Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) went even further. “It is outrageous that in 2014 some in Congress apparently still think that women don’t deserve to earn the same amount as a man for doing the same job,” she said in a statement.

Oh come on.

Before you start checking the byline at the top of this piece and emailing the editor that there’s been a terrible mistake, let me be clear: I support ensuring that women receive equal pay for equal work — I have a bit of a vested stake in that issue myself. Unequal pay remains a problem, although not at the women-earn-77-cents-on-the-dollar level of Democrats’ sloganeering. Most relevantly, I’d vote for the Paycheck Fairness Act in the unlikely event that someone elected me to Congress.

But the level of hyperbole — actually, of demagoguery — that Democrats have engaged in here is revolting. It’s entirely understandable, of course: The Senate is up for grabs. Women account for a majority of voters. They tend to favor Democrats. To the extent that women — and in particular, single women — can be motivated to turn out in a midterm election, waving the bloody shirt of unequal pay is smart politics.