Voters have embraced the Governor’s stance on issues from illegal immigration to the economy, but “journalists” discount it by assuming someone must be making decisions for her – – deciding who and what she supports. Would they draw this conclusion if our Governor was a man? Doubt it.

It’s no secret the playing field is still uneven, but in politics it’s magnified. While profiles of male politicians typically focus on issues, profiles of female politicians first focus on the person. Women seem to be saddled with terms that are almost “excuses” for their personalities – – straight-forward, tough. You don’t often read that someone is a “strong man”, but there are many “strong women” in politics. While this may be an attempt at a compliment, it’s really pointing out what the “journalist” considers to be the norm: that women by nature are weak.

It would be nice if journalists could escape their superficial universe of stereotypes and be as sophisticated as their readers. Instead we get stories about Hillary Clinton’s hair. Never ones about Colin Powell’s.

This is a perfect example of conservatives (despite their naked hostility to women making gains in society) embracing feminist rhetoric to defend a conservative female politician. In this case it’s particularly annoying for Coughlin to try and defend Brewer with that since the governor who immediately preceded her was Janet Napolitano. I don’t recall any journalists in Arizona assuming that Napolitano was “weak” due to her innate female nature or led around by the nose by male political advisors. I certainly don’t recall any of her advisors having to post blogs insisting that “she has a mind of her own!” Because, you know, it was pretty obvious to any sentient being in Arizona that Governor Janet Napolitano had a mind of her own.

Which gets me to what really ticks me off about this whole thing. Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Jan Brewer, et al are dangerous ignoramuses. It’s a matter of public record, and not at all sexist to point out. So there’s no need for stupid and gratuitous attacks on them. The real travesty is the amount of latitude that privileged right wing men are given. George W. Bush got a free pass in 2000 for being an intellectually uncurious dullard and bully because he was 1) male, 2) from a rich and powerful family, and 3) the Governor of Texas. Rick Perry appears to be going down the same lucky path in 2010.

If Rick Perry were Rachel Perry (yes, you’re right, Chuck Coughlin) we’d be seeing a lot of stories about her “good hair”. We’d also see a lot harder scrutiny of Rachel Perry’s personal life, and her whackadoodle positions on everything from abortion to the death penalty to oil drilling. But Rick Perry is Rick Perry. And he’s going to get a lot of latitude that he really doesn’t deserve. Because he’s a rich white man.

That’s sexist and it sucks, really.

“Unmarried women, 70% of unmarried women, voted for Obama, and this is because when you kick your husband out, you’ve got to have big brother government to be your provider,” said Schlafly, president of Eagle Forum and infamous for her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment.

Because somebody’s gotta take care of those dumb broads, amirite fellas?

…In an interview with TPM this afternoon Schlafly stood by her comments and said Obama is trying to boost welfare rolls to help with his reelection and to help Democrats.

“Yes I said that. It’s true, too. All welfare goes to unmarried moms,” Schlafly told TPM. “They are trying to line up their constituency for Obama and Democrats against Republican candidates.”

All welfare goes to single moms. Therefore all unmarried women are on welfare. Quod erat demonstrandum, res ipsa loquitur,, Subset B of Set A = Set A. Phyllis, you’re not exactly helping to eradicate the stereotype of women that logic isn’t our forte. Just saying. And I guess my welfare check keeps getting lost in the mail, which is why I’ve been foolishly doing that “working for pay to support myself” thing all these years when I could have been living a life of bon-bon eating luxury on Uncle Sugar’s dime.

But I have to give Schlafly a little credit here. She’s rocking it old school style. None of this New Feminist Mama Grizzly^TM gun-toting posturing like we’ve been getting from Sarah Palin and her counterparts. Phyllis takes her reactionary gin straight and follows it with a chaser of the same. Her hairdo is frozen in 1972 and so is her credo: A woman is nothing without a man, so get yourself one and do his laundry and his bidding, pronto! Of course, she is a well educated woman with a high-powered career, who had nannies care for her own children while she traveled the country telling women they should stay home to raise their kids. Whatever, IOKIYAR.

