Framefail in the "war on women" — reframed by Drudge.

This has been up all morning at Drudge:



Let's look at those links. 

The first small-print one — "Adviser to Obama, DNC Attacks Ann Romney" — goes to this video clip of DNC advisor Hilary Rosen, trying to say that Mitt Romney "doesn't connect" on the issue of women struggling economically: He's "running around the country, saying, well, 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." She pauses, then blurts out the unfortunate line, which she clearly thinks is a great zinger: "Guess what? His wife has actually not worked a day in her life." She ends with "He seems so old fashioned."

That's the framing of Mitt Romney that the Obama campaign wants: Who are these out of touch people? Ironically, it was profoundly out of touch with the many women who work in the home (and with the many women who've professed to respect the choice that some women make to devote themselves to homemaking). This is the problem with these framing efforts. You have to brainstorm, imagining all the ways in which your opponents can use it against you. Framefail.



Drudge has done the obvious reframing. His large-print link goes to: "Ann Romney Fights Back: Debuts on Twitter to Counter DNC Advisor's Insult." Ann's first tweet is damned near perfect: "I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work." Choice. She spoke their word. Hard work. Putting it simply. Who can argue? (Follow her here.)

Let's go to the rest of the Drudge links. The next one is "Rosen frequent White House visitor...," an item at NRO by Jim Geraghty, who's checked the White House logs and found "Hilary Rosen" there 35 times, much more often than, for example, Petraeus or Panetta.

The second small link is "ANN: 'She should have come to my house -- it wasn't so easy'...", which goes to an article summarizing Ann Romney's appearance on TV this morning. ("She should have come to my house when those five boys were causing so much trouble. It wasn't so easy.... Maybe I haven't struggled as much financially as some people have, but I can tell you, I've had struggles in my life. I would love to have people understand that Mitt and I have compassion for people that are struggling.") Also at that link, Rosen stands by her marginalization of Ann. ("Most women in America — let's face it — don't have that choice. They have to be working moms and home moms.")

Next: "POLL: Nearly 2 of 3 stand with wife..." This refers to a little poll they're doing at a WaPo blog:

Was Hilary Rosen out of line with her comments that Ann Romney "has never worked a day in her life."?

Yes, raising a family is a lot of work.

No, Ann Romney is out of touch with the economic issues facing working women.

It's not 2 out of 3 anymore. It's 96% calling out Rosen. Drudge-driven traffic, of course. But that's my point. Rosen's frame set up a reframe. Disastrous framefail.

This is creating so much interest in Ann Romney now, shining a sudden bright light on her, and she is so ready. She's a great persona, better than Mitt at talking to people and generating warmth.

The final link is: "OBAMA: 'We Didn't Have The Luxury For Michelle Not To Work'..." A Harvard Law graduate is going to position himself as empathetic, saying his wife had to work? Michelle didn't choose? That makes no sense. It's not that they "didn't have the luxury," it's that they wanted luxury. She worked to achieve greater wealth. That was not necessary. It wasn't wrong either, but own it.

Despite its appearance among the Drudge links, that was not an effort by Obama to fix the framefail. The linked article is from April 9. Now, I think in that clip Obama sounds nicely empathetic to the way working mothers feel:

"Once I was in the state legislature, I was teaching, I was practicing law, I'd be traveling... And we didn't have the luxury for her not to work. And I know when she was with the girls, she’d feel guilty that she wasn’t giving enough time to her work... And when she was at work, she was feeling guilty she wasn’t giving enough time to the girls. And like many of you, we both wished that there were a machine that could let us be in two places at once. And so she had to constantly juggle it, and carried an extraordinary burden for a long period of time."

I'm sure that was hard work. But Michelle was making $300,000+ doing "community affairs" at the University of Chicago Medical Center. That was no ordinary job, and that money bought a lot more luxury than most women have. Plus, there was choice. Obama didn't have to take the kind of work he did, making less money and traveling as he built his political career speedily, while the girls were still very young.

But let's keep following this "out of touch" meme. Who's really more out of touch with the likely voters of America?