Romney aide Etch A Sketch remark angers women

A Mitt Romney campaign adviser's comments Wednesday that the front-running Republican candidate for president could reset - "like an Etch A Sketch" - his stands on issues if he becomes the GOP nominee brought a stinging response from the head of the nation's largest reproductive rights group, who said women voters will not accept flip-flops on issues such as birth control.

"We will make damn sure that women know where Mitt Romney stands" on matters related to women's health, said Nancy Keenan, head of NARAL Pro-Choice America in an interview with The Chronicle. She addressed more than 1,000 women Wednesday at the group's annual Power of Choice lunch at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, shortly after Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom made the comments that became a campaign nightmare.

CNN asked Fehrnstrom whether his candidate could tack more to the political center in the November general election against President Obama, a Democrat.

"Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign," Fehrnstrom said. "Everything changes. It's like an Etch A Sketch. You can shake it up and we start all over again."

Women's rights

Keenan, a leading voice on women's health and reproductive rights issues, said women's groups are likely to seize on the gaffe. She skewered the idea that Romney could reshape himself.

"He has called for the defunding of family planning and Planned Parenthood," she said, supports overturning Roe vs. Wade - the landmark Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal - and has said he backs the notion of redefining "personhood" to include fetuses as a way of further restricting legal abortion.

"This guy is about as bad as ever ... as far as a candidate who opposes women's rights," Keenan said. "The contrast between Obama and Romney will be stark," she added, predicting that soon, "you are going to see a much more engaged effort in defining who Mitt Romney is."

The brouhaha over the Romney aide's comments came hours after the former Massachusetts governor won the Illinois primary, which many political observers said virtually cements his chances to become the GOP nominee.

Romney's opponents immediately jumped on the gaffe. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum took it on the campaign trail, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tweeted his criticism.

In an attempt to deal with the blowup, Romney said his aide's comments were misinterpreted. "I was a conservative Republican governor and I'll be running as the conservative Republican nominee," he said.

Shifting positions

But many women at the San Francisco event were angered over the GOP's handling of women's health issues - including the shifting positions of Romney, once a pro-choice governor who has appealed to conservatives in his 2012 campaign by stressing what he calls his unassailable pro-life credentials.

Participants in the women's forum criticized Romney and other Republican presidential candidates for failing to denounce radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh for using "slut" and "prostitute" to describe Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University student who had testified before a congressional panel in support of health care law provisions requiring employers to offer insurance that covers contraception.

Limbaugh later apologized for his words, saying they were "inappropriate."

But Keenan said her organization has been deluged by support and donations in the wake of Limbaugh's comments, particularly from "young women and men who want to be involved."

"We had our 'Roe' moment," said Keenan, speaking of Baby Boomers who became politically active during the fight for legal abortion. For voters in their 20s, she said, Limbaugh's comments have had a galvanizing effect.

Impact on race

A recent poll by Washington firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found that GOP candidates' positions on birth control could have a measurable impact on the presidential race.

Voters in battleground states, the survey found, believe by wide margins that Democrats "do a better job" than Republicans when it comes to access to birth control, women's health issues and abortion.

Oakland City Auditor Courtney Ruby, who attended the San Francisco event Wednesday, said the GOP presidential field has shown itself to be wedded to "an antiquated message" that has failed to recognize the links between women's health and contraception.

TV's "The Daily Show" co-creator and former head writer Lizz Winstead, who addressed the crowd, said GOP presidential hopefuls Romney, Santorum and Gingrich have, with their continued talk about birth control, engaged in what she called "a tireless fight to see that American women have the same rights as Saudi Arabian women."

Carla Marinucci is a San Francisco Chronicle political writer. cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle