Rosengate

On Wednesday night Hilary Rosen, a strategist at the political consulting and media firm SKD Knickerbocker, appeared on CNN and, while chastising Mitt Romney for relying on his wife Ann for advice about what women voters want, claimed Ann Romney had "never worked a day in her life." Rosen's comments set off a media and social media firestorm that has continued into Thursday's news cycle.

The Romney campaign seized upon Rosen's comments as an opportunity to attack the Democratic Party and the Obama administration on the topic of women. Media outlets and blogs continue to approach this as a significant story and, clearly, the more leverage the Romney team can get out of it the better.

The Obama administration immediately disavowed Rosen's comments and made clear that she is not a part of the campaign. Michelle Obama, herself a stay-at-home mother, encouraged respect for all mothers and women via her Twitter account.

My sense of it is that while Rosen's comments and the Romney campaign's attempts to leverage them may be exciting in the short term, they will have a short shelf life. I agree with Josh Marshall at TPM that the Republican response to Rosen is less an effective change in the narrative than it is an articulation of the concern (not yet desperation) that team Romney has regarding his standing in polls of women voters. Mitt Romney's campaign strategists know perfectly well that he cannot win in November if he does not improve his numbers with women. The narrative that they put forward, that the Democrats have manufactured a "war" on women, disguises their very real concern about their candidate's ability to stay competitive with President Obama in the crucial battle for women's votes.

Update: Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post seems to agree.