Sorry Republicans, but those forced-birth ads failed you

This election cycle, Republicans’ obsessive quest to invade and control the bodies of anyone who might become pregnant—by forcing them to endure unplanned, unwanted, and sometimes life-threatening pregnancies—certainly inspired no shortage of creativity.

Admittedly, some of their brightest ideas failed to gain any traction; New Jersey state Sen. Ed “The Trucker” Burr is now sadly out of a job come January, after telling women they should just “keep their legs closed” and adding his “like” to a post that, according to Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, said women ought to be spayed like dogs. As Marcotte notes, even Durr’s fellow Republicans balked at him saying the ”quiet parts out loud.”

Durr gets to go back to driving trucks and spewing his misogyny over a CB radio, but plenty of other Republicans were part of a slick, well-funded effort to convince voters that Democrats were “just too extreme,” on abortion. They tried multiple tacks to amplify this theme, none of which worked.

RELATED STORY: Republicans have never been this panicked over their abortion debacle—never