It's been another slip-up day for Willard M. Romney. First, he said today in an interview he's opposed to the Senate amendment which would allow employers to deny coverage for birth control.
"I'm not for the bill. But, look, the idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and a woman, husband and wife, I'm not going there," he told a Ohio news station, one day after beating the socially conservative Rick Santorum in the Arizona and Michigan primaries. It's on camera.
Romney's campaign quickly walked back his comments in a statement to TPM, saying "the way the question was asked was confusing," a spokesman told TPM. "Governor Romney supports the Blunt Bill because he believes in a conscience exemption in health care for religious institutions and people of faith."
Romney himself tried to clear up any confusion.
"I didn't understand his question. Of course, I support the Blunt amendment," Romney said later today in a radio interview with the Howie Carr Show. "I thought he was talking about some state law that prevented people from getting contraception...I thought it was some Ohio legislation where employers were prevented from providing contraceptives and so I talked about contraceptives and so forth so I really misunderstood the question."
The Blunt amendment, which would override President Obama's hotly debated contraception rule, gives employers the right to refuse to cover any medical issue that it finds objectionable for moral or religious reasons.
The Senate could vote on the amendment as early as tomorrow.