Schlafly’s Eagle Forum PAC (“Leading the Pro-Family Movement Since 1972″) endorsed Rep. Trent Franks and State Senator Sylvia Allen in Arizona. Good choices, Phyllis.

In exasperation I turned to the mike and explained that Democrats most certainly do not underestimate Brewer or any conservative politician. It’s an annoying strawman that conservatives (with the complicity of the MSM) love to throw at liberals to steer the conversation toward the political skills of people like Sarah Palin and Andy Thomas and away their awfulness as public servants. Back in 2008 I did a panel on Channel 12 with some bloggers where we watched McCain’s speech and the RNC Convention and blogged about it on the air. A prominent GOP former officeholder was in the studio to do a segment with a well-known former Dem officeholder. In the lull between segments the Republican was shaking hands with us and talking about the election. He was positively giddy about Sarah Palin, claiming she was just the boost the McCain camp needed. I made some derisive remark and he pounced. “Admit it! You guys are scared of her!” “Yes,” I replied, “we are scared of her. She’s scary.” That wasn’t enough for him as he taunted me like 3 more times that the Dems were scared of Sarah. Dude was practically dancing a jig over our fear of Sarah that dared not speak its name. Sigh. It was like talking to a 3 year old. “Yes, you’re right. We are scared of Sarah Palin.”

Democrats have a painful understanding that a right wing politician being clearly dumb and obviously mean is no impediment to electoral success. So no, I don’t underestimate Sarah Palin as a politician. Or Jan Brewer or Andy Thomas. The problem Dems have with them is that they suck at their jobs. Badly. So badly that real people are harmed and the community is damaged. Give me a break on Jan Brewer needing time to adjust to her position as Governor. She was elected Secretary of State in 2002 and reelected in 2006. It’s the position second in line to the Governor. Is it too much to expect that she should have, you know, brushed up on the ins and outs of the job a bit? You know, just in case? And let’s not forget that she spent several years in the Lege, where she shepherded through the Fife-ster’s revenue destroying tax cuts. She didn’t learn a thing or two about whipping up votes during her time as Majority Whip??

But hey, why bother with trifles like competence and compassion when you can pander to your base with easily regurgitated soundbytes about freedom and low taxes and abortion and gays, right? What we’re seeing with a lot of right wing politicians today is a highly accelerated form of the Peter Principle. The principle holds that people within an organization will be promoted, usually from jobs they’re fairly good at, to a point where they are put into a job at which they suck. Unfortunately, by the time they’ve reached that level of incompetence, they’re in really important positions with a lot of power and stinking up the joint. See: Michael “Heckuva Job Brownie” Brown. But local politics offers right wingers with no particular aptitude or inclination to be good public servants the opportunity to babble a stream of platitudes and code words and win elections, thereby stinking up the joint from day one. See: 1700 W. Washington St. and Maricopa County.

Now the stench has gotten so foul that even the Republic has to acknowledge that a bunch of rabid ideologues who suck at their jobs and don’t care about the majority of people who live here are running the state. Oh my, oops, how did that happen? Maybe Dems were underestimating their political prowess for a time (not anymore, I assure you) but we’ve been correct in our (poor) estimation of them as public servants all along. Too bad that the opinion leaders in this state have chosen to prioritize political theater over policy direction lo these many years.

Cause he gets up in the morning,
And he goes to work at nine,
And he comes back home at five-thirty,
Gets the same train every time.
cause his world is built round punctuality,
It never fails.

And hes oh, so good,
And hes oh, so fine,
And hes oh, so healthy,
In his body and his mind.
Hes a well respected man about town,
Doing the best things so conservatively.

And his mother goes to meetings,
While his father pulls the maid,
And she stirs the tea with councilors,
While discussing foreign trade,
And she passes looks, as well as bills
At every suave young man

Cause hes oh, so good,
And hes oh, so fine,
And hes oh, so healthy,
In his body and his mind.
Hes a well respected man about town,
Doing the best things so conservatively.

And he likes his own backyard,
And he likes his fags the best,
cause hes better than the rest,
And his own sweat smells the best,
And he hopes to grab his fathers loot,
When pater passes on.

