Planned Parenthood has come up with a big pink sign that it plants next to Republican campaign placards. It says, “Women are Watching.”

There’s been plenty for women to keep an eye on.  The Republican chant to take this country back apparently includes taking back some basic reproductive rights for women.

We’ve heard it before from the Republican front. They don’t trust a woman to choose what’s best for herself and her family when it comes to baby-making. They seem to think that that family planning should be practiced only by God.

If you are a woman and you are watching you might wonder what century does this backward brotherhood come from? What country are we living in? If you are a woman living in a so-called backward country that looks to America as a model of freedom, you might be asking, what’s going on, sisters?

Of course the abortion debate is standard Republican rhetoric. One candidate brings it up and they all follow like a chorus of neighborhood dogs barking at the garbage truck. And enjoying it as much.

Oh good, here comes abortion, let’s all get crazy.

But this time around they added in this unbelievably dumb idea that birth control is a bad thing. Rick Santorum was clearly the alpha dog on this one, declaring that contraception is “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

Wait a minute, Rick. Think back to your sex ed years, although maybe you had parental permission to skip class. Doing things in a sexual realm without contraception is a license to cause unwanted pregnancies and invite terrible diseases including AIDS.

Santorum says it should be okay for states to make birth control illegal. And how would he do this? With diaphragm detectives, pill police, a raid on the rubber aisle at Rite-Aid?

It’s tempting to turn it into a bad joke except that being the  champion of non recreational sex plays well with the Christian Conservative extremist vote. And yes, I know that bloc includes women.  But for women who believe in keeping the government out of the bedroom and ob-gyn clinics, this patriarchal playlist is disturbing.

After the New Hampshire primary Cecile Richards, head of Planned Parenthood, told Rachel Maddow the Republican primary is “absolutely a race to the bottom for women, where they are trying to outdo themselves on who would be the worst president for women.”

The Republicans have long tried to paint Planned Parenthood as abortion central, ignoring that its services include safe sex counseling, cancer screenings and preparation for pregnancy.  They would eliminate Title X, the federal program that gives low income women access to family planning programs. They would prohibit American health agencies operating in foreign countries from even mentioning abortion. Rick Perry is crowing over Texas forcing doctors to show a sonogram to any pregnant woman before she gets an abortion.

Maybe when the pack of GOP hopefuls thins down to a couple of real candidates they’ll have to talk about issues more crucial than who’s toughest on women bodies.

Like what jobs the job creators are ready to offer. What to do for people without health insurance. How to protect the country from more ruin by banks and big business. What’s better than Social Security and Medicare.  How to give all children, including poor kids, an equal chance.

On this,  women will definitely be watching. With the same eye on Democrats and President Obama, too.

I put in a call to Mr. Republican. That would be my late father, V. Paul, or Victor Paul. I’d like him to sit in his chair in my living room and talk politics. The wingback’s been in the family for three generations and what he was sitting in when he died of a heart attack while watching the Today show more than 20 years ago in Pennsylvania.

I’m ready for a talk with a life-long proud member of the GOP. V. Paul loved being a Republican and gave me an “I Like Ike” pin when I was little. I sure did like my dad so I wore the pin although it didn’t turn me into a Republican.

I wonder if my dad and Ike know that Susan Eisenhower, the late president’s Republican granddaughter campaigned for Obama. She worried that the political environment was being taken over by angry, noisy extremists. That was over a year ago, in a relatively civilized time before town meetings, Washington marches and presidential addresses turned into a hate-it, hate-him blood sport.

(Speaking of mood swings, I can’t believe it was only this spring I wrote about Americans becoming less rancorous. Boy, did my inner Pollyanna speak too soon.)

But back to V. Paul. I’d liked to ask my dad why he thinks other rational, smart and compassionate Republicans like himself would allow gun-toting fear-mongers to take over their party and foul its legacy. I know there are radicals on both sides but where’s the conservative balance?

Are there no Republicans who cringe when they see this craziness being committed in their name?

I think back to last October when John McCain stood up to the screamers in Minnesota to reassure a woman that Obama was a decent family man and there was no reason to fear him. It reminded me why even some Democrats once thought McCain might make a good president. But the crowd booed McCain. They didn’t want to hear any respectful words about Obama, and that seemed to end it for any high profile Republican daring to set a gracious example.

Too bad. It’s a fine American tradition to disagree. My dad and I used to argue each other’s ideas at the dinner table until he’d finally declare a halt, saying “We’re upsetting your mother.”

I don’t want to demonize Republicans. I don’t want to stereotype them as the No Party. But I don’t get why they give a pass to the rowdy, rude and sometimes racist crowd who seem bent on scaring America.

I don’t believe that all Republicans are out to punish the poor and immigrants and think anyone who needs government help is a deadbeat. But why are there no leaders telling their people to keep it civil and if they want respect to leave the damn guns at home?

My dad and I would certainly disagree over the government taking on health care for all. One of his first jobs was selling insurance in Pittsburgh. The first time I ever heard the term “socialized medicine” was from him. As for Afghanistan and Iraq, it would be the same arguments we had over Vietnam.

But V. Paul argued in a rational, educated way. He didn’t care for coarse vulgar people.
He’d think anyone shouting “you lie” to the president of the United States was pretty much a jackass.

My dad believed that America was the greatest country and the Republican party truly grand but I’d love to know, from his vantage point, if he still thinks that.

Sit down, Dad. We need some help down here.