Sister Sledgehammer: Sarah Palin Takes Aim at Democratic Women

[Geee]

Politico:

Sister Sledgehammer: Sarah Palin takes aim at Democratic women

By KASIE HUNT | 5/14/10 8:01 PM EDT


Sarah Palin’s political portfolio for the midterm election is beginning to take shape, and the races that interest her appear to share a similar trait—for the most part, they involve a woman on one side of the ballot or the other.

Already she’s embraced a handful of conservative Republican women in House, Senate and governor’s races across the country, delivering more than just her endorsement—she’s campaigned with them and donated to their campaigns as well.

Palin has also put some skin in the game. On Friday, she endorsed state Rep. Nikki Haley in the key early presidential state of South Carolina where Haley trails several male challengers in the polls.

But it’s not just conservative female candidates who have attracted the former Alaska governor’s attention. Democratic congresswomen and candidates are also on Palin’s radar—in March, when Palin rolled out a list of 17 House Democrats she intends to target for defeat, five of them were women.

She’s also donated to a GOP House challenger in Illinois who is running against Rep. Debbie Halvorson (D-Ill.) and to Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who is running for an open Senate seat against Democrat Robin Carnahan in Missouri.

When asked about the composition of Palin’s targets, a Palin aide who asked not to be named said it wasn’t on purpose—it was simply a coincidence that so many women are in the crosshairs. But whether her female-heavy roster of preferred and targeted candidates is inadvertent or by design, it highlights an increasingly obvious part of her political persona.

Palin is emerging not only as a standard-bearer for social conservatives but as a campaign trail Annie Oakley, a pioneering female pol who not only intends to flex her muscle to carry conservative women to office but also to shove more than a few Democratic women out of the way.

“No one before her was a conservative woman on the national scene who has made such a splash,” says Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a group dedicated to electing women who oppose abortion rights.

Palin eagerly claims the feminist mantle—an unusual assertion for a candidate from her wing of the GOP—and spoke Friday of “a new conservative feminist movement” with an “emerging conservative feminist identity,” before a Washington audience.

“I kinda feel a connection to that tough, gun totin’ pioneer feminism,” she told the enthusiastic crowd of anti-abortion activists gathered to support the SBA List.

“For far too long, when people heard the word feminist, they thought of the faculty lounge ant some East Coast woman’s college,” she said. “And no offense to them, they have their opinions and their voice and God bless ‘em, that’s great, but that’s not the only voice of women in America.”

[Valin]

Geee

 

Something I read a while ago....

Women Stirring the Tea Party Movement

A recent poll shows that a majority of self-identified Tea Partyers are women, and that's not a big surprise

Mary Kate Cary

Posted April 15, 2010

 

The memory still makes me smile. We were fishing our way through the Ozarks a few summers ago and stopped at a tiny barbecue joint with picnic tables outside for some pulled pork sandwiches. I went up to the sliding screen window to peer in at the menu and place an order when suddenly a very preppy woman in pearls, decked out in pink and green, appeared. "What'll you have, sugar?"

Click here to find out more!

 

I've been to a lot of pit barbecue stops over the years, but I'd never seen one like this. It was run by a whole crowd of women who looked like they'd just come from doing their service requirement at the Junior League. As I waited for my sandwich, I spotted a sign on the wall hanging from a polka-dot ribbon: "If Mama ain't happy ... Ain't nobody happy!" I marveled not only at the use of "ain't" twice in one sentence, but the succinct way in which it placed mothers at the epicenter of well-being for all.

 

So I smiled again when I saw that Darla Dawald, national director of the Tea Party group ResistNet, quoted that gem of wisdom to Politico, and added, "Well, when legislation messes with mama's kids and it affects her family, then mama comes out fighting."

 

Her point is right on the money. Women are the caregivers and decision makers in most households on healthcare. They deal with the nitty-gritty firsthand, and that explains why so many women were opposed to the healthcare reform bill. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll reported that 87 percent of Tea Partyers—compared to 50 percent of all Americans—consider passage of the healthcare reform bill a "bad thing." For problem-solving women who are used to multi-tasking between car pools, client calls, and cooking dinner, the slow pace and high expense of government healthcare reform doesn't cut it. We all have our own tales of woe about the healthcare industry, but we have just as many to tell about our fiascoes with government bureaucracy, wasteful spending, and one-size-fits-all solutions.

 

A recent Quinnipiac University poll shows that a majority of self-identified Tea Partyers are women, and that's not a big surprise to me. The poll reported that while only 19 percent of American voters generally trust government to do the right thing "almost all of the time" or "most of the time," that number drops to only 4 percent among the Tea Partyers. I bet much of that distrustful 96 percent are the moms who typically deal with the government red tape: A majority of the time, we're the ones who put a vacation hold on the mail, or file applications for the kids' passports. We're the ones who have to go into the jaws of the beast, gathering all the receipts for the taxes every year and writing the check for the tax-prep service because it's too complicated for most families to do their own taxes anymore.

 

Speaking of writing checks, the same maternal instinct that Dawald refers to comes into play with family finances these days. Women often are the ones who pay the bills and reconcile the checking account. That's a change from our mothers' generation. In most families, women never touched a checkbook—much less the online bill-payer button or the Quicken software. In some families, it was impolite to talk about money. The husbands took care of that, and many wives only learned about the accounts for the first time when their husbands passed away........(Snip)

[Sanguine]

...when Palin rolled out a list of 17 House Democrats she intends to target for defeat, five of them were women.

 

5/17 is a "female-heavy roster of preferred and targeted candidates"? How's that?

 

If you phrase it 12 out of 17 who are target are male, does it become a male-heavy roster?

[Sanguine]

Geee

 

Something I read a while ago....

Women Stirring the Tea Party Movement

A recent poll shows that a majority of self-identified Tea Partyers are women, and that's not a big surprise

Mary Kate Cary

Posted April 15, 2010

 

Good reading. Thanks, Valin.

[Argyle58]

...when Palin rolled out a list of 17 House Democrats she intends to target for defeat, five of them were women.

 

5/17 is a "female-heavy roster of preferred and targeted candidates"? How's that?

 

If you phrase it 12 out of 17 who are target are male, does it become a male-heavy roster?

 

When you take into account that the ratio of men to women is 10 to 1 in Congress, that IS a female-heavy roster.