Cause hes oh, so good,
And hes oh, so fine,
And hes oh, so healthy,
In his body and his mind.
Hes a well respected man about town,
Doing the best things so conservatively.

And he plays at stocks and shares,
And he goes to the regatta,
And he adores the girl next door,
cause hes dying to get at her,
But his mother knows the best about
The matrimonial stakes.

Cause hes oh, so good,
And hes oh, so fine,
And hes oh, so healthy,
In his body and his mind.
Hes a well respected man about town,
Doing the best things so conservatively.

Granted, the song does describe a lot of Republicans to a tee, but still.

Best wishes to baby Luciana Reyes !

Hoping mom and her political allies will refrain in the future from using Ms Romero’s offspring as a political HUMAN SHIELD !!

Que Poca.

I’m going to hazard two guesses here. The first is that this is Bruce’s “clever” way of slamming Regina Romero for not attending Tuesday’s Tucson City Council meeting. The day after she gave birth.

My second guess is that Bruce’s cryptic comment was a reference to the propensity of a certain former Governor from a cold state up north to use her children as political props. Recently, she accused people from the opposing party of wanting to put her disabled son before a “death panel”.

Bruce, hon, one of those things is not like the other. But thanks for playing.

Those things are related. Because I want them to be for the purposes of this post and because they really are. Congress peeps are getting all up on TV either opining how the health care bill must include a provision to bar all federal funds from going to abortion OR saying that the Stupak Amendment is the biggest encroachment on reproductive choice since the Hyde Amendment. Queen Sarah, for her part, is all up on the teevee interview circuit selling her “book”, and promoting her political aspirations via soft-focus human interest pap on Oprah and Barbara Walters.

What I want to know from any of the interlocutors of these people is this: What about contraception? Rep. Stupak, if you want to bar coverage of abortion from all plans in the Health Insurance Exchange, are you willing to demand that all plans cover contraception?

Members of Congress and the Senate who oppose Stupak, are you willing to force the issue by inserting a provision to any amendment to a health care bill that contraception MUST be covered in all insurance plans? Because it’s not there.

Hey interviewers of Sarah Palin, can you forget that you’re talking to a Big Celebrity^TM for a minute and remember that you are talking to a politician? One who was a former Vice Presidential candidate and one who has further political aspirations? And one who trotted her pregnant teenage daughter out onto the national stage? The locus of the Palin family sympathy trainwreck is the unplanned, unwed baby of Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston. At any rate, could you ask Sarah a few policy questions? Could one of them be what her view is on whether or not contraception should be covered by government subsidized insurance plans? I’d really like to know what she thinks about that.

Hey, hello, all of you, could you stop dithering and get American women some reliable and affordable birth control?

That said, here is what I WANT to happen tomorrow:

Decisive Obama win.  The hands-down best poll analyst of the season has decreed it to be so:  http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/  Nate Silver knows what he is doing.  Read his site and you will be edified.

Bob Lord win.  Because John Shadegg is a whiny little crybaby who can’t legitimately defend his record on veteran’s issues in his ads.  Plus he’s a snowbird who really wants to be a Senator. 

Harry Mitchell:  As if David Schweikert could really convince people to vote against their Grandpa, who has a big honkin’ statue in honor of him in Tempe. 

Gabby Giffords and Ann Kirkpatrick:  Obviously.

LD20:  Ted Maish and Rae Waters.   Because it’s my district and they rawwk!

LD12:  Angela Cotera rawwks!  And is a rocket scientist. 

LD23:  Rebecca Rios.  Because she’s a good Legislator and Andre Campos is a creep who hearts Ron Paul and strip clubs. 

Dan Saban:  Because Joe Arpaio is a fascist thug and Dan is a decent guy who will do a good job.

Tim Nelson:  Ditto Andrew Thomas and ditto Tim.

Ed Hermes:  Because panty-obsessed right wing blogs need to brought down a peg or two. 

Steven Sarkis (Arcadia/Biltmore JP):  Because his opponent, Syd Steven Booth, is a violent felon who tried to intimidate me.

Other states (not all inclusive by any means):

Elwyn Tinklenberg for the win:  I hope he opens a can of whupass on McCarthyite Michelle Bachmann. 

