The GOP Economic War Against American Working Families: BuzzFlash Part 3: The Struggle of Lower Wage Working Women

Part III

BuzzFlash Editor's Note: As we noted in part I and part II of this series, with great reluctance, BuzzFlash had to cancel the September 27 conference in Philadelphia focusing on why progressives should embrace issues of importance to the working class -- and why the two groups should find much common ground. The registration was just too low to justify continuing on with the groundbreaking day of investigating "The GOP War on the Working Class." If you want to know what we had planned, you can listen to this interview with me, Mark Karlin, Editor of BuzzFlash.com, with Bob Kincaid of Head-on Radio, about what we had in store: https://www.yousendit.com/download/bVlBUGhkdENuSlJFQlE9PQ.

PART THREE OF A BUZZFLASH SERIES ON THE GOP ECONOMIC WAR AGAINST AMERICAN WORKING FAMILIES
by Meg White

Palin is the latest example of the Republicans' war on the working class, especially working class women.

In examining the Republican war against the working class as a part of the BuzzFlash series, we would be remiss not to address women's issues.

There's something fishy about Sen. John McCain's pick for VP. It's not so much the lies Gov. Sarah Palin spouts on the campaign trail. Nor is it all the rumors swirling around her and her family. No, I'm talking about the reasoning behind McCain's pick, not the woman herself.  You see, McCain's decision belies a desire to cover up the deep-seated distaste the Republican Party has for working women.

On Monday, The New York Times ran a story on the presidential campaigns' efforts at courting women voters. Their juxtaposition of the ways in which each campaign targets women reveals much about the two major party candidates' values when it comes to the issues women are supposed to care about.

"...both campaigns are trying to highlight the issues they think will draw more support from women, with Mr. Obama emphasizing pay equity and abortion rights and Mr. McCain playing up his 'maverick' image and raising questions of respect... Beyond that, the McCain campaign's strategy is to emphasize personality, capitalizing on the booming celebrity of Ms. Palin, highlighting Mr. McCain's story as a war hero, showcasing their families, and trying to keep alive the anger about sexism that many women felt during Mr. Obama's primary campaign against Mrs. Clinton."

Even The New York Times can see that Obama courts women voters by speaking to actual issues, while McCain relies on the politics of personality. This notion raises "questions of respect" that McCain isn't willing to answer. For example: How is pandering to women voters and fanning the flames of their anger a sign of respect?

The choice of Palin panders to groups other than the religious right. McCain's choice is a clear grab for both working class and women voters. And both should be offended by the hypocrisy.

Dan Hoyle wrote about McCain's reliance on Palin's draw among the working class on Salon.com Friday:

"Sarah Palin's biography, of course, raises the stakes. Touting her moose-hunting, snowmobile-riding, small-town sensibility, Palin turned a convention of restless delegates into an explosion of camp revival energy, shifting the momentum of the race John McCain's way. It is obvious that rural, working-class whites are more comfortable with the conservative small-town Palin, to whom they can relate."

The Palins' net worth has not been made public yet, but estimates from The Washington Post put her income at a little less than $200,000, about the same as Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden. (Although, curiously the Palins live in a $400,000 lakeside house with a hydroplane parked outside, own other property, and appear to have other assets.  They are by no means struggling members of the working class.) The Post puts McCain's net worth at anywhere from $25 million to $38 million.  Obama is likely somewhere between $1 million and $2.5 million.

So none of the White House candidates are working class. This fact demonstrates the problem with playing identity politics: Presidential candidates do not represent the working class. But we should expect presidential candidates to fight for the working class. The idea of using Palin and her "small-town sensibility" to cover for McCain forgetting how many houses he owns is offensive.

And that doesn't even touch on the McCain campaign's redistribution of wealth from poor to rich. His plans to extend Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and to privatize Social Security are just more of the same Republican effort to eradicate the middle class and further marginalize the working class. And his denial of the country's economic problems is a clear sign of McCain being hugely out of touch with American workers.

But there is a greater offensiveness about Palin that about half of the audience may relate to but unable to empathize with. It's pretty clear that Palin was chosen as a cynical and craven strategy to bring independent women voters and disgruntled Hillary supporters into the Republican fold.

