Dear Senator McCain,
This week you have lashed out against the "Feminist Left." I understand your frustration. You see that women are not flocking to the McCain/Palin ticket and you don't understand why. Allow me to illuminate you.
The truth is, Senator McCain, your candidacy is the worst for women in recent history. You thought that women would vote for you once you put a woman on your ticket. But women aren't fooled by this tactic. Women, Senator McCain, vote on issues important to us, not on whether or not the candidate wears a skirt.
The problem, Senator McCain, is your voting record, platform, and policies. You have consistently voted wrong on issues that directly impact American women's bank accounts, personal liberties and health.
• You voted 19 times against increasing the minimum wage (the majority of minimum wage earners are women) - before you finally voted for it because it included business tax cuts. You voted to gut the Family and Medical Leave act - and you oppose expanding its coverage.
• You oppose the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would restore women's ability to fight wage discrimination in the courts - telling women our problem was that we needed to get more education and training.
• You voted NO on the Violence Against Women Act and NO on funding for the Office of Violence Against Women.
• You voted NO on starting the Army's Breast Cancer Research Program which has funded hundreds of millions in breast cancer research. You voted NO on reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program and supported Bush's veto.
• You oppose a woman's right to choose, and your running mate Sarah Palin opposes legal abortion even in cases of rape and incest.
• You voted to terminate federal funds for family planning and you have ducked questions on contraceptive insurance discrimination.
• You have stated that you admire the voting records of Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and John Roberts, and have stated that you would like to put Justices like them - Justices who want to overturn Roe v. Wade - on the Supreme Court.
We have compared the votes and platforms of Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin on women's issues and the record is clear. No matter how you look at it - Obama/Biden score close to 100% and McCain/Palin approach a zero on women's rights and issues.
If credit should be given for consistency, you deserve such credit when it comes to voting against women's interests. Twenty-six years of voting against women's rights and issues and you think women, when given a clear choice, won't notice?
Eleanor Smeal is the President of The Feminist Majority. Her analysis of the candidates' records on women's issues can be found at www.feministsforobama.org.
gave McCain an overall grade of D and Obama an overall grade of B on ten issues it described as
"vital to American women."
Women live longer than men, and are poorer than men. They don't need John McCain to make
sure their economic status remains dismal.
fact simply using Palin as a "gender pawn"==and he was convinced that simply placing a being there
with mammal facilities, would create a feminist rush to the ballot box under McC banners. NOt so.
Women know what McCain's record is--and what his "ethics" amounts too--equal pay, stem cell,
abortion, name it--and women are mere entities to fit his purposes in attracting the decaying Bush
base--all the Republicans have.
At least the signs are that few women are moving "Mickey's
way---and we are discovering again that the majority of Republican women are middles class--and the majority would not overurn Roe vs Wade even to preserve the 600 to trillion in tax breaks that the
comfortable feminist now enjoys. Goreman 12
Do you get it now?
Kim Grady of NOW on Palin:
"Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women's rights, just like John McCain.
"....as the chair of NOW's Political Action Committee, I am frequently asked whether NOW supports women candidates just because they are women. This gives me an opportunity to once again answer that question with an emphatic 'No.'"
I think they could use a good read on some critical issues for women.
I'm doing everything I can to spread the word and get women to vote for the candidates who will stand up for them: Obama-Biden.
p.s. I live in Virginia, and I have already voted.
C. Navarro
Oh, and let's not forget his "air quotes" around "health" of the mother in debate #3!!!
I did not know that Obama and Biden were that good either, on women's issues, but very pleased to hear so. Holistic decency..
I would like to understand them. I know they do not make a whole lot of money and that McCain will cause them to have even less.
Why do you think that 45% (mind you, I am taking your word for that percentage..I dunno what the real one is) would support a man opposed to equal pay, who sneers, even in a debate, at the notion that a woman's health might, indeed, be threatened by an unwanted pregnancy?
1) She thinks ALL abortion should be illegal. Period. And that McCain/Palin will support getting it there.
2) She thinks that homosexuality is an immoral choice, and that McCain/Palin will prevent gay marriages.
3) She thinks that Obama will raise her taxes (and thinks the only reason is for health care), and that she'd rather pay her own medical care out of her pocket than "get taxed out the door" (whatever that means).
4) McCain has more experience than Obama.
5) She thinks Obama is hiding something with all his "his affiliates (and then ex-affiliates)"
6) She thinks Obama is a Muslim.
Feminism has succeeded, Women can now think for themselves without feeling like they must vote the Party line.
I'm a white woman, 41 years old. You can bet your sweet patooty I'm not voting for him or that woman. It's an insult to women everywhere that he put her on the ticket to bribe us. I think more than 55% of women are smart enough to notice and respond to it. If they aren't, well.. won't we see on 11/4?
thank you thank you thank you.
I just hope the pundits will read this on their broadcasts so the people who need to hear it will.
Many, many people do not think about serious issues -- and many who do are still swayed by superficial impressions. For that purpose, choosing Palin was very clever: She's pretty, which means a) she can say anything and get away with it, and b) her picture is plastered everywhere.
I just counted 10 pictures of Palin on the front page of Huffington Post, plus her husband, children, and stimulating articles on her hair and clothing.
But most of those articles are not flattering. Unless most of the articles are positive, then I don't see, apropo Palin, how the QUANTITY (of pictures) translates into QUALITY.
Firstly, there is nothing funny about these serious issues.
We commend you for your depth of knowledge where it
concerns the wages and medical coverage of you and your friends,
Secondly, I assure you each of us is aware that we can quit a job....
Now, finding new employment might be a little more difficult these days.
Having dealt with the issues/comments you raise, can you get back to
the subject at hand and defend, if you can, John McCain's voting
record as it pertains to women......................................we'll wait.