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 ||||| Less than 24 hours after Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen mocked Ann Romney for having "never worked a day in her life," Rosen apologized to Romney this afternoon for her "poorly chosen" words and aimed to "put the faux 'war against stay at home moms' to rest once and for all." 
 
 "I apologize to Ann Romney and anyone else who was offended," Rosen said in a statement. "Let's declare peace in this phony war and go back to focus on the substance." 
 
 Former first lady Barbara Bush commended her apology, echoing Rosen's plea and saying people should "forget it." 
 
 "Life is good," Bush said on Fox News today. "Women who stay home are wonderful, women who go to work are wonderful. Whatever." 
 
 Bush, who worked at home raising seven children, one of whom would go on to become the 43rd president, said she was lucky to have had the luxury of staying home. 
 
 "I was lucky my husband worked very, very hard," Bush said. "I realize that was a luxury and Ann does, too. She's a very good friend of mine." 
 
 The former first lady added, "I'm not critical of Hilary, but I'm just sorry that she took a knock at those of us who chose and were able, I must confess, able is a very important part of that, to stay home and take care of their children." 
 
 As the general election revs into full force, women's issues and the "war on women" have taken center stage, with President Obama aiming to maintain his substantial lead among women voters and Mitt Romney striving to rekindle support with the all-important female voting bloc. 
 
 But Rosen's remarks Tuesday pushed policy prescriptions to the back seat as leaders of both parties focused squarely on her personal attack. 
 
 Obama condemned Rosen's remarks, saying candidates' families should be off limits. 
 
 "I don't have a lot of patience for commentary about the spouses of political candidates," the president told ABC's Cedar Rapids affiliate KCRG. 
 
 While Rosen sought to refocus the debate on whether Romney has "a vision for bringing women up economically," she did not back off her comments this morning. 
 
 "This is not about Ann Romney, this is about the waitress in a diner in some place in Nevada who has two kids whose day care funding is being cut off because of the Romney-Ryan budget and she doesn't know what to do," Rosen said on CNN. "This isn't about whether Ann Romney or I work, other women of some means can afford to make a choice to stay at home and raise kids. Most women in America, let's face it, don't have that choice." 
 
 Ann Romney hit back an hour later, telling Fox that her "career choice was to be a mother." She said that whether women chose to work or to stay home and raise children, "we have to respect women in all those choices." 
 
 "Mitt respects women that make those different choices," said Romney, who'll be 63 Monday. 
 
 About a quarter of U.S. women made the same choice as Ann Romney to make "mother" their job title in 2010. According to the most recent Census data, 23 percent of married women with children younger than 15 were stay-at-home moms. 
 
 But most of them were more likely than working mothers to be Hispanic, foreign born and without a high school diploma, according to Census data for 2007, the most recent year for which such data is available. 
 
 None of those labels apply to Ann Romney, but the mother of five boys and grandmother of 16 children sought to make it clear that her not having to work doesn't mean she has lived a life without difficulties. 
 
 "Look, I know what it's like to struggle," Romney said today on Fox, pointing to her battle with breast cancer and multiple sclerosis. "Maybe I haven't struggled as much financially as some other people have, but I can tell you and promise you that I've had struggles in my life." 
 
 But it was not the stay-at-home mom comments that bothered Romney as much Rosen's remark Wednesday that Ann Romney "doesn't really see us [women] as equals." 
 
 "That does bother me; that is not correct at all," Romney said, adding that as governor, her husband had a female chief of staff and a female lieutenant governor. "He admires women and listens to them and I am grateful that he listens to me." 
 
 Michelle Obama added her voice to the debate Wednesday as well, tweeting, "Every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected -mo." 
 
 Although the first lady tweeted her support for stay-at-home moms like Romney, the Romney campaign still tried to paint Rosen's comments as a message sent straight from the White House. 
 
 "It's hard for me to believe that Hilary Rosen, who has visited the White House 35 times recently and advises on-message, would make remarks like that in a haphazard or freelancing way," Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R- Wy., said on a Romney campaign conference call with reporters. 
 
 White House spokesman Jay Carney refuted the claim that Rosen was a frequent visitor at the White House. 
 
 "I do not know how many times she's been here," Carney said Wednesday at the daily press briefing. "I have not seen her here very recently." 
 
 Carney said he personally knows three people named Hilary Rosen, and is "not sure" if the White House records showing her visits "represent the person we're talking about." 
 
 Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., who was on the RNC call call with Lummis condemning Rosen's remarks, emphasized Rosen's role as a "President Obama adviser" and "DNC strategist," descriptions that a Democratic National Committee official has also denied. 
 
 DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida condemned Rosen's remarks via Twitter today, writing "Disappointed in @hilaryr 's comments. As a mother of 3 there's no doubt that raising children is work." 
 
 The Republican National Committee had called on Wasserman Schultz to apologize for Rosen's comments, saying they were "insulting and insensitive." 
 
 "To suggest that any mother has 'never worked a day in her life,' is an affront to mothers everywhere," RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said Wednesday in a statement. 
 
 Democrats swiftly aimed to distance the party and the president from Rosen's comments Wednesday night as well. 
 
 Two top Obama campaign advisors tweeted Tuesday night that her comments were "wrong" and "offensive" and Democratic National Committee Executive Director Patrick Gaspard went on MSNBC Wednesday morning to specify that Rosen is "not an adviser to the DNC or the Obama campaign." 
 
 Obama campaign manager Jim Messina called for Rosen to apologize, tweeting that "family should be off limits." 
 
 While Obama is currently leading among all women voters, ABC contributor Cokie Roberts points out that married women voted Republican when George W. Bush headed the ticket. Those married women, many of which are mothers, could be a vital part of a winning coalition come November. 
 
 "The reason the Obama camp is reacting so vigorously is that those women are up for grabs, unlike single women who form a solid Democratic bloc," Roberts said. 
 
 As the focus has turned to the general election in the past two weeks, the Obama campaign has come out in full force to support women. The president hosted a White House forum on women and the economy last week and the campaign launched an attack against Romney for his perceived waffling on whether he supports the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which helps women pursue pay discrimination claims. 
 
 An ABC-Washington Post poll released this week shows that Obama far ahead of Romney when it comes to female voters. Women support the president over Romney by a 19-point margin and when asked which candidate voters trust to handle "women's issues," Obama's lead among women grows to a 27-point margin. 
 
 Romney has ramped up his efforts to close that gap, filling campaign events with women's groups, sending out email blasts from female politicians and specifically attacking the president's record on women's unemployment. 
 
 "The real war on women is being waged by the president's failed economic policies," Romney said at rally in Connecticut Tuesday. "His failures have hurt women."
– 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."