Friday, April 13, 2012

She’s “Never Worked a Day in her Life…” Open Mouth, Insert Foot



 
I’m going to go out on a limb on this one and say that Hilary Rosen, a Democratic strategist, should have chosen her words much more carefully after “setting off a fire storm on Twitter and Cable News Programs,” yesterday when, in reference to Mitt Romney’s wife Ann, she stated:

"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 women in this country are facing."

Now, I’m not a woman…  In fact, I’ve never been a woman.  But within the context of my own observations, I think it’s safe to say that raising five children is as much work, if not more, than even the most demanding full time careers.

Hilary did apologize to Ann, along with “anyone else who was offended,” however; Michael D. Shear and Susan Saulny of the New York Times suggest that Rosen’s remark is in fact reflective of a “decades-old debate about the roles of women in the workplace.”  

The controversial statement could not have come at more perfect time for the Romney campaign.  With Rick Santorum recently dropping out of the race, Mitt Romney has set his sights on battling Obama for the White House.  Closing the “Gender Gap” and securing the female vote, particularly among moderates, will likely prove to be more of an obstacle for conservative Romney than the liberal-democrat incumbent.  In fact, the Romney Campaign has already begun attempting to raise money as a result of the statement by sending out an e-mail entitled “War on Moms,” which read:

"If you're a stay-at-home mom, the Democrats have a message for you: you've never   worked a day in your life.  America deserves a president who will bring us together – not pit us against each other."

Unfortunately, in this e-mail, Romney makes it seem as if Rosen is the spokesperson for the Obama Administration and the entire Democratic Party, despite that President Obama released the following statement:

There is "no tougher job than being a mom" and anyone who thinks otherwise "needs to rethink their statement."

It’s clear what Romney is trying to do, despite its lack of validity.  But this is exactly what the American people have come to expect from presidential hopefuls:  Half-truths and over generalizations.

http://topics.sacbee.com/Hilary+Rosen/
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/13/4410673/criticism-of-romneys-wife-sparks.html

2 comments:

Chris said...

I completely agree with this being a bad move on the part of the democraticic strategist who made such an ignorant comment. I mean, I'm not exactly a Romney fan here but it always fascinates me to see when party members (from both sides) make statements that don't benefit their respective parties at all. Sometimes I wonder if these people are trying to hurt their parties because at times it can seem that way. I've often felt that same sentiment when hearing some of the comments made by Rick Santorum in the past few months like when he said Obama was a snob for wanting everyone to be able to go to college.

GGauthier said...

This is a great example of how fragile the candidate’s image is. This woman, complete un affiliated with the Obama campaign has damaged the relationship it had with many woman and the GOP has jumped on the opportunity to rally more support. Another example of how influential others can be on candidates chances of seeing office is the Gore campaign in 2000. Al Gore came under immense scrutiny because he was a part of Clinton’s office. He was associated with its successes as well as the more... unethical aspects of the office. He worked hard to draw the voters’ attention away from this but the bitter taste of lies and scandals remained with many electors and he ultimately lost the election because of this. This should be concerning to the Obama campaign because in an election that looks to be close, the small hits can be the determining factors.