Sunday morning political rewind

(LIN) – Less than one day after former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., picked up a win in the Washington GOP caucus, he also picked up the endorsement of a key congressional leader.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Romney’s business background and economic plan was enough for him to back Romney for president.

“I think there’s one candidate in the race who will fix economy… Mitt Romney is the man for this year,” Cantor said on “Meet the Press.”

Cantor’s endorsement will likely carry momentum over to Super Tuesday, at least to Virginia, where it will be 1 in 11 states holding either a primary in caucus. Only Romney and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, are on the ballot in Virginia and Romney has about 69 percent of the vote.

Some Republicans may also be privately hoping that the national conversation is switched back to jobs and the economy, instead of social issues like women’s rights and contraception.

“One thing that can bring people together is economy and jobs,” said Cantor.

The firestorm that is circumventing around the contraception conversation erupted when radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh called a Georgetown law student “a prostitute,” when she testified in front of a House Democratic panel.

The law student, Sandra Fluke, testified in favor of a provision in President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care reform bill which mandated insurance companies cover contraceptive services.

In her testimony, Fluke gave examples of friends not being able to cover the cost of contraceptive services.

Limbaugh, an opponent of the bill, ripped into her testimony.

“She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps,” he said on his radio program.

He has since apologized.

“My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir,” he said on his website.

Republicans initially fought the provision within the health care bill as an invasion of religious rights, the ensuing fallout threatens to paint them into a corner as critical of women’s rights.

“I am astonished at desperation of elite media,” said 2012 presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. “To decide that Rush Limbaugh is the topic of the week…when you have a president who voted for infanticide when he was a State Senator. Nobody is blocking anyone from having access to contraception.”

Fellow candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, weighed in on the controversy too. “I think [Limbaugh apologized] because people dropped advertising from his program.”

Paul pointed to a larger point. “Should the government have a mandate? Why should someone who’s right-to-life be forced to pay for someone having an abortion?”