During this election season, the Left’s appeals to me as a woman have been below the belt. Literally. The Colorado Democratic Party has sent me three mailers in the past few weeks about birth control. I have yet to receive anything that appeals to my heart, mind or spirit. I’ve been checking the mailbox but thus far no mail on my role as a small businesswoman, as a community volunteer, as a taxpayer, as a citizen, as a grad student, or even as a dog owner. Sadly, there’s been no appeal north of the belly button.

Obama Campaign messages like “Vote like your lady parts depend on it” deny my very humanity as a thinking and caring individual.  How many campaign commercials and speeches are devoted solely to the issue of contraceptives?  Even though nobody in the audience asked about birth control, the President brought it up in the last debate. I feel like pointing to my head and saying “I’m up here guys.” Our mothers and grandmothers fought entrenched sexism so that we could be seen as equally smart, capable, and complex as men. It’s 2012 and we’re back to being defined solely by our capacity for child birth.

I sense a backlash brewing. The most recent Gallup Poll shows that women are switching their preference from the President to his opponent Mitt Romney. The 13 point advantage the President enjoyed over then-presidential candidate Senator John McCain in the last election has evaporated to single point advantage among likely female voters in the swing states this time.

Clearly women care about the economy, high unemployment, rising gas and grocery prices,  health insurance, mounting national debt, and violence overseas. We care about the rising level of poverty and the loss of opportunity.  We know that birth control is universally available in this country and that scare tactics are not only baseless, but a sad attempt to distract us from these real issues.

It’s not working. I am more than the sum of my parts. All of me is showing up to vote in November.  And I am not alone.