Feminist groups not even a little intimidated by Mitt Romney's appeal to women on the economy

Surprisingly, merely having a wife does not exempt a candidate from needing
positions that women like. (Jeff Haynes/Reuters) It's not exactly the shock of the election cycle that women's groups including the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority and the National Congress of Black Women endorsed President Obama Wednesday morning, but they're not just making the case against Mitt Romney on the fertile ground of the Republican War on Women. As TPM's Pema Levy highlights, the feminist groups are also going straight to the economic territory Romney is trying to stake out to appeal to women.

Public sector job losses, especially at the local level, are hitting women especially hard, and Terry O'Neill, president of NOW, told Levy that:

"If you look at those layoffs, fully 28 percent of them happened in Texas. More than 40 percent ' another 40 percent ' happened in those states that were taken over by the tea party in the 2010 elections: Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Florida, Pennsylvania," O'Neill said. "Those are the very leaders that Mitt Romney is promoting as people that he thinks they've got all the right ideas. ' So yeah, I mean, bring it. I really want to have that conversation with his campaign."

Doubtless feminist groups will focus much of their energy on reminding voters that Mitt Romney would eliminate Planned Parenthood and nominate Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. But what with Romney's refusal to say where he stands on the Paycheck Fairness Act or, for that matter, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, as well as his support for economic policies that would spell disaster for working women and men, women have a lot of reason to prefer Obama on the economy. It's good to see feminist groups excited to make that case.