Palin knows she owes her top spot to Clinton, going so far as to mention the Senator from New York in her acceptance speech. Palin and the McCain campaign constantly berate the media and Democrats for being too sexist to take her seriously as a candidate.  Yet, only months before, Palin criticized Hillary for her "perceived whine" about sexism. That's just pure hypocrisy.

Women voters owe it to Hillary and other feminist pioneers not to fall for that junk.  

As Christopher Williams wrote on TalkingPointsMemo.com:

"The truth is that Palin offends women.  She insults them.  She reminds the normal struggling woman of the less qualified for whom they get passed-over for jobs on a day-to-day basis just because men prefer their ilk smiling at the reception desk, waiting at the restaurant table, beaming at meetings, or standing next to them in a presidential ticket so they can catch a peek.  Women read her body language and understand it without succumbing to it.  Women listen to her tall-tales about her last pregnancy and are calling out the bullshit.  Most of all, they are telling themselves, this is no Hillary Clinton."

And that seems to be happening. It seems the smattering of Clinton supporters who came out for McCain were blown way out of proportion by the media. Also, polls show Palin is significantly more popular with men than women.

But enough about image, experience, and change. You say you're a working class woman who votes issues and not personality or party? Okay, let's talk about the issues. Healthcare and the economy are almost always cited within the top three election issues this year, and polls show that economic issues are particularly important for women voters this year.

Why don't we start with women's health? Obama has a plan for universal healthcare.  McCain does not. This is not purely a women's issue, but a study published in 2007 shows that women have more healthcare needs and are more likely to be uninsured than men.

Obama supports choice. Palin has said that abortion should be illegal in all cases, including rape and incest. McCain has proposed changing the Republican Party platform to exclude opposition to abortion in cases of rape and incest, but he gave that up, folding under party pressure.

It seems the only sex education method the Republican Party supports is the one that has been proven not to work: abstinence-only. Every mother wants her children to have all the tools available to them in their perilous journey into adulthood, and an Obama Administration would support that notion. He told a young woman who asked him a question about sex ed at a campaign event that he supports "age-appropriate sex education, science-based sex education in schools." He told her:

"...you've got to have some support from the schools. You certainly should not have to be fighting each and every instance by providing accurate information outside of the classroom because inside the classroom the only thing that can be talked about is abstinence."

In response, rather than talk about the issues, the McCain campaign gets down and dirty, lying about Obama's policy on sex ed. They must know they can't win on the facts.

Okay, so if Palin wants abortion illegal and abstinence-only education, one would think she'd do everything she could to support young mothers. Instead, she went out of her way with a line item veto to slash funding for an Alaska program that houses and assists unwed mothers. This is coming from a woman whose unmarried, 17-year-old daughter is about to make her a grandmother.

So that's health. What about the other main issue for voters this year, the economy? Let's start out with the very basic idea that people should get paid the same amount for doing the same job.

Both Palin and McCain opposed the Lily Ledbetter Act that would make it easier for women to recoup losses from being discriminated against in the workplace. On the other hand, Obama supported the Ledbetter-inspired legislation.  And many, many working class women suffer from gender pay inequality.  McCain and Palin don't believe that the government should play a role in remedying this injustice; Obama does.

Women workers are tired of exorbitant CEO pay and golden parachutes. Obama introduced the Say on Pay legislation into the Senate last year, which would allow shareholders to give input in executive compensation. Again, not purely a women's issue, but men are far more likely to be CEOs than women.

Overall, the selection of Palin by McCain is an act that is one of the most revealing of the Republican Party's true feelings about women both as leaders and voters. The Good Ol' Boys Party seems to believe that women voters will give up values and issues that have always been dear to them, just to have a pretty and familiar voice in as vice president. We at BuzzFlash believe the majority of working women in America are smarter than that.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Are you a working or middle class woman voter? Join the conversation! Also, for more on how women really feel about Sarah Palin, check out what these women writers are saying:

One Hockey Mom's Vote
Zombie Feminists of the RNC
Why Sarah Palin Incites Near Violent Rage in Normally Reasonable Women
The Mirrored Ceiling
Note to Sarah Palin: This Track Mom is Going with Obama/Biden