Mitt's Snake Oil

Mitt Romney, and other Republicans, are trying to establish a narrative suggesting that Obama’s policies have been bad for women.  They claim that more than 92% of the job losses during Obama’s tenure have been women’s jobs.  Many fact checking sites have reported that this figure simply reflects the fact that women’s job losses were delayed compared to men’s, with the bulk of men’s job losses occurring before Obama took office (chart below).  See here, and here, for example.  You’d think that a smart guy like Romney wouldn’t stoop to using such a statistically sleazy approach to boost his campaign, but maybe I’m overestimating him. 

Mitt Romney is selling snake oil these days

He’s using some numbers in misleading ways

To say that women have lost more than guys

In jobs due to actions Obama devised.

He’s using statistical legerdemain

To muster support for his flagging campaign.

You’d think that a businessman’d have more respect

For numbers than t'use them in ways so suspect.

Now other Republicans start to chime in

Employing Mitt’s same old discredited spin.

They must think that women really are dumb

To this false, meretricious spiel to succumb.

It’s as funny as many old British farces

To see them talk blithely out of their arses.

From New York Times, April 12, 2012