The kids are asleep. I have a glass of mediocre red wine next to the computer. Condi is on the TV behind me. In the morning, I have to drive my mom to visit a sick relative. It's somewhat fitting that I'm writing this post in the patches of free time that fall between care giving responsibilities.
Last night, Ann Romney gave a speech that had three purposes. No pressure, Ann! First, she had to tell little anecdotes about her life with Mitt to humanize him. Secondly, she had to show how her life was similar to everyone else's life. Pasta and tuna stories. Thirdly, she had to try to bring in the chick vote.
Ann has a warm personality that came through on campaign trail as she gave cute, little intros for her husband. People are sympathetic to her health struggles. She's camera ready. Her warmth came through for the most part on the stage last night. She did dish out the tuna and pasta stories well, but the pundits today responded that she failed to acknowlege the role that privilege shaped her family's fortune.
The chick vote. Let's talk about it. For the most part, women don't vote as a unit. Other variables shape a woman's vote – geography, SES, religion – more than their gender. That's why we have a Sarah Palin and a Hillary Clinton. I would like to see women vote as a block more than they do. All women have certain commonalities in policy interests and needs, and if the right candidate came along who tackled those issues, I think women would line up.
On my Twitterfeed right now, Condi and Susana Martinez kicked ass.
Ryan is coming up… Need to check this out.
Apt. 11d 
She did dish out the tuna and pasta stories well
Did she talk about the time when Mitt had to sell some of his stock so that they could get by in college again? I mean, who can’t relate to those sorts of hardships?
LikeLike
“Other variables shape a woman’s vote – geography, SES, religion – more than their gender.”
Marital status is the other biggie. It makes a huge difference in women’s voting patterns.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/06/13/154940680/romney-obama-when-wooing-women-voters-check-marital-status-first
LikeLike
“Did she talk about the time when Mitt had to sell some of his stock so that they could get by in college again?”
I suspect that the lifestyles of the comfortable have changed a lot over the past 40 years in terms of household help, dining out, and in many other ways. There is far more outsourcing today, even in single-income families. In fact, you can even see it in the dog-on-the-roof story–a prosperous family today would have just left the dog with the housekeeper or at the kennel or had such a large vehicle that space wouldn’t be an issue at all. Putting the dog on the roof suggests financial limitations and the necessity of improvisation. It’s a fascinating fact of contemporary life that practically nobody who criticized him for putting the dog on the roof thought about that–it’s a sign, I think, of exactly how privileged the political class and the media class have gotten since then.
LikeLike
I don’t know about everybody else, but I thought of the scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation where they tied grandma to the roof.
LikeLike
I’ve actually found those Obama commercials where they have the woman talk to the camera and address women voters to be really insulting. I think they all kind of imply that women are slutty and mostly what they’re worried about is who is going to pay for their birth control so they can have sex and who is going to pay for their abortions. Regardless of where one falls on the pro-life/pro-choice spectrum, I suspect that most of us women have OTHER interests in addition to/besides birth control and abortion. I find it insulting that whoever made up these commercials basically thought that the way to appeal to women was to talk about (or to?) our crotches. Why don’t any of the commercials say things like: Kids end up in poverty, along with their moms, when people get divorced. Which candidate is more likely to consider that a political problem worth tackling? Women end up with less saved for retirement than men, STILL get paid less, are underrepresented in corporate leadership, the sciences, the university; More women go to college but yet women make less. Here’s how unemployment is affecting women and their abilities to make the decision to work or stay home. Let’s talk about maternity leave. But no, the Republicans don’t want to talk to me at all, and the Dems want to treat me like a naughty schoolgirl.
LikeLike
Yes and no… I grew up in a prosperous, upper-middle class New England family — my dad was a banker, my mom stayed at home, we lived in a big white house in the suburbs. And you’re right, it was a different age: no minivan, no housekeeper. We didn’t even have airconditioning. My parents spent sensibly. And there were lots of kids, dogs, and long drives in a station wagon to the summer house on the coast. But the difference is that the old New England WASPs, no matter how frugal, *adore* their dogs, sometimes more than they do their kids. I remember driving six hours up I-95 crammed into the cargo space of a LeCar *alongside a St. Bernard* because my dad had bought an economy car to run around in and there were already three kids in the back seat. Mitt’s dog story doesn’t read as frugal to me, but callous.
LikeLike
I was bothered by her speech. When someone of AR’s privileges goes on about how women are doing more work than men because of housework and tutoring kids, etc… I just find it unbelievable.
LikeLike