Kay Hagen for the win: God doesn’t like you, Elizabeth Dole.

Joe the Plumber: The end to your interminable 15 minutes and the return to Ohio, where you will have to repay your back taxes and child support.

Sarah Palin: Ahh…. You will return to Alaska, where you will finish your one term, while facing more ethics charges. I don’t care what you do. Get Joe’s record deal, get a show on Fox, go on the lecture circuit, I don’t care. Just get out of my face, with your ignorant science-hating religious extremist ass.

The “socialism” and concommitant “redistribution” memes: Die an ignominous death as Americans realize that Trickle Down economics is the biggest fraud ever to be perpetuated upon the American people, and that we need things like bridges that don’t collapse and breast cancer research.

Earmarks: Will be examined for efficiency and effectiveness, under Obama, but will no longer be a convenient bugaboo for conservatives to use to distract Americans from the many ways our gov’t REALLY wastes money, i.e., defense contracts and tax cuts to billionaires who outsource American jobs. Will continue to be used to help states pay for things like ensuring that bridges don’t collapse and toward breast cancer research.

That’s it for now. Will update if I think of anything else. G’night fellow Divas and good luck on Election Day!

In case you hadn’t caught the tale, a College Republican named Ashley Todd claimed that she was assualted by a 6’4” 200 lb. black male.   She alleged the event occured after she withdrew $60 from an ATM in the “wrong” part of Pittsburgh, as she Twittered to her friends.  She said the thief became so enraged when he saw her McCain bumper sticker that he punched her and then proceeded to hold her down and carve a “B” in her face. 

That there were holes in that account big enough to drive Todd Palin’s snowmachine through was not enough to deter Matt Drudge from issuing a breaking news alert complete with the flashing siren.  Eager rightie bloggers, including a local site that shall remain nameless (the one with the manly western-y cowboy themed banner) were salivating over this tale that involved a nubile flower of white womanhood being ravaged (oh yes, she claimed he sexually assaulted her) by a big scary….you know.   They were wetting themselves in excited anticipation.  McCain and Palin didn’t waste any time either, both called the victim personally to console her.

They might have wanted to take a good look at the photo of the “victim” before they jumped on the story.

And they might wish they’d recalled a man by the name of Morton Downey Jr., who pulled a similar stunt in 1989. He also didn’t figure that mirror thing out.  Only Mort was doing it to save his sagging TV show and he blamed skinheads.  Despicable, but far less dangerous than what that nasty little College Republican did. It’s been reported that she’s had past mental problems, but she was clearly functional enough to make up a vicious racebaiting lie. I hope they throw the book at her.

And I sincerely hope that Matt Drudge is ruined over this.

Here’s a little fun fact for my readers: Back when I was a Divakateer, growing up in Silver Spring, Maryland I attended high school with Matt Drudge. I didn’t go to classes or socialize with him but I remember that he wasn’t very well liked. As I recall, his unpopularity stemmed mostly from his smug, disagreeable nature. Not that it has anything to do with it, nor that there’s anything wrong with it, but everyone knew he was gay. That’s right GOPers, yet another hero of yours is a bitter, closeted gay man. As Republicans, you must be getting accustomed to these revelations by now, but we Democrats are getting more than a little tired of you moralizing at us while your hypocrites take their self-loathing out on the rest of the country.  Drudge was the hateful little turd who brought us the Lewinsky scandal and who rose to undue prominence because of it. He’s a moron and his website looks like it was designed by an eight year old with a crayon. His 15 minutes were up 10 years ago.

Speaking of College Republicans and local right wing pundits, conservative AZ blogs are currently having a collective case of the vapors over alleged instances of gasp! sign stealing by Young Democrats. So much angst and handwringing about those horrible leftist rapscallions and how they are hastening the decline of humanity with their shocking incivility. Yeah right. Here are some things the little darlings of the College Republicans have gotten up to in recent years: “Catch the illegal immigrant” games and ripping off the elderly with fundraising scams. Those apples don’t fall far from the tree, do they?

