In Context: Hilary Rosen saying Ann Romney ‘never worked a day in her life’

ANDERSON COOPER: Hilary, to the Romney camp’s point … they’re focusing on the economy, and that’s what women overwhelmingly say they really care about in poll after poll. Whether it’s a typical pattern or not, women are seeing jobs come back much more slowly than men are. 

 

Is there anything really wrong, then, with reaching out to women on an issue that they care about, on the economy? 

 

HILARY ROSEN, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first, can we just get rid of this word “war” on women? The Obama campaign does not use it. President Obama does not use it. This is something that the Republicans are accusing people of using, but they’re actually the one spreading it. 

 

With respect to economic issues, I think actually that Mitt Romney is right, that ultimately, women care more about the economic well-being of their families and the like. But there’s — but he doesn’t connect on that issue either. 

 

What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, “Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues. And when I listen to my wife, that’s what I’m hearing.” 

 

Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and how do we — why we worry about their future. 

 

So I think it’s — yes, it’s about these positions and, yes, I think there will be a war of words about the positions, but there’s something much more fundamental about Mitt Romney. Because he seems so old-fashioned when it comes to women. And I think that comes across. And I think that that’s going to hurt him over the long term. He just doesn’t really see us as equal.