Heh. So the Republicans are running scared: they don’t know how to talk to or about women. So they’re having training sessions to teach Republican candidates how to address (or perhaps, more importantly, how not to address) women..
"The National Republican Congressional Committee wants to make sure there are no Todd Akin-style gaffes next year, so it’s meeting with top aides of sitting Republicans to teach them what to say — or not to say — on the trail, especially when their boss is running against a woman," Politico reports.
One problem: for this to work, Republicans will have to learn how to talk like progressive, liberal Democrats. There might be a small conflict there.
More importantly, they’ll have to learn not to hate women.
Don’t make such extreme demands!
You mean “Lead with leady leadership!” (in regressive, conservative, Republicanese, of course.)
Here’s a link to the more in-depth Politico story that inspired the very brief one in the OP.
The R’s are in a bit of a bind, one of their own making. Those who soft-pedal the social issues are apt to get “primaried” by the TeaParty wing, while those who don’t will inevitably offend women. And men, but especially women.
Pretty much the same thing I think about whenever I hear about the Catholic or any other church wondering how they can stay relevant to young people or women. “Simple, just change your entire set of values.”
Those sessions are great–I understand they have binders full of women you can practice talking to.
Meh. As long as Republicans insist on treating women as ‘ladies’, they’re gonna have a problem with women. All they’re trying to do here is avoid pissing women off while maintaining their appeal to sexist men. That’s a big reason for the GOPs ‘family values’ posturing.
Actually, I’d rather that they “gaffe” their Honest Opinions; ideally on live TV. It makes it less likely that someone might vote for them by mistake, based entirely on lies.
That way, they can vote for them on purpose, based partly on lies.
As for any politician.
</cynicism>
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“especially when their boss is running against a woman”
teehee
The truly amazing thing is that there are some women who belong to the GOP. But there again, women belong to religious organizations, such as Christianity & Islam. Wait, ……
Growing up, I heard a lot of adults going on about how corrupt the latest generation is. These adults were typically more concerned about superficial politeness than actual morality, and especially did not appreciate being told their sins.
As an adult, I still see the same thing.
They also need to spend some time learning how to talk to the working poor, many of whom just happen to also be women. Comments like Romney’s 49% gaffe and many other similar comments from other arrogant Republican rich, White men cost them points. But it’s all just window dressing. They won’t really be different…and the reality has a way of shinning through. As good Christians, they have to let their little light shine.
They’ve been obsessed with language for a long time. As if the real problem isn’t that their attitudes and beliefs are insulting to others, it’s they’re just not using the right words to express them. Note to Republicans: if you have to keep faking it, there’s a serious mismatch between you and the people you presume to lead.
Even if it were possible for the current crop of Republicans to learn how to speak in ways that don’t alienate women voters there are two reasons that is doomed to fail.
1) Any “moderate” (and by moderate I mean a sliver to the left of the most far right elements of the GOP) Republican will have to amp up their hate talk to fend of Tea Party primaries. The Tea Party was more angry at the GOP than at Obama and the Dems after the shutdown debacle.
2) The base will be releasing their misogynistic ID for all to see when the Democratic candidate is a woman in 2016. If you think it’s ugly out there now, guys, wait until Hillary formally starts campaigning. The right wing ID is a frightening place.
So this is a waste of time. This is just consultants making coin. It won’t achieve anything.
One of the mysteries of the universe.
A woman voting for the GOP is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.
Problem: Todd Akin’s statement was not a gaffe. He was expressing a genuinely held belief.
So, long as the content of Akin’s statement remains a genuinely held belief among Republicans, no amount of dog-whistling euphemism will suffice.
raven @ 15:
Chickens vote for Col. Sanders because they know it’s the hard-working 53% that lay most of the eggs while the other 47% just expect their feed to be served to them for free for nothing. Chickens are kind of stupid that way.
This. This is why so many Republican candidates repeat their own mistakes. They attempt to rephrase the same repugnant ideals, thinking it’s a language problem.They don’t understand that it’s not that we don’t get it. We do. And what’s rejected is the horrific set of ‘values’ that they are fighting tooth and nail to hold on to. There is no easy language fix for their problem.
