establishment a lesson. we will rebuild america and not manage its decay and with your help that is what we will do. gingrich was introduced by his wife. the battle over contraception and religion appears to be moving forward despite president obama s solution. under the president s plan women will still get free access to birth control regardless of their employer and religious institutions will not have to provide coverage. instead the rule shifts the responsibility to the insurers, not the employers. mike viqueira is live at the white house for us. reporter: it had become a political mess for the obama administration not because the public doesn t back the policy of supplying insurance companies, requiring them or requiring institutions and companies and corporations across this country to supply contraceptive coverage but they did so on the religious
48 in new orleans and i ve got to tell you, we usually recommend south florida, but, alex, 66 is cold for floridians, that s for sure, tomorrow aels forecast. bundle up. oh, cry me a river. are you kidding me? if those folks are complaining about 66! mike, thank you so much. well, the fight over contraception and the catholic church and white house health care policy, what kind of impact might this have on the 2012 race? joining me now is john green, professor of political science at the university of akron ohio. professor green, good to see you. great to be with you. is this the kind of religious issue that s going to linger into november, or do you think this is just a couple of weeks of a dustup and then it will go away? it all depends on how voters end up defining the issue. as your previous guests mentioned on the program, if it s defined as a public policy issue, it may not have a lasting impact. if it s about women s rights and so forth. on the other hand, if it gets d
[music plays] [music plays] purina one beyond. food for your cat or dog. new reactsion this morning to president obama revamping his recent controversial birth control policy. the president announced friday female employees at religious institutions will be able to receive free birth control directly from health insurance companies. some religious employers fiercely objected to the president s initial mandate which required them to provide contraception despite it going against their religious beliefs. if a woman s employer is a charity or a hospital that has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of their health plan, the
economy. you have women who had been frustrated with the president quite frankly during the health care reform bill, remember the stupak amendment and the deal about abortion. you have women having the president stand with him and a lift to rick santorum and extending the presidential prima primary. i would tweak that a little bit. you have the opportunity to talk about religious freedom, which is something that mobilizes. we ve been talking in this political season that they re concerned conservatives won t show up in november, if mitt romney is the nominee. but this lights a fire. this does in fact light a fire for conservatives. it lights a fire for conservatives. they re not going to talk about contraception at the end of the day. they re going to talk about going to war with the church. they re going to talk about government yet once again overreaching of. those are the things they ll use. but what are independents going to take away from this? they re going to go, rea
policy will both protect religious freedoms as well as a woman s right to contraception. under the plan, religious employers will not have to cover birth control for their employees. instead, the government will demand that insurance companies will directly responsible for providing free konlt contraception. joining me in studio for a change, we were just talking about that, msnbc contributor susan del percio and msnbc contributor crystal ball. it s good to have you guys here. thank you. let s get the conversation going with you, susan. do you have a snar yoe cenario you believe this is exactly how the white house expected this all to play out? here s why i say this. because the president went out there and got women to stee that he is a staunch supporter of female rafe rights and then tweaked it a bit to satisfy the religious groups. dow think this was the play from day one? it looks like it in retrospect. but when you saw this unfolding it really did not seem the case. when dav