetter" for four years, of the Democrats lazily assuming every woman will axiomatically vote for the party who promises to "protect Roe" while letting it be hollowed out in state legislatures across the nation, where women and other people with uteri have to actually navigate the restrictions their ostensibly pro-choice President couldn't ever be bothered to criticize from his bully pulpit.

The ultimate cost might be the election. And the terrible part is that it's still women who will pay.