"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Thursday, April 12, 2012

A Quick and Dirty Post About Obama's Strategery II

Here's what I wrote yesterday:


Don't be confused when the Obama campaign talks about a "war on women."   They're not talking about married women, or middle-aged women, or elderly women.   They are talking about 18-29 year old unmarried women who, I think it's fair to say, will be (like 18-29 year old men) among the most liberal and least informed voters.   How do they get them to the polls?   They scare them into thinking evil Republicans and meanie Catholics are going to take away their birth control.  It's an utterly cynical move...
Now today we get Hilary Rosen, a DNC operative and frequent visitor at the White House, going on TV saying that Ann Romney has never held a real job and doesn't know what real women worry about.   Ms. Rosen has already been thrown under the bus by the Obama campaign as a "rogue" who spoke out of turn in an "offensive" way that does not reflect what the Obama campaign actually feels about stay-at-home moms.

Don't.   You.   Believe.   It.   This was a completely calculated move designed to neutralize a huge asset for the Romney campaign, his very likable wife (mother of five, cancer and MS survivor, beautiful, gracious, etc.).   It also fits in with what I said above, namely, that part of Obama's campaign strategy is trying to move 18-29 year old unmarried women a few percentage points.   Does he think that relatively poor, relatively struggling young women who don't have a husband might resent a little Ann Romney's cheery lifestyle as the wife of a multi-millionaire who could afford to stay home with five children?   You bet he does.  

This is not a gaffe.   It's a trial balloon.   Not by accident, last week Obama himself said the following on the campaign trail:
"And once Michelle and I had our girls, she gave it her all to balance raising a family and pursuing a career--and something that could be very difficult on her, because I was gone a lot.  Once I was in the state legislature, I was teaching, I was practicing law, I'd be traveling. And we didn't have the luxury for her not to work..."

Is the Obama campaign conscioiusly trying to contrast Michelle Obama as "working mother" with Ann Romney as "lady of leisure"?   Sure they are.   That's how they think.

***

Oh, and by the way, as a lawyer whose wife stayed at home while I pursued a career that I sort of like and sort of don't like some of the time in order to make the money we need to support ourselves, Obama's lament that "we didn't have the luxury for her not to work" is risible.   He was a Harvard Law School graduate, magna cum laude, editor of the law review.   By the time he had children in 1998 he was already a lecturer at the University of Chicago and had already published his equally risible Dreams From My Father.   He could have walked into any Chicago law firm at any time and commanded an income that would have easily supported a young family.   That he was black was a bonus:  part of the reason why he could "afford" to pursue politics was always because he knew that, given the leverage his race gave him in the affirmative action culture of Big Law, he could always make money whenever he wanted to.   But that's beside the point, really.... the point is that lots of men, real men, make sacrifices, including giving up their ambitions to take a job, in order to support their families and permit their wives to stay home with their children.   That Obama chose not to make that sacrifice simply points out, once again, his selfishness.    


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