There has been a lot of hyperventilating about how this birth control ruling would be a problem for President Obama but the reality is a solid majority of regular Americans support contraceptive coverage. From PPP:

-56% of voters generally support the birth control benefit, while 37% are opposed. Independents strongly favor it, 55/36, and a lot more Republicans (36%) support it than Democrats (20%) oppose it. Women are for it by a 63/29 margin.

-Only 39% of voters support an exemption for Catholic hospitals and universities from providing the benefit, while 57% are opposed to one.

-There is a major disconnect between the leadership of the Catholic Church and rank and file Catholic voters on this issue. We did an over sample of almost 400 Catholics and found that they support the benefit overall, 53-44, and oppose an exception for Catholic hospitals and universities, 53-45. The Bishops really are not speaking for Catholics as a whole on this issue.

Basically what we are seeing is that there isn’t a lot of opposition to the ruling among the general public, but there is among a section of the Republican base.

The ruling is opposed by 58 percent of Republicans and 73 percent of Republicans who are Catholic. This is important because we currently have a Republican Presidential primary going on with candidates competing for these voters.

The front runner Mitt Romney is using this issue to try to prove to religious conservatives he shares their beliefs. In addition, Rick Santorum sees real political gain in making the primary about social issues. His long term commitment to the culture wars is one of Santorum top selling points to the base and it also serves to indirectly highlight Romney’s flip flop on abortion. As a result the candidates and their surrogates have been talking about this issue a lot in the past few days.

If this GOP primary wasn’t going on right now I doubt the issue would have gotten so much media traction. After all the require that employers provide birth control coverage has been in place for years, the only big change is the co-pay requirements.