The hits keep comin'!
This week, Mitt Romney's former Lieutenant Governor and current adviser Kerry Healy nonchalantly acknowledged the yawning chasm separating her candidate from American women; "There's always going to be a gender gap between Republicans and Democrats."
She should know. After all, she was by Mitt's side as he made — and broke — a bevy of promises to women voters during his days in Massachusetts. And as it turns out, that long list doesn't only include his gymnastic reversal on abortion rights and shocking betrayal of Planned Parenthood. As we now know, Mitt's belief that "now mom and dad both have to work" and "I want the individuals to have the dignity of work" don't apply to well-off households like his own.
Seeking to capitalize on the manufactured flap over Hilary Rosen's offhand remark that Ann Romney "has actually never worked a day in her life," Mitt proclaimed that "all mothers are working mothers."
As it turns out, Romney's Rule is means-tested. Put another way, on Mitt's Animal Farm, some mothers are more equal than others. As he explained during his 1994 Senate run against Ted Kennedy:
"This is a different world than it was in the 1960s when I was growing up, when you used to be able to have mom at home and dad at work. Now mom and dad both have to work."
Now, as the severely conservative and severely condescending Romney insisted in January, women who receive welfare must work outside the home, even if their children are very young:
"I wanted to increase the work requirement," said Romney. "I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, 'Well that's heartless.' And I said, 'No, no, I'm willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It'll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work."
Just not if the individual is his wife.
As Ann Romney explained in an October 1994 interview, their dignity was provided by Mitt's father George:
"Neither one of us had a job, because Mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at a time."
"The stock came from Mitt's father. When he took over American Motors, the stock was worth nothing. But he invested Mitt's birthday money year to year -- it wasn't much, a few thousand, but he put it into American Motors because he believed in himself. Five years later, stock that had been $6 a share was $96 and Mitt cashed it so we could live and pay for education."
$250 million dollars later, the dignified Mrs. Romney now claims their wealth can't be quantified. As she lectured voters in January:
"I understand Mitt's going to release his tax forms this week. I want to remind you where our riches are: our riches are with our families," Ann Romney said. "Our riches, you can value them, in the children we have and in the grandchildren we have. So that's where our values are and that's where our heart is -- and that's where we measure our wealth."
As Rosengate reached its crescendo last week, Ann Romney explained, "My career choice was to be a mother." She then added:
"We have to respect women in all those choices that they make."
Just not when those choices involve their own bodies and their own health. And that message to the women of America is the exact opposite of the one Mr. and Mrs. Romney sold to the women of Massachusetts.
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/mind-the-gap