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I want to say amen to your excellent post about McCain and equal pay, Emily. The only thing I'd add is this: I found McCain's comments about the bill particularly dismaying because he invoked an old canard—that women are less qualified than their male peers, and that (by implication) is mainly what keeps their pay low—instead of dealing with the possiblity that discrimination exists. While campaigning in Kentucky, the AP reported, McCain expressed his oppposition to the equal pay bill by noting that what women need is more training:
"They need the education and training, particularly since more and more women are heads of their households, as much or more than anybody else," McCain said. "And it's hard for them to leave their families when they don't have somebody to take care of them.
"It's a vicious cycle that's affecting women, particularly in a part of the country like this, where mining is the mainstay; traditionally, women have not gone into that line of work, to say the least," he said.
Now, to be fair, this quote is taken out of context and I don't know what he said before it. But as a sentiment, this simply doesn't deal with the reality of gender discrimination in our country. Nor will more training help any woman who is being paid less than she should be because of it. McCain's proposal is not a viable alternative, in other words; it's a form of putting one's head in the sand and redirecting voters away from the real, if vexed, issue: that sexism still exists, and we need to find a thoughtful legal way of dealing with it.
Read the rest of the equal-pay conversation on XX Factor.
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I've got more to complain about: Last night, Senate Republicans killed the Equal Pay Bill, which would have undone the Supreme Court's bad deed in a case last term called Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. Lily Ledbetter sued Goodyear for sex discrimination because she earned less than men in similar positions—a fact she proved in court. But on appeal, the Supreme Court found that Ledbetter's suit was too late, by setting the clock according to Ledbetter's first unfairly low pay check, rather than the ongoing low salary she continued to receive years later. It didn't matter when she found out she was being shortchanged—only when Goodyear started doing so.
John McCain said Wednesday that he supports "pay equity for women" but opposes the fix for Ledbetter's plight in the Equal Pay Bill because it "opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems." That has a nice anti-litigation ring, but does it make sense? As Rich Ford pointed out in Slate after the Supreme Court's decision, the clear lesson the case holds for employees is, "Sue early and often. If you suspect your boss might be discriminating with regard to your pay, you can't afford to wait around until you're sure." The Equal Pay Bill might give rise to more meritorious law suits. But couldn't it also stave off some losers? And what does it mean to be for pay equity for women while opposing what's on offer to actually help achieve it?
(Cross-posted on Slate's legal blog, "Convictions.")
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A couple of years ago, my son remarked that President Bush seemed to think every day was Opposites Day, which would explain how he always wound up listening to the wrong people and giving the best ideas the boot. That's how I feel now, listening to Hillary's down-is-up take on why Obama can't win in November. And I am so invigorated by—which on Opposites Day means weary of—hearing her describe his greatest strength as his biggest liability.
No question he's made mistakes. But his fatal flaw, according to her, is that he is not as skilled as she in answering Republican attacks (with more of the same). Watch her gleefully practice on her fellow Democrat, with Republican-style ads evoking such GOP golden oldies as the red phone, Pearl Harbor, and, OMG, Khrushchev? I never expected her to be leading the proverbial Million Mom March, but doesn't it bother any of these old-school feminists to see her painting her rival as the girl in this race—yes, as if that were a bad thing—just as every Republican since Richard Nixon has done to every Democrat since Adlai Stevenson? No doubt the former Goldwater Girl will never be outdone on the mushroom-cloud front. But at what point does one turn into what one fears? If I wanted Karl Rove for president, I would have voted for him the first time.
To me, Obama's appeal is rooted in his view that we have more in common than we might realize—and can't afford to go on tearing each other to shreds in this polarized, cartoon world where if your views are two degrees north or south of mine, then U R evil and must die. It was his refusal to play the same old zero-sum game that got him where he is today—ahead by every measure and, barring the kind of collapse that won't happen unless he betrays his own best instincts, on his way to becoming the nominee.
So, why can't Obama close the deal? In a way, it's his strength in November that is his highest hurdle now. I always thought he would have a harder time winning the nomination than the general, because the Clintons have defined and dominated the Democratic Party for a long, long time. And it's the very same "Let's stand on common ground, together'' appeal—which will win him the support of independents and Republicans in the fall—that makes him so suspect to Democrats who don't want to stand anywhere with those people; they want payback for the Bush years. And while that's understandable, it's not a way to win. Even Bill Clinton, with all his superior political skills and peekaboo triangulating and solemn vows not to act like a real Democrat, would not have won without Ross Perot in the mix. We can't get there on our own —which, again, is Obama's message.
