First, I just wrote the word balls....and I'm not sorry.
This will be short. Read this.I made up the headline.
Guys says what he means...apologizes
Why in the hell should one be sorry for saying that. If I said Barrack Obama was likely to carry favor with African American voters because he himself is black, I wouldn't apologize for it anymore than I would for saying Mitt Romney is likely to have high support among Mormons. Michelle Bachman, being a woman, will curry favor with guys that have a thing for powerful non-hideous women.
We, the electorate, support people like us. Right or wrong it's just something we do.
Pizza lovers may support Herman Cain, crazy Alaskan soccer mom's will identify with Sarah Palin. It's what we do.
As for referencing her sex appeal, so what? That was referenced plenty when Bill Clinton ran, and again with Obama.
This quote gets me the most:
"I don't believe that he or anyone else should be using as a reference somebody's sex appeal to judge their fitness for office or the strength of their campaign. It was a wrong statement. He should not have been making that reference."
He's right. Sex shouldn't be a consideration in someone's fitness for office. But it is. Some people vote on the issues, some vote on one issue, but most vote on things that have nothing to do with whether they'd be any good at their job.
Here's a couple examples of bad perception leading to votes.
Some people like Bush because he seemed simple and down to earth, a guy you'd have a beer with, but why would you want a a drinking buddy running our nation?
Some people supported President Obama because he wasn't a "Washington Insider," but why would you want someone who doesn't understand the workings inside the beltway to work there?
Nothing's wrong with that sort of thing being an "All-else-equal" tiebreaker, but sadly that's how most of our citizenry votes.
I voted for John McCain because I thought his leadership, years of legislative servie and military background would come in handy as president. Some people I know voted for him because he was pro-life, some people voted for him because he was white.
Similar reasons can be found for why folks voted for Obama.
Let's stop pretending that the we're all high minded and thinking about the issues all the time. Most of us aren't. The reason Fox News has a bunch of hot blonde news anchors isn't because of their talent or our thirst for news.
It is because dudes follow politics and the news and dudes like chicks. Michelle Bachman will likely get some votes based on the same principle.
It's true that the guy who said that was not being sexist. It's also true that guys who vote based on the looks of a chick (or girls who do the same) are being sexist.
ReplyDeleteThe guy was just acknowledging a fact. The fact that many voters are ignorant, sexist, and use poor judgement when making decisions.
However, what rankles is not the HE was being sexist, but that he was listing a baser motivation (sex appeal) alongside legitimate motivations to vote for her, with no distinction between them. I don't think the guy meant it that way, we all know what he was trying to say. However, it politically stupid to use anything other than extreme caution when touching on a subject like that.
I would place this next to Joe Biden's reference to being Obama being cleancut and wellspoken back in the early Dem campaigns in '07. He too was just acknowledging the fact that Obama doesn't act ghetto, and thus will appeal to white voters in a way that previous black candidates did not. But that's a touchy subject, awash in stereotypes. And it came at a time when there was the first serious black candidate, so the stakes were that much higher.
My priorities place content ahead of style. What you say is much more important than how you say it. However, how you say it still matters. The guy should've known better.
"Watch me man up like nobody else! I'm gonna man up all over myself!"
ReplyDeleteAmericans are a very sensitive people and prefer to be lied to. We prefer the truth to be censured, ignored, or hidden, and when someone comes out and tells the truth we demand a fake apology so we can once again feel the comforting embrace of a lie.
ReplyDeleteOH GOD! We are a nation of children!
You know what just popped into my head? I am reminded of a news story highlighting profane words uttered by American politicians over the years. Seriously, why should we care?
This whole nation needs to undergo a ball lifting.