Hilary Rosen, a Democratic operative with SKD Knickerbocker, touched off a Twitter storm tonight after she went on CNN and said that Ann Romney has "never worked a day in her life." 
 
 The statement was tweeted and retweeted, with a number of people condemning the statement as an attack on the candidate's wife, who was a stay-at-home mom who also raised the couple's five boys, and who has suffered from MS and breast cancer. 
 
 Ann Romney, who is widely praised as her husband's most effective surrogate, took to Twitter herself for her first-ever post, saying, "I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work." 
 
 (See also: 10 things about Hillary Rosen) 
 
 A number of people leapt to her defense, and President Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina and top adviser David Axelrod tweeted out disavowals of a statement that seemed insensitive to stay-at-home moms and sounded like a devaluation of what Ann Romney's life was like. 
 
 “I could not disagree with Hilary Rosen any more strongly. Her comments were wrong and family should be off limits. She should apologize,” Messina tweeted. 
 
 "Also Disappointed in Hilary Rosen's comments about Ann Romney. They were inappropriate and offensive," Axelrod tweeted. 
 
 Rosen's firm also employs Anita Dunn, former White House communications director, and worked on the Obama campaign in 2008. Her critics on Twitter described her as an "Obama adviser," just a bit of a stretch in description, but not enough of one for some critics, especially after Democrats have hit Republicans for guilt by association with people like Rush Limbaugh for months. 
 
 Regardless, Rosen doubled down — tweeting back at Ann Romney, "I am raising children too. But most young American women HAVE to BOTH earn a living AND raise children. You know that don't u?" 
 
 Earlier, she tweeted in her own defense, "When I said @AC360 Ann Romney never worked I meant she never had to care for her kids AND earn a paycheck like MOST American women! # Truth" 
 
 And she went further in a Huffington Post blog item, saying Mitt Romney has to stop hiding behind his wife's "skirt," and condemned the "faux outrage" from the right. 
 
 Ann Romney, according to Dylan Byers, will be on Fox News tomorrow morning, giving the issue fresh life. And Ann Romney is known for giving strong interviews. Her husband is also guaranteed to be asked about it — and if the perception is she is being unfairly attacked, he will have won the cycle, and potentially many more to come. For Romney, who polls show facing a large gender gap with women and who has been trying to move away from social issues conversations, it could help him. 
 
 The flip side is that Rosen's comments are now getting oxygen beyond the Twitterverse (and the CNN-verse), letting Democrats underscore, without doing much to push it out themselves, the notion that Ann Romney, whose husband was a success in business, may not have had a life similar to some swing voters' lives, despite how hard she worked raising her kids. 
 
 Also worth noting — Messina's line that family should be "off limits." Given the criticisms that Michele Obama has received over the years, it seems likely that Rosen's comment will be highlighted by Democrats if something comes up in the future. 
 
 UPDATE: Rosen appears to have rewritten her Huffington Post blog post last night; the line about Romney hiding behind his wife's skirt is no longer there, and now the column mirrors one that ran on CNN's website. ||||| 7 years ago 
 
 (CNN) - Democratic Strategist Hilary Rosen generated instant bipartisan criticism Wednesday night for her statement that Ann Romney has "actually never worked a day in her life." 
 
 The reaction on Twitter from high level politicos was instant and virtually unanimous: Rosen had gone too far. 
 
 - Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker 
 
 Rosen: Ann Romney and working moms 
 
 Rosen's comment also prompted Ann Romney herself to make her twitter debut. 
 
 "I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys," Romney tweeted. "Believe me, it was hard work." 
 
 Rosen, also a CNN political contributor and a working mother, made her comments on CNN's "AC360." 
 
 "What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country, saying, 'Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues, and when I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing.' Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life," Rosen said. 
 
 "She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing, in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future," Rosen continued, adding that Romney "just seems so old fashioned when it comes to women." 
 
 Her comments drew instant criticism on Twitter from campaign advisers on both sides of the aisle, as well as one of Romney's sons. 
 
 Josh Romney posted that his mother "is one of the smartest, hardest working woman I know. Could have done anything with her life, chose to raise me." 
 
 The senior adviser to President Barack Obama's reelection bid also took to Twitter to distance the campaign from the comments. 
 
 "Also Disappointed in Hilary Rosen's comments about Ann Romney," David Axelrod wrote. "They were inappropriate and offensive." 
 
 Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter posted, "Families must be off limits on campaigns, and I personally believe stay at home moms work harder than most of us do." 
 
