Most readers know that Lilly Ledbetter is the woman whose courageous battle has led to progress, though not enough progress, for women receiving equal pay for equal work. Recently, Ledbetter stood side by side with one of her greatest supporters when she endorsed Sen. Harry Reid (D) for reelection in Nevada.
Lilly Ledbetter is the Good Lord's answer to Sharron Angle, who taunts Reid with her call to "man up." What Lilly Ledbetter knows and Sharron Angle will never learn is that a real man stands tall, as Harry Reid has stood tall for a lifetime, to fight for every woman in Nevada and every woman in America receiving an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.
Lilly Ledbetter's support for Harry Reid has dramatized a major issue. Sharron Angle can say man up all she wants, but Sharron Angle has spent a lifetime opposing the actions that would give all women equity in pay, and supporting the policies that lead to pay discrimination against women in virtually every stratum of their work lives.
Harry Reid has manned up big time for women in his lifelong fight for pay equity. He has fought for women over the opposition of those reactionary forces that oppose pay equity for women, and now donate large sums of money to Angle because they, like Angle, like things the way they are in a world that is too often unfair to women at work.
What I would propose to Democrats is to put Lilly Ledbetter on television to appeal to women throughout Nevada and throughout the nation, for Democrats like Harry Reid and so many others, who stand up for women in the workplace.
This would be so much more compelling, and ring so much more true to women, than so many of the ads that pollute the airwaves today with untruths, half-truths and falsehoods that are in such great disrepute with voters.
John F. Kennedy used to joke that if you have a man's job, find a woman.
Lilly Ledbetter proves, very dramatically, that if you want a real man, find a man like Harry Reid who fights for women receiving an honest day's pay for an honest day's work, which Reid has spent a lifetime working for, and Sharron Angle has spent a lifetime working against.