The Liberal War on Women

Now that Hillary Clinton has by default sewn up the Democratic nomination, expect Democrats to play the gender card for all it’s worth. Hillary recently lashed out at the Republican field for holding “extreme views about women, we expect from some of the terrorist groups but it’s a little hard to take from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States.”

So much for cleaning up the harsh partisan discourse in Washington.

Hillary’s “gender equity” agenda includes family leave legislation and a federal mandate requiring that women receive equal pay. This from a senator who from 2002 to 2008, paid her female staffers 72 cents for every dollar paid to males, or $15,708 less than the median salary for a man, according to an analysis of data from official Senate expenditure reports.

The strategy here is to try to continue to exploit the gender gap that widened in the past two presidential elections. In 2012 Barack Obama won 57 percent of the women’s vote. President Obama has done especially well with single women winning 66 percent in 2012.

But it may not work this time around and here’s why. Working women have gotten crushed under the weight of Obama policies. During Mr. Obama’s six and a half years in office women have suffered steeper declines in take home pay than men have. Women have also experienced sharper declines in employment and a faster rise in poverty. The financial squeeze has been especially severe for single women.