Some Of Scott Walker's Best Friends Are Women

Hey, ladies of Wisconsin! With the election that decides his political future coming up next week, your feminist hero Gov. Scott Walker has remembered that you're allowed to vote, just in time for him to put one of your kind on TV to make a not-at-all disingenuous play for your support.

Team Walker, having recently become aware that Scott's opponent in this incredibly tight race has had a huge lead among women for the past several months, came out with a new ad that should take care of it, no problem. His lieutenant governor, a lady herself, is here to tell you other ladies she is insulted that Democrat Mary Burke would even suggest Scott Walker doesn't want women to be paid fairly, just because he repealed the state's equal pay law in 2012. 

I’m Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch. My dad used to take me to work with him. He told me I could do anything. That’s why I find it so insulting that Mary Burke would say that we’re trying to make it harder for women to earn equal pay.

Under Scott Walker, work place discrimination will always be illegal. For any reason.

Mary Burke wants to create more opportunities to sue.Wewant to create more opportunities for women to succeed.

Don't you see, women? You shouldn't be spending your time in courtrooms, seeking redress under the law if an employer discriminates against you. You'll never get ahead like that! Get back to work! 
 

Even before Burke's underhanded equal pay smears, though, Scotty's had trouble makin' time with lady voters in Wisconsin. What could possibly be the problem? It must be that his opponent is a woman. Those ladies are always gonna vote for another lady, right?

It couldn't be that Walker's policies would be unpopular with women no matter who was running against him, and that women would be ready to turf him out anyway after four years of ratcheting up restrictions on reproductive health care and tamping down any suggestion of helping the working poor, who are disproportionately women, by increasing Wisconsin's $7.25 minimum wage.

And there's no way that thousands of politically active women could remember what happened three whole years ago, back in the Wisconsin Union Wars. Maybe they didn't even notice that Scotty tried to beat back resistance to his union-busting by sparing police and firefighters' associations, instead bravely taking on those mostly female thug mobs of teachers and nurses.

This gender gap must be a failure of messaging. Specifically, women voters refuse to get   the message . Not that Scotty's campaign could have done anything differently. How can you say that they haven't addressed this? Didn't you watch the ad? That's the problem with you women. Ann Romney was right:  you'd be 100 percent behind Scott Walker if you only knew the truth about him, but it's just not getting through. Scott's evenmarried to a lady. What else do you want?

OK, so maybe it's too late to get women up to speed on all the reasons they should vote for Scott Walker, but they're not the only ones in Wisconsin. He can just make it up with more guys, right? Look, Scott in a hardhat!

 
 Image via Scott Walker's campaign manifesto 

This could prove to be the fatal flaw in Scotty's calculations. If he's counting on getting past all those fed-up Wisconsin women on the strength of his popularity with men, he might be underestimating the number of men who are fed up with him for all the same reasons that women are. The anti-Walker protesters who invaded the capitol in Madison for weeks on end in 2011 had no shortage of man-mobs with COPS FOR LABOR signs. A minimum wage too low to make a living hurts working families, which makes things harder for everybody, even men! Some men might even think a woman should be able to get an abortion in Wisconsin! Walker's anti-woman policies are anti-woman. Not all Wisconsin men are anti-woman.

Scott Walker's road-tripping around Wisconsin this week in a last-ditch effort to get another four years in office. Given his pre-emptive whining that national Republicans aren't dumping enough cash into TV ads for him, it's possible he's a bit nervous about what will happen at the end of tour! If you want to add one more bead of sweat to Scott Walker's forehead as the campaign draws to a close, give some money to Mary Burke. We'll see you on Tuesday!

[ HuffPo ]

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