Lilly Ledbetter: Obama's Newest Ad Star
| Tue Sep. 23, 2008 9:44 AM PDT
At some point, the Goodyear Tire company is going to wish it had simply paid Lilly Ledbetter like a man. Instead, the company managed to turn the Alabama grandmother into the Democrats' poster child for the evils of a GOP-dominated Supreme Court and a powerful critic of John McCain. Last year, the court ruled against Ledbetter in a case she filed against Goodyear for paying her 40 percent less than men in similar jobs. The decision rolled back years of precedent and made it much harder for women to challenge pay discrimination in court. Members of Congress introduced legislation named after Ledbetter to remedy the problem, then failed to pass it. A star was born.
Ledbetter gave a rousing speech at the Democratic convention, and this week, she makes her debut in a series of Obama campaign ads blasting John McCain for opposing pay discrimination laws. Ledbetter is Obama's answer to Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman: a white, working-class woman who played by the rules and got screwed by GOP policies and judges on every level. In the Obama ad, she quotes John McCain dismissing the gender pay-gap by saying that women just need "more training and education." After noting that she had the same education and training as the men who made more than her at Goodyear, Ledbetter quips: "On the economy, it's John McCain who needs an education."
Ledbetter's story polls so well that the advocacy group People for the American way is also using her case in ads targeting seven Republican senators up for reelection, including New Hampshire's John Sununu and Minnesota's Norm Coleman, who voted to confirm Bush nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito. PFAW is only one of a number of liberal groups hoping to make the future of the Supreme Court a major campaign issue. (The next president is likely to appoint anywhere from one to three new justices.) Today in a conference call, PFAW president Kathryn Kolbert noted that the Obama ads may be the first time that a Supreme Court case has been turned into a significant presidential campaign issue (aside from Roe, of course).
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Comments
Members of Congress introduced legislation named after Ledbetter to remedy the problem, then failed to pass it.
So, a Congress controlled by Democrats doesn't pass this bill, and it's John McCain's fault?
Only "The Faithful" could delude themselves enough to buy into a story like that.
Say what...?
"So, a Congress controlled by Democrats doesn't pass this bill, and it's John McCain's fault?"
Well, it wasn't entirely McCain's fault--there are other Rep's that we can assign blame to also. However, in the ad, McCain is given well deserved credit for his sexist remarks about women.
Women who are working outside the home are often faced with "John McCain" sexist type remarks (mentioned in this ad)and are not easily deluded. This ad will resonate with women and it should.
nnorman51 writes: Well, it wasn't entirely McCain's fault--there are other Rep's that we can assign blame to also.
Oh..., I see.
The Democrats who control the Congress did everything, absolutely everything they could to get this bill passed, and so are entirely blameless for the failure??
LMMFAO!
The Minority party has once again managed to outvote the Majority?
Did you study Political Science under MarthaA?
kirkbrew clearly understands why we refer to these people as DemoPublicans & RepubliCrats.
Some folks still enjoy the view as constrained by those seemingly permanently installed Partisan Blinders.
Say What..? where did *you* study Political Science? The Democrats, with a very slim majority, do *not* "control" the Senate. You are aware that the republican minority in this congress has used the filibuster, or the threat of a filibuster, more twice as much as *any* congress in history. The fact that this Congress has been tagged as "do nothing" (aside from being rather misleading) is largely due to the obstructionist republicans, using tactics that a few short years ago they were practically labeling as treason.