BENNETT: I don’t know which drives them more crazy. Let me give you three things that I think drives them crazy, and you don’t have to comment. That’s she’s very attractive. That she’s very competent or that she’s very happy. You know, as a human being.

DAVIS: Yeah, all of the above.

As a card carrying liberal feminist, I’m not terribly bothered when pendejos like Bennett and Davis think they’re insulting me. You see, like any good Gen X third wave feminazi I’ve got a dogeared copy of The Beauty Myth on my bookshelf. Naomi Wolf’s unsparing analysis and indictment of our culture’s obsession with female appearance and the arbitrary and unattainable physical ideals imposed on women came at a time in my life (early 20s) when the pressure to conform to it was never more intense. Reading that book shifted my perception to the extent that I was never able to view any concession I made to the mandate – from dieting to working out to putting on lipstick – in a non-political context ever again.

It’s not that I threw off the shackles of feminine appearance maintenance, not by a longshot. Like most women, I’m a realist and a rational actor. I realized that refusing to shave my legs, color my hair, or wear makeup could severely limit my social and economic options. Like most feminists, I find myself walking a fine line between doing what I need to do to get by in the world and selling out my convictions and self-respect. Plus, there’s an undeniable enjoyment to be had in adorning yourself, whether or not you’re doing it for male approval or professional advancement. I think many of y’all reading this can relate. It also goes to show just how clueless misogynistic asswads like Davis and Bennett really are. They define “feminist” strictly as, “ugly women with hairy legs who have failed to be successful sex objects”*. They also seem to be blissfully unaware that women who identify as feminists marry and have families on a fairly regular basis.

This leads me into the most important thing the book did for me, which was to reveal how beauty standards often have a lot more to do with desired behavior from women than they do with natural attributes. It is for this reason that what is considered “hot” will vary somewhat (within a limited range). When I was a teenager buff blondes like Heather Locklear and Madonna were all the rage. Later it was statuesque Cindy Crawford, who was displaced for heroin chic waifish Kate Moss. By the time I was in my early 30s, curves and ethnic diversity held sway – enter J-Lo and Rosario Dawson. Yet the one constant throughout is that whatever the desired “look” is, ordinary women will find it nearly impossible to mimic it without resorting to time-consuming, uncomfortable, and downright painful practices. High heels, “foundation garments”, grueling workouts, cutting calories drastically, cosmetic surgery, etc.

If you manage to pull it off for a while, time marches on and you are never allowed to forget how short your shelf life is. Even if you are pulling it off (and have been given a special extension for being a “MILF”) your status still depends upon being properly submissive to the patriarchy. This is how the Beauty Myth works. It gives every man a cudgel to wield over every woman, no matter how “beautiful” she is, or not. In fairness, there are many, many men who don’t buy into it. But for those who do, like Davis and Bennett, it provides them with an outlet to express their misogyny and a way to emotionally blackmail women into obedience. Sarah Palin, the feisty MILF, vigorously upholds the status quo.  She is no threat to the to the patriarchy and serves as an example of compliance to hold over other women.

The other reason that I’m not personally bothered by Davis’ and Bennett’s comments is that I know they weren’t directed at me. As stupid as those two bozos are, they are not dumb enough to believe that self-identified feminists like me are going to be browbeaten into supporting Sarah Palin. They are hoping that there are millions of women who, despite embracing feminist ideals such as equal pay and reproductive choice, are still loathe to call themselves feminists because of the way the term has been denigrated. They are hoping to persuade them to embrace Palin as an alternate role model. They are hoping that the threat of calling women “ugly” will bring them into line.

As if.

They either haven’t noticed, or are willfully ignoring, the fact that Palin started out with high favorability ratings with women. Those ratings have been dropping like a stone. Sorry guys, but women recognize a reactionary pig in a retrograde poke. Even if she’s pretty, and wearing lipstick.  That goes for you too, John McCain.  Dissing “the liberal feminist agenda”, as you did in recent campaign rallies, helps you about as much as mocking women’s health at that last debate did.  Which is to say, not at all.  Women will use their votes, en masse, to repudiate you.  And Sarah Palin. 

Donna

*Not that there’s anything wrong with that.