The Romney gang held a press conference in an attempt to start earning back the votes of millions of women they risked during the Clown Show. So Sam Stein asked a real simple questions and … well the video speaks for itself; this should have been a lay up for the Romney folks. Mittens has been fairly supportive of equal pay and related ideas in the recent past, compared to his knuckle-dragging aspiring counterparts anyway, and there’s little doubt in my mind he still is for equal pay. But the campaign was stuck, frozen like a deer in the headlights unsure what to say when asked about it, because they’re still in right-wing pandering mode where disagreeing with the Limbaugh-Hannity good ole boy nexus can bring down pain. Watching Mittens try to unload all that primary baggage is going to be awesome with awesome sauce.
The Romney campaign decided to try and strike back, feigning hurt feefees over a dem strategist quipping about Ann Romney’s job:
(WaPo) — Rosen — a Democratic activist, CNN commentator and, full disclosure, friend of Ruth — was talking about Mitt Romney’s move to deploy his wife as official ambassador to the land of women.“Guess what?” Rosen said. “His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing.”
Awoogah. Awoogah. Repeat after me: The acceptable formulation is “work outside the home.”
As Rosen, mother of two, well knows — and was reminded with Twitter speed Wednesday night — staying at home with the kids is the very definition of hard work. A day at the office, with no sticky little hands tugging at you, can feel like a vacation.
Fair enough, raising kids is time intensive. But it’s always easier when you are the spouse of a millionaire, because in that increasingly rare luxurious setting, the stay at home parent doesn’t have to work at an office, or travel, or get written up for daring to be a few minutes late for her 9 dollar an hour job by a 20 something single-with-no-kids head banger supervisor. What’s killing families these days when it comes to raising kids is juggling a full time job — along with lousy pay and benefits, and eroding workers’ rights — outside the home, with the traditional child rearing role inside it. Something the Romney’s never had to worry about and never will.
They’re gonna try and get some faux outrage mileage out of it anyway. But the best way for Romney to show he cares about issues important to women … would be to show he cares about issues important to women. And via Daily Kos let’s be absolutely clear about the effect on women of the budget Romney has endorsed:
- At least $291 billion will disappear from WIC, nutrition assistance, Head Start, child care, job training, Pell Grants, and more programs that support struggling families.
- $134 billion from SNAP, or food stamps, will mean something like 8.2 billion meals not served, in a single year; food out of the mouths of children and the elderly, a disproportionate number of which are female.
- $2.4 trillion from Medicaid and other health services will mean mothers will have a harder time finding medical care for themselves and their children, and for their elderly parents, again which are disproportionately female.
- 56 percent of Medicare beneficiaries are women, and the Romney-Ryan voucher plan will make them pay more and more each year out of their own pockets, to try to keep their medical care.
Unfortunately, for Romney, he belongs to the party that’s not just dead set against equal pay, reproductive rights, contraception, and healthcare for kids, they’re working actively at the state and national level to roll back aid and progress on equality, assisted by the usual suspects calling women who stand in the way sluts and whores.
Yeah, it must be really hard work to raise kids with a maid to do all the cleaning, a cook to prepare all the meals, and a nanny to take the kids to the park and wipe their noses.
And a husband to lift the dog onto the roof of the car…
I wondered, however, if the campaign simply didn’t know what the act was when they said “We’ll get back to you on that.”
I’d totally agree with their statement except that I seriously doubt that any family with that kind of money doesn’t hire a maid or nanny (or entire staff of them), allowing Romney to pick and choose the parts of childcare and housework she wants to do, while avoiding the stuff she doesn’t. That’s not work so much as it’s the freedom to spend time with one’s family on exactly the terms one wants.
Now, it’s still entirely possible that Romney HAS done an extensive amount of domestic labor – a big house (3, actually) and five kids certainly provide the opportunity – but to compare Romney’s domestic labor to that of someone for whom it’s a necessity (because that person can’t afford a staff of domestic laborers), and possibly a necessity on top of working a paid job, is absurd and insulting.
@2: That was my thought – I didn’t know what the act was, though I’m also not managing a presidential campaign, and maybe I should know what it is either way.
Maybe this is going to be the standard response to all questions?
He needs to find out which answer polls best, after all.
New Romney campaign slogan:
“I agree with every single person in America!“.
@Zinc Avenger:
Based on Romney’s recent remarks about the “war on women” and other issues in which he tries to turn everything around onto Obama, I think his new slogon is:
I know you are but what am I?
Meanwhile, RNC chair Reince Priebus is comparing women to caterpillars.
What do you expect? These people “think” that the goal is to make it so women don’t need to work, to get them back in the kitchens and stop taking up “men’s jobs”.
@ left0ver1under:
And yet, ironically, their economic policies have done a lot to make the two-income family mandatory for most Americans.
Ann Romney comes out as pro choice
I know a bit about Mitt Romney. I grew up going to church with him (I got better), Ann was my Den Mother for cub scouts, he spent time in France with my father doing the awful proselytizing thing that they do, and they were pretty close for decades afterward.
I would absolutely not want him for President. He may be a very good businessman, but I don’t think that gives him any idea how to run the country. Given all of that, I must say that in the many years I knew him (and it has been a long time now, but I am Taggart’s age, so those years were when his kids were young), they never had domestic help that I was aware of. So unless they hid them from their close friends, I don’t think that particular criticism has any merit. Lord knows, there are plenty of other avenues of criticism to take…
Thing is, Romney has the potential to be a decent, moderate, common sense GOP President. If he could be, if was able to behave naturally and pursue his own agenda. But so far he hasn’t been free to be that Mitt Romney, and in light of his behavior during the clown show, he’s OK with not ever being that Romney again.
I want Ann Romney to tell us all of her coupon clipping secrets to get the best prices at the grocery store.
Ann? Ann?