Ed Kilgore asks a tough question in the title of a post at his Washington Monthly ‘Political Animal’ blog” “How Much Violence Against Women’ Do Republicans Support?” Kilgore explains:

If you’ve been following the debate in the Senate over the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act [VAWA], you know that Republicans are complaining that they don’t want the act to expire, but object to “poison pills” Democrats have added to the bill, particularly protections against domestic violence for undocumented women and for people in same-sex relationships.
But they are not handling the messaging of their position very well…This GOP exercise in damage control, however, may not be enough to spare their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, for whom the VAWA issue is becoming another in a long series of examples of his weaselly refusal to take a distinct position. He’s sort of for VAWA renewal, but doesn’t think it should become a “political football,” and won’t say what version he’d support.

Kilgore quotes from Steve Benen’s Maddow Blog litany of Romney evasions on current newsworthy issues, including the Violence Against Women Act. he notes Benen’s observation that “The American electorate can tolerate quite a bit, but no one respects a coward.”
As Kilgore concludes, “…Maybe reporters navigating the Romney campaign’s evasions should try a different tack, asking exactly how much violence against women the candidate and his party are willing to accept? Maybe that will flush them out, and produce some straight answers.”