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Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign said on Wednesday that they disagreed with Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock's statement that pregnancy from rape "is something that God intended to happen," but the former Massachusetts governor still supports him.

During a debate on Tuesday night, Mourdock had said that he did not support abortion in cases of rape or incest.

“I believe life begins at conception,” he explained. “The only exception I have for to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother. I struggled with myself for a long time but I came to realize life is that gift from God, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape. It is something that God intended to happen.”

Romney has endorsed Mourdock and recorded an advertisement personally encouraging voters to support him. Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's super PAC also donated $5,000 to the tea party-backed candidate in June.

In August, Romney appeared at a campaign event with Mourdock in Evansville, Indiana.

"This is a man that I want to see in Washington to make sure that we cannot just talk about changing things, but actually have the votes to get things changed," Romney said.

Democrats have called on Romney to rescind his endorsement of Mourdock and immediately pull the advertisement.

But Romney campaign spokesperson Andrea Saul insisted on Wednesday that the former governor still backed Mourdock.

"Gov. Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock, and Mr. Mourdock’s comments do not reflect Gov. Romney’s views," Saul said in a statement. "We disagree on the policy regarding exceptions for rape and incest but still support him."

For his part, Mourdock held a press conference on Wednesday and said his comments had been taken out of context.

"I made a comment that I made, quite honestly, from the deepest roots and the greatest base of my faith," the Senate candidate told reporters. "I'm a much more humble person this morning because so many people mistook, twisted, came to misunderstand the points that I was trying to make."

"I spoke from my heart, I spoke with my principle, I spoke from my faith, and if others wish to turn those words and somehow use them against me, again, that's what's wrong with Washington today," he added. "Anyone who goes to the video tape and views [it] understands fully what I meant."

"I don't think God wants rape, I don't think he wants that at all because rape is evil. I abhor evil. I want to assure every woman who sees this and reads the story that I abhor it and I'm confident God abhors it."

In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz connected Mourdock's comments to Republican Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin's claim that women could not get pregnant through "legitimate rape."

"Unfortunately, these types of comments have become part and parcel of the modern Republican Party's platform towards women's health," she said. "Congressional Republicans like Mitt Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, have worked to outlaw all abortions and even narrow the definition of rape."

"Try as he may to distance himself, Mitt Romney has demonstrated time and time again that he is a part of the extreme right wing of the GOP with the likes of Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin, especially when it comes to issues effecting women and their bodies. Just this weekend, Romney endorsee Steve King questioned whether birth control is even legal. There is definitely a pattern here."

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Anne Romney, the wife of GOP hopeful Mitt Romney, on Thursday insisted that she and her husband would not be giving voters any more information about their tax returns because they had "given all you people need to know."

"You know, you should really look at where Mitt has led his life, and where he’s been financially," Ann Romney told ABC's Robin Roberts. "He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year. Do you think that is the kind of person who is trying to hide things, or do things? No. He is so good about it. Then, when he was governor of Massachusetts, didn’t take a salary for four years."

"We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life," the candidate's wife added.

Regarding the Obama campaign's attacks on Mitt Romney's connection to jobs that were sent overseas by his former company, Bain Capital, Ann Romney said that "it was beneath the dignity of the office of the president to do something as egregious as that."

The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday apologized for a web video that featured a dancing horse to mock the former Massachusetts governor for not releasing his tax returns. The dressage horse, which is owned by the Romneys, will perform ballet at the Summer Olympic Games in London.

“It makes me laugh, it’s like, ‘Really?’” Ann Romney explained on Thursday. "There’s so many people out of work right now. And there’s this guy right here who has the answers for fixing the economy and all these attacks, they’re gonna try everything."

“Basically, my philosophy is they’re gonna fire the coach,” she predicted. “I already sort of know the answer. At the end of the day, they’re going to fire the coach because things aren’t going well.”

(h/t: Politico)

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I'm sure by now that everyone who follows politics has had about a belly full of the fake outrage over Hilary Rosen's statement that Ann Romney has “never worked a day in her life," when it should be obvious to anyone that heard her, that she was talking about the fact that because Ann Romney has not worked a job outside of the home, her qualifications to advise the campaign on economic issues that concern women, when worrying about how you're going to pay your bills, has obviously never been an issue for her.

The Romney campaign has been desperate to change the conversation from the "war on women" — unless of course it's Mitt Romney accusing President Obama of waging one — and unfortunately Rosen stuck her foot in her mouth and gave them an opening to get the media to change the dialog to women working outside of the home.

Here's how Romney's surrogates were attempting to frame the debate today: Romney Surrogate Says Hilary Rosen Was Delivering Obama’s Message Against Stay-At-Home Mothers.

In the clip above, Luke Russert is desperately trying to hammer home that same theme, and even initially identifies Hilary Rosen, wrongly, as an adviser to the DNC. Their director, Patrick Gaspard, corrects him, which is followed by Russert literally badgering him about whether Rosen is a paid adviser, or an unpaid adviser, or whether she advises the Obama campaign. And finally he more or less asks if she even talks to them at all.

I'm not sure how many more ways Gaspard could have told Russert no, but after the fourth time, he finally stopped drilling him on her nonexistent ties to either organization. I think this dust up is a big distraction and it makes the Romney campaign look desperate. I would guess most people don't even know who Hilary Rosen is unless you follow politics closely, and as Gaspard stated, she's not working for the Obama campaign or the DNC, but sadly if she were, I think the media would continue to flog this story all the way though the election this November.

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On this Wednesday morning's call in show on C-SPAN, Washington Journal, after first listening to a caller who talked about how badly George W. Bush screwed up the economy and that if we have another stolen election like the one that put him in office we might see another revolution, the discussion turned to George W. Bush's appearance at the New York Historical Society this week.

The guests were Sean Spicer, Republican National Committee, Communications Director and Brad Woodhouse, Democratic National Committee, Communications Director, and here's what Spicer had to say in defense of George W. Bush.

SPICER: I think he leaves a great legacy. I mean, in terms of what he did for job creation, getting this country... and obviously our attempts to deal with the war on terror. But I think, ironically, last night I was sitting there trying to do my taxes and thinking “Oh my gosh, the so-called Bush tax cuts are expiring” and how that will actually, you know, for what I owe this year, how much more I'm going to have to pay next year because of that.

So I think a lot of people are having buyers... are looking back saying George W. Bush actually did have some... a strong vision for this country and you know, there's been bumper stickers all over town saying “Miss me yet?” And I think a lot of people are going, wow, he actually, compared to what we have now... you do look and talk about the economy and say, hey, that was probably much better than where we are now.

Remember, the Democrats had a problem when unemployment was at 4.9 percent that Bush wasn't tackling jobs and the economy. Now it's at 8.2 and there's talk about how great the President's doing tackling it so...

WOODHOUSE: I am so glad the RNC just embraced the fall of 2008. That's where we got the Bush economy. That's where we got from the tax cuts. That's what we got from the deregulation of Wall Street. That's what we got from the deregulation of polluters and big oil, is we got the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression and the RNC just embraced that as an example to go forward.

It's too bad Woodhouse didn't have a copy of Steve Benen's bikini graph handy to show Spicer since he decided it was a good idea to brag about job creation under George W. Bush. The numbers today aren't great, but we aren't falling off a cliff like we were when Bush left office.