John McCain and Sarah Palin want you to believe that they support women's issues.
However, as the campaign continues, no one can seriously believe that this GOP team really cares at all about the concerns of American women. The nomination of Sarah Palin as VP just shows that McCain wanted a running mate with a vagina, not someone who supported women.
For starters, let's look at their social beliefs. Anti-choice. Anti-contraception. Anti-sexual education. Anti-teen mothers.
Not painting a very pretty picture here.
What's especially interesting to me is that McCain and Palin place virtually all the blame for teenage pregnancy on the mothers, while Palin's own daughter falls within that group. Presumably not thinking that her daughter would ever need such assistance, Palin slashed funding for teenage mothers during her brief time as governor.
In another fun "let's blame the women" moment in Palin's "executive experience" - Palin had a direct role in forcing Wasilla rape victims to pay for their own post-assualt medical exams. From that lovely news, I suppose it's not much of a logical leap to assume that Palin believes they brought it on themselves.
McCain seems to have picked Sarah Palin in a bid for angry Hillary supporters. Considering the paucity of experience on her resume, there was no other reason to pick her over other socially conservative candidates.
However, it's clear that Palin lacks the socially liberal views that attracted supporters to Hillary. McCain's nomination of Palin is a cheap and uneducated bid for socially liberal voters, and what's worse, this political move leaves American women in danger.
Some Americans vote on fiscal issues, but to me, that issue is effectively made moot by the fact that whoever wins, the president and Congress are going to have to work together to raise taxes AND decrease social programs to stop the hemorrhaging national debt. Plus, anyone who was voting for Republicans on fiscal conservatism doesn't really have that excuse anymore, considering the heavy spending done by Bush, Palin, and the pre-2007 Republican Congress.
Social issues are the key to this election, and in the realm of sensible, realistic, and sympathetic social values, Obama has McCain beat by a long shot for the above reasons and more. (Truly, though, McCain's frequent flip-flopping on key issues makes it difficult to pin down what he really believes. Chances are, his beliefs support his interests, not yours.)
For your uteruses, for your minds, for your children - vote Obama/Biden in November.
Kringle Fails
2 hours ago
11 comments:
Since you already know that we share the same vehement disgust for that woman's values, I'll just praise the messenger: you should send this along to the Obama campaign and a few newspapers! It's the dressing-down that she and McCain both deserve for putting her face on a national campaign.
Plus, anyone who was voting for Republicans on fiscal conservatism doesn't really have that excuse anymore, considering the heavy spending done by Bush, Palin, and the pre-2007 Republican Congress.
So I have a spouse that promises not to beat me, but then goes ahead and beats me. Are you suggesting that next time I should just go ahead and marry the one who is promising to really beat the tar out of me upfront?
I'm suggesting that they're all going to beat you, so voting for someone on whether they will beat you makes no sense.
val! my favorite flaming liberal feminist! this is my first foray into your blog and what a joy it is to read your maniacal rant.
so, val, a few questions for you:
this political move puts women in danger? isn't this a bit strong of a statement? what exactly do you think palin could do as vice president that would put women in danger? break a tie in the senate? and what vote exactly do you think is going to come up that she would be able to tilt in favor of "women being in danger"?
or wait, maybe you are concerned that she will become president when mccain croaks after a few months in office. so what danger will women be in then? other than the women who have made a choice to join the military, i cannot imagine what you think she could do to women as president.
from your blog i can see that you are concerned very much with female sexual issues. the problem is that you proceed from a false premise when you draw your conclusions about palin's actions. you assume that just because someone is pro-women (according to your definition) that they must necessarily believe that it is the gov't's role to pay for things for women.
well, isn't it possible that women should have the right to contraception, abortions, teenage pregnancy, and sexual education BUT that taxpayers should not have to pay for it?
val, am i anti-women because i believe that women should have all of these freedoms but that they should pay for it themselves (granted, sex ed presumably would be included in the public school curriculum, hence paid for by taxpayers)?
further, aren't all of these issues better left to the individual states? why exactly do you want the federal gov't involved in these things? do you not have enough faith in your state gov't to do all the things you believe the gov't should be doing for women?
just think, val, if we could get the federal gov't's nose out of women's business all together, you would never have to worry about a federal ban on abortion or contraception or sex education or teenagers getting pregnant (strange that you are such a fan of this).
I used to say that I'd be happy with either candidate. After this insult to women voters, I would be appalled if McCain was our next president. I will lose faith in our country altogether (not that there's much left after Bush's reign of terror). I'm all for Obama, and this is the first presidential election I'm legal to vote in!!
Be honest Val, you wouldn't hate her this much if she wasn't female. She's just standard right-wing talking points. What angers you is that she's departing from feminism, and you've defined feminism as standard left-wing policy decisions.
Feminism stopped being a movement towards gender equality the moment the institutional forces and old guard threw their ideals into the wind and viciously went to bat for the Clinton administration against Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers.
BTW, this is Nick. ;)
Nick, if you get to pull the gender card on Palin, why did you fight me about the race card on Obama?
@Cabbage: I'm not sure I understand your metaphor. Are you saying that heavy government spending is like getting beaten by your spouse?
I know it's all fashionable to rag on government, but government spending can do a lot of good things. I went to college with the help of a Pell Grant, I can easily get around on the Interstate Highway System and I enjoy hiking in the National Parks around here.
That being said, if you indiscriminately don't like government spending, you should vote for Bob Barr. In the words of Kodos, "Go ahead! Throw your vote away!"
@stephen: You have a point about Palin as vice president. I mean, how much damage could she do as VP? She doesnn't even know what the VP does...
But let's think about what happens if McCain dies and she takes office. 2 or 3 judges will get appointed to the Supreme Court and you can expect Palin to nominate pro-life judges. McCain/Palin like to say that abortion should be decided by the states, but that's placing an undue burden on women for medical decisions that should be their own choice. If Alaska bans abortion, that basically means abortion is illegal for every Alaskan woman who can't spare the money for a plane ticket to Seattle. There are women's issues other than abortion, but I'm not going to get in to them here.
I don't think that there is a "pro-woman" or "anti-woman" stance when it comes to rape kit testing. Rather, it's a basic question of humanity. We don't charge shooting victims money to perform ballistics tests. We don't charge homeowners for fingerprinting their houses after there's a robbery. Why should we charge a potential rape victim money for rape kits? I understand that there's the risk of false reports and money wasted on those kits, but how much of a cost is there? Rape victims have enough physical, social and emotional barriers that prevent many of them from reporting their crimes. Do you really want to add a $320 burden to all that? Is it worth the risk of extra rapists on the street?
I'll finish my reply later.
I'm not sure what you mean Val.
My only point was that Palin is -- policy-wise -- very much a run-of-the-mill Republican. This vitriol from the only comes out because she is a woman. If McCain picked someone like Fred Thompson, there wouldn't be this sort of rage from the left.
As for abortion not being protected by the S. Ct. That's a discussion I'm not about to get into in a comments section.
Oh my, nice rant.
Democrats are doomed in Nov because there is still a major split between the Hillary and Obama supporters. McCain, for better or worse, was trying to pick up some Hillary supporters with the Palin pick. Might not seem fair, but, according to the polls, it is working.
Val, on the bright side, there is no way Bush will win haha.
GOP in maryland, you fail at poll interpretation.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
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