Guys, there are Log Cabin Republicans.
People have got to get over the fact that people can support hatred of themselves. It’s not some anomaly. It happens all the time.
@10 and @15 Actually, polls suggest married women vote majority Republican, it’s the single women that are overwhelmingly Democratic. There is a simlar split for men, though I don’t know how much this is influenced by age.
As for the GOP and its problems with women, I have a simple three step program:
1. Do not talk about Rape
2. DO NOT TALK ABOUT RAPE.
3. See #1.
He was pretty much completely unapologetic about it.
I read a (probably biased) article about Texas Republicans getting scared. Perry is more or less being forced–by Republicans–to “negotiate” expanding Medicaid to cover more working poor and take up the slack that the rest of the ACA doesn’t cover. I can’t remember where I read it, but it was probably one of the Kos blogs.
It is too much what I want to hear and so I am very leery of it, but if Wendy Davis is really scaring them as badly as that article stated, we may end up with a purple Texas in 2014 and have my state firmly back in the blue by 2018.
Which would be cool. But I am not ready to hold my breath yet. There is no question we will end up that way, but probably not that quickly.
Talk to women, talk about women – the real secret is that these don’t mean shit unless they listen to women.
I totally believe Wendy Davis might win. I have to believe that the progressive Texas I grew up in will return.
Texans kicked the shit out of Jim Crow by the early sixties and did this because white business folks listened to black civil rights leaders and realized Texas would become a joke state if we didn’t give that shit up. White business folk wanted money and international recognition. White folks listened and acted, and Texas became badass cool and got lots of money. But it all started falling apart in the eighties and was done when W beat Richards in 94.
But if Richards could win as Texas was in decline, perhaps Davis can win to mark a restoration to the Texas of the seventies.
So Republicans are like PUAs in that they have to have a “formula” for how to attempt to convince half the population to do what they want.
Zeus forbid they see recognize women as full human beings, rather than just meatpuppets from whom to lure votes/sex.
It’s almost as if they’ve figured out that there’s almost no way to gerrymander around 50% of the population!
There’s a quaint naivete about the Republicans that would be amusing to see, if not for the subject. “Our policies are obviously correct, but we get yelled / laughed at every time we talk about them. Obviously we need to say it better!”
You’d think the fact that they are having to talk so circuitously about their policies would be evidence enough that the policies themselves are what people object to… but no, it’s obviously just poor phrasing.
Idiots.
There’s a Twitter hashtag, #howtotalktowomen, which looks promising. (e.g. Snobo @snerber Find a nice way to clearly explain that you want to give more constitutional protections to zygotes than to women #HowToTalkToWomen)
The obvious solution is for the NRCC to contemplate and cleanse themselves in a James Arthur Ray style sweat lodge. I think GWB has a property that could be used for constructing it. They could even put cameras inside to show how serious they are. Can you imagine seeing all that white male blubber sweating out ideas?
Every saturday. That’s sauna, the birthplace of many a great or not so great idea.
Holms @ 27:
It’s like Libertarians – “We know we’re right, and we know our ideas are really truly what everyone thinks… so the fact that what we say sounds horrible must just be a phrasing problem!”
Republicans seem to be sleeping during the How to Talk to Women and about Women classes. case in point:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/goper-worries-about-his-wife-going-shopping
What gets me is that most of these men are married! Don’t they ever talk to their wives?
I think the proper terminology is that they talk at their wives. They definitely don’t listen to their wives.
@Frog:
I’ve long had the feeling that it is exactly this that will finally get the GOP to drop its opposition to queers forming households. “Yes! Please! Get married! And did you notice that we’ve appropriated federal development funds for a housing district celebrating the historical contributions of queer Americans right over there in congressional district #4?”
I dislike the reports calling Todd Akin’s thing a gaffe. Ok, so maybe “legitimate rape” was a faux pas, but the rest of what he said demonstrates the complete ignorance of the party. Labeling it a poor word choice, in my opinion, distracts from the message that they really are that ignorant. That was not a blunder. He meant to do that.