Now that we’re past the election, can we finally put aside the war on women accusations and rhetoric? There are signs that this political tactic, which the left has been using to garner female votes, has lost its effectiveness.

Make no mistake, a gender gap still favors Democrats. But the party’s strategy, painting conservative Republicans as conducting a war on women, has pretty well petered out.

In the 2014 election cycle, the left’s principal candidates in this war were Colorado Senator Mark Udall, running for a second term, and Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, running for governor. Both lost. Wendy Davis lost big.

Senator Udall focused tremendous campaign energy on contraception — drowning out other important issues. He actually tanked among women.

Wendy Davis — famous for her 2013 filibuster for late term abortion — simply couldn’t get beyond that issue. Really, what were Texas Democrats thinking in nominating a person who earned the nickname, “Abortion Barbie?”

Planned Parenthood campaigned heavily for both these candidates, claiming to have knocked on a million doors and made two million phone calls on behalf of these two. By the way, Planned Parenthood spent $18 million this campaign season to fight the so-called war on women. Other Planned Parenthood and Emily’s List favorites in supposedly tight races, like Senator Kay Hagan in North Carolina, went down to defeat.

For decades the pro-abortion regime has claimed the word choice as its own. It protects choices for abortion and for contraception that can work by causing abortion. It even expects taxpayers to pay for those things and anyone who opposed that was part of this war on women. Now, as talk of that war subsides, President Obama may, perhaps inadvertently, be starting another war on women — against the choice some women make to be stay-at-home moms. A pre-election speech he made in Rhode Island was revealing.

He was speaking in Providence, attempting to rally the female vote. He touted one of the left’s elusive goals: government-provided so-called “high quality preschool.”  In defending this concept he insulted stay-at home moms. He said: “Sometimes, someone, usually mom, leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result. And that’s not a choice we want Americans to make.”