 Several press aides to Romney's campaign - Andrea Saul, Ryan Williams, and Amanda Henneberg - posted links tying Obama to Rosen, such as her appointment as a DNC adviser and her appearance at a White House event. 
 
 Romney campaign strategist Eric Fehrnstrom wrote: "Obama adviser Hilary Rosen goes on #CNN to debut their new "kill Ann" strategy, and in the process insults hard-working moms." 
 
 Eric Erickson, a CNN political contributor and editor of a conservative website, appeared on the same panel as Rosen, and tweeted, "If raising 5 sons through breast cancer and MS isn't a real job, I'm not sure what is." 
 
 The comment drew criticism from a Republican member of Congress, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, who posted, "Wrong. Being a mom is a full-time job." 
 
 Rosen explained her comments in a post on the social networking site. 
 
 "When I said @AC360 Ann Romney never worked I meant she never had to care for her kids AND earn a paycheck like MOST American women! #Truth," she wrote. 
 
 She later posted a direct comment to Romney. 
 
 "Please know, I admire you. But your husband shouldn't say you are his expert on women and the economy." 
 
 Also see: 
 
 Romney on Santorum: 'This has been a good day for me' 
 
 Louisiana governor endorses Romney 
 
 Crossroads GPS to drop $1.7 million against Obama ||||| « Eight Interview Tips | Main | How to Land a Dream Job » 
 
 Vivia Chen 
 
 April 16, 2012 
 
 I swore, swore, swore that I was not going to enter the fray. But I can't help myself. 
 
 I'm talking about the dustup over political consultant Hilary Rosen's comment that Ann Romney "never worked a day in her life." As you undoubtedly heard, Rosen made the comment on CNN, reacting to Mitt Romney's statement that his wife keeps in touch with the concerns of working women. 
 
 Almost immediately, Republicans seized on the issue as an indication of Democrats' contempt for stay-at-home moms. And almost as immediately, Democrats (including President Obama) jumped in, condemning Rosen's comment. All of this was fueled by Ann Romney's first-ever tweet: "I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work." 
 
 Do I think raising five kids is a lot of work? Of course. But do I think Rosen's comment is dead wrong? No. Rosen's mistake is that she didn't say it in a technically correct way. What she should have said is this: "Ann Romney never worked at a paying job a day in her life." 
 
 And therein lies the distinction that politically correct people (on the left and right) dodge when it comes to women's work: Working for a paycheck is different. And doing so while juggling home and work demands—particularly in pressure professions like law—adds another layer of complexity to the equation. 
 
 To me, it's crystal clear that being a woman who works outside of the home brings a different set of perspectives and experiences to the table. It's certainly an anachronism these days to have never worked at a paying job—which apparently is Ann Romney's situation. 
 
 No, I'm not going into how some women have to work to support their families—because that opens up a whole can of worms about class and economics. Too often, we hear: "A lot of women would love to stay home if they could afford it"—as if staying home is what women truly aspire to do. These arguments make working women look self-righteous, which I find almost as nauseating as stay-at-home moms who claim they're the ones who have their priorities straight. 
 
 My point is that it's ridiculous to collapse all of "women's work" into one big pot. And it's also ridiculous when President Obama says there's "no tougher job than being a mom." Really? Isn't being the leader of the free world just a tad tougher? 
 
 Being a mother—actually, can we make that "parent"?—is always tough. But must we always put motherhood on a pedestal? 
 
 Ann Romney seems like a perfectly nice person, but I don't think that someone who hasn't worked outside of the home can really speak empathetically or knowledgeably about the concerns of working women. I certainly wouldn't try to pretend to know what it's like to stay home with five kids. 
 
 So can we stop the pretense and admit there's a difference? 
 
 Related post: The Rich Husband. 
 
 Get the latest from The Careerist—free! Sign up today--see box on upper right corner. 
 
 Do you have topics you'd like to discuss or tips to share? E-mail The Careerist's chief blogger, Vivia Chen, at VChen@alm.com.
– Democratic operative Hilary Rosen set off a Twitter tempest yesterday when she said on CNN that Ann Romney has "actually never worked a day in her life," making her a poor adviser on women's economic issues. The backlash was fierce, Politico reports. Ann Romney joined Twitter to respond, using her first tweet to say, "I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work." But the condemnation was bipartisan; Obama campaign director Jim Messina said he "could not disagree with Hilary Rosen any more strongly," while David Axelrod said he was "disappointed" by her comments. But Rosen hasn't backed down. "Spare me the faux anger," she wrote on the Huffington Post. She explained that she had nothing against stay-at-home moms, but "that is NOT a choice that most women have in America today."