Republicans in Minneapolis wore “Hoosiers for the Hot Chick“ buttons to greet the country’s potential first female vice-president. In New Haven, a Congresswoman who fights to advance women in politics was less enamored.
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro has for decades promoted electing more women to national office, including working for years with the political action committee Emily’s List. In Congress she has championed legislation geared to women’s interests from breast cancer research to, in a speech at last week’s Democratic National Convention, pay equity.
But when saw Sarah Palin deliver her acceptance speech Wednesday night as running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, DeLauro didn’t see the cause advancing.
“I thought it was a very negative speech,” DeLauro said, when asked about the speech before an appearance in New Haven Thursday to promote federal funding for mental health and substance abuse programs for the homeless.
Click on the play arrow above to watch her complete response.
Palin’s emergence — as a spokesman for the pro-life, pro-gun, anti-tax, pro-oil-drilling, anti-Planned Parenthood right wing of the Republican Party — challenges more traditional women’s advocates who normally would cheer the selection of a female presidential running mate.
“Look, it’s always compelling to have a woman on the ticket,” DeLauro said. “The same way Geraldine Ferraro was on the ticket [in 1988] and Hillary Clinton was running for president of the United States.
“But the issue is not gender. The issue is what the agenda is going to be.”
To a large extent, the “women’s agenda” in this year’s national elections is about economics, DeLauro said.
“Today women are the most economically marginalized group in our society. Sarah Palin did not address those issues,” she argued. “…I’m talking about privatizing social security. It would have a devastating effect on women. Health insurance and taxing health benefits, [which McCain has advocated]. Pay equity. Paid sick days…
“This could be a transformational election for women on ecoonmoic issues. But one cannot take a look at where Sarah Palin is on these issues and … John McCain’s agenda, which she endorses, would be devastating for women.”
“I’ve worked a lifetime to get women elected to high political office,” DeLauro said. “But ulitimately it comes down to the issues.”
While Palin’s speech received an enthusiastic reception from delegates at the Republican convention, it didn’t bring immediately bring more women into the GOP fold, according to focus groups and a review of polls by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. (The firm is run by DeLauro’s husband, New Haven’s Stanley Greenberg, former pollster to Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela, and Tony Blair, among others).
Palin “improved her favorability” ratings among women with the speech, the firm reported in a release Thursday. But she failed to gain new voters for the McCain-Palin ticket. Roughly equal numbers of women said they were no more likely and less likely to pull the GOP lever.
“Unmarried women claim to have heard almost nothing of relevance to their economic standing. One single woman said point-blank ‘I didn’t get anything about the economy,” the firm reported.
Also, “Many women, especially married women, openly questioned her ability to both serve and raise a family, particularly a family involved such a young, special-needs baby. These women acknowledged the obvious double standard (‘We would not ask that if she were a man’), but the question lingered. Some even noted, ‘Let’s face it, we (women) do the nurturing.’”
Click on the play arrow to watch Palin’s address.