Romney says Obama campaign showed weakness with ‘cartoon’

For the Obama campaign, the creation of “The Life of Julia” was the latest campaign gimmick — drawing in female voters through social media to an infographic showing what a young woman’s life might look like under the policies of a White House run by Mitt Romney, rather than by President Obama.

But Romney does not seem amused.

“This little cartoon that they have on the life of Julia really reveals the weakness of the president’s policies,” the presumed Republican nominee told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a taped interview that aired Tuesday night. “To have to defend your record by coming up with a cartoon character, as opposed to real people, suggests that he doesn’t want to talk about his record at all.”

The Obama campaign invented Julia, a fictional character, during a national debate about the effects the proposed Republican budget would have on programs of particular interest to women, including Planned Parenthood, Head Start, public education and federal assistance for student loans.

Obama picked up that theme during a speech to kick off his general election campaign Saturday.

“We don’t need another political fight about ending a woman’s right to choose, or getting rid of Planned Parenthood, or taking away access to affordable birth control,” Obama said. “I want women to control their own health choices, just like I want my daughters to have the same opportunities as your sons. We are not turning back the clock. We are moving forward.”

But Romney, who has far less support than Obama among moderate and independent women, argued Tuesday that any effort to suggest Republicans were waging a war on women was disingenuous.

In the Fox interview, Romney said the campaign “to describe Republicans as being anything other than extraordinarily pro-woman, pro-opportunity for women of American, pro-moms, pro-working moms, pro-working women — look, that kind of effort is totally missing the mark.”

He added: “This is a race about helping America do a better job caring for the people of America, creating great opportunities for people in the middle class, helping people come out of poverty, that’s what it’s all about. And to suggest that Republicans or that I don’t care about any dimension of our society is simply misguided – it’s wrong, it’s dishonest.”

maeve.reston@latimes.com