Democrats must accept that this year's "war on women" was a disaster

Even Sandra Fluke
Sandra Fluke, the birth control activist, tried to turn her stint as the War on Women’s poster child into an actual political career. She campaigned for President Obama in 2012 as part of his centerpiece War on Women messaging, though never to large crowds. And she moved to California to run for the state legislature. Her opponent was another Democrat and he handily beat her by more than 20 points, even though she’d raised more than $1 million.

Kay Hagan, EMILY’s List
Mark Uterus/Udall got much of the attention for his radical War on Women campaign. But Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina also tried to characterize her opponent as an enemy in the war. Like Udall’s, her opponent also responded by noting that he actually thought birth control should be available over the counter without a prescription. Even with huge national get-out-the-vote operations and the support of the pro-choice group EMILY’s List, Hagan lost her race to Thom Tillis. It’s worth noting just how horribly Planned Parenthood responded to the news that the candidates they’d claimed were anti-birth control monsters in fact supported offering it over-the-counter. They fought it! As Ben Domenech pointed out, “It’s also certainly a total coincidence that birth control is a major lead generator for Planned Parenthood, to the degree that they can’t afford to lose their existing purpose as a source of prescribed contraception without it hurting their status as an institution.” Somehow it didn’t occur to the Planned Parenthood folks that opposing making birth control easier to get while claiming that’s what opponents are doing would kill the War on Women messaging.