Another reason he can't close the deal: We are never satisfied! Republicans settle for the good-enough candidate, go on about their lives, and show up on Election Day, but not us. I took my children to an Obama rally where people were screaming and swooning and speaking in tongues they were so excited—and on the way home, my daughter sniffs and says she wonders if he's focused enough on global warming. And what can I do but swell with pride? My baby really is a Democrat.
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Ann, a question triggered by your great post this morning: What is the opposite of hope and civility? Is it honesty and candor about the toughness of this race, as you suggest? Is it being “mean and irrational” as Gail Collins argues? Or is it specificity and detail as Joan Walsh implies? From the outset, Obama critics have always conflated his tone with his politics—arguing that all this optimism and coalition-fostering was either empty rhetoric that masked a lack of substance, or that his only end game is to repair politics as it is practiced.
I think that mistake sometimes leads commentators to confuse Clinton’s substance with Obama’s style. When she wins on substance, the problem must be his style. And it leads them to conclude that he has to drop all the sunny optimism and civility in order to be substantial or rigorous or detailed or honest. Substance, rigor, detail, and honesty are not the opposite of civility. Obama can crank up the former without sacrificing the latter. Or at least he can try before hauling out the chainsaw and the flaming torches.
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Ann, your smart post tees me up to protest one particular pander: the candidates' unwillingess to speak the scientific truth that there is no evidence of a link between mercury in vaccines and autism. McCain is the worst on this. From the Washington Post, quoting McCain at a February town hall meeting: "It's indisputable that (autism) is on the rise among children, the question is what's causing it. And we go back and forth and there's strong evidence that indicates it's got to do with a preservative in vaccines."
Obama isn't much better. His quote from a Pennsylvania rally this week, also in the Post: "We've seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it's connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it." The Post has video showing that Obama pointed to someone in the crowd when he said "this person included," so he wasn't talking about himself. Still, there is nothing inconclusive about the science on the autism-vaccines link.
Hillary doesn't slam the door shut on the myth-makers, either. Asked what she would do to protect against "exposure to mercury through vaccines," she said, "I will ensure that all vaccines are as safe as possible for our children by working to ensure that Thimerosal and mercury are removed from vaccines." This is nonsensical, since the government took thimerosal out of vaccines in 1999 (because of other concerns about mercury, though not the kind of mercury in thimerosal, and not related to autism).
As Slate's health editor, I've run so many pieces that patiently debunk the claim that vaccines cause autism that the last time the controversy cropped up, I couldn't bear to assign a new one. Here's how the CDC puts it, "there's no convincing scientific evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines." Here's the latest study knocking down this ever-persistent claim. Here's a good explanation about why the myth won't die. Why, then, are the candidates blithely skipping down this pander path? I haven't heard back from the McCain camp. When I asked the Obama campaign, I got no direct answer but rather a pointed mention of the many many e-mails that parents devoted to this myth send. Which of course is the answer: On one side of this dispute is an extremely impassioned and devoted band of adherents who are deserving of sympathy: parents of autistic children. On the other side is scientific truth—cold, abstract, and apparently not a vote getter. But as our colleague Will Saletan points out, how can Democrats complain about the fake denials of global warming and evolution while practicing the exact same pandering over autism? Gross.
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Here's my two-days-after two-cents. Obama may be feeling weary, but it seems to me he should be feeling he's been remarkably successful at changing the standards of conduct for campaigning, if not yet for governing. But won't it be ironic if the norm-shift to niceness ends up serving neither him, nor the Democratic Party, very well in the end? Our threshold for sustained competition, with any level of conflict in it, seems to have become very low, thanks not least to Obama's invocation of a more harmonious ethos—with the result that his candidacy risks looking hamstrung and a little hapless: The nice-guy stuff would have looked great if he'd won quickly. Since he hasn't, the above-the-fray mentality itself tends to get the blame, fueling fears that its limitations may be more glaring when it comes to real governing. Meanwhile, Clinton looks more like a down-in-the-mud caricature than she would otherwise, and Democratic behavior in general looks dysfunctionally divisive—and inspires gloom-and-doom about November.
But by pre-Obama standards, it seems to me Democrats might be battling on without feeling so bitter and disappointed in each other. Should we be feeling so chagrined that he's facing up to how tough it is to forge broad coalitions, and that she's getting whacked daily for her win-at-all-costs approach? Should we be so panicked they'll tear each other to pieces? And not to be too cynical, but as Gail Collins suggests in her column today, there's a downside to the purportedly high road of just talking positively and peacefully about the issues: It's an invitation to start pandering shamelessly (and all but identically) to the voters. After lots of talk about hope and experience, it surely doesn't hurt either candidates or voters to get some lessons in patience and resilience.