At CNBC's "Your Money, Your Vote: The Republican Presidential Debate" on Wednesday, Senator Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina set the record straight on the so-called "war on women." The rhetoric from the Democrats and, nearly uniformly, from the mainstream media, is that Republicans hate women and want them to die of rape, and Democrats love women and want them to have abortions for equal pay, or something along those lines.
The moderator, Becky Quick, didn't use the words "war on women," but then, she didn't really have to, did she? The media have already done an excellent job of making that a household phrase. Like much of this debate, however, the candidates were ready to destroy liberal tropes with the truth.
Though Cruz spoke first, it was Carly who delivered the knockout blow:
"Becky, it is the height of hypocrisy for Mrs. Clinton to talk about being the first women President when every single policy she espouses and every single policy of President Obama has been demonstrably bad for women.
"92 percent, 92 percent of the jobs lost during Barack Obama's first term, belonged to women. Senator Cruz is precisely right. 3 million women have fallen into poverty under this administration. The number of women living in extreme poverty is the highest level on record. I am a conservative because I know our values, our principles, and our policies lift everyone up, men and women."
President Obama and candidate Clinton are on the same page when it comes to "the cause" of women, as moderator Becky Quick put it. The facts, however, are exactly as Carly Fiorina lays them out. Women do worse under Democrat policies. We see this in city after city in America where Democrats hold sway, we see it nationally under Obama.
But all the Democrats have to do is trot out liberal tropes about "wage gaps" and the importance of symbolic firsts - like first woman President - that primarily only benefit one woman.
Tribalism is the beating heart of Democrat thinking, of modern liberal American belief. Their sectarian points-scoring is everything to them. That and government dollars doled out to those groups. But what it is not about, what they, the liberals and the Democrats and press are absolutely not about, is results. Results for families. Results in your wallet. Results in your purse.
In fact, the only result you can be sure of is that in the end, those who suffer the most are those who liberals purport to protect, something Ted Cruz summed up perfectly in his own answer in the above clip.
The truth of the matter is, big government benefits the wealthy, it benefits the lobbyists, it benefits the giant corporations, and the people who are getting hammered are small businesses, it's single moms, it's Hispanics. That is who I'm fighting for, the people that Washington leaves behind.
Big government hurts women, as Cruz says. Responsible, smart policy life everyone, man and woman alike, as Fiorina finished. This was two terrific answers that made one excellent,true, and important point about the reality America faces this election. All of us.
