McCain Says His Policies Will Help Women

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Abortion
Article Date: 15 Jul 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) on Friday in Wisconsin told a primarily female audience that his plans to reduce income, business and estate taxes would help women in the U.S. because many own or work for small businesses, the AP/Bergen Record reports. He also said that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) tax proposals would create new economic obstacles for women.

According to the AP/Record, many Republicans believe McCain has a chance to pick up Democratic and Independent female voters who are disappointed or angry that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) lost in the primary elections; however, the event in Hudson seemed "geared to hardcore conservatives." McCain said that Obama on Thursday in New York "went on at great length about how much he cares about women's issues" and that he believes Obama. He added, "But when you cut through all the smooth rhetoric, Sen. Obama's policies would make it harder for women to start new businesses, harder for women to create or find new jobs, harder for women to manage the family budget and harder for women and their families to meet their tax burden."

Obama's campaign disputed the claims and noted that McCain opposed a Senate measure to increase the time that workers have to file pay discrimination lawsuits, which is a priority for some women's groups. McCain told the audience that he has a record of supporting equal pay for women. He later told reporters that he opposed the Senate measure because he did not want "open-ended litigation by trial lawyers." He added that he has demonstrated his support for equal pay "in a whole broad variety of ways, from support of women in the military to all kinds of laws that provide employment" to women. He also commented on his willingness to upset fellow Senate Republicans by working with liberal Democrats, such as Sens. Russ Feingold (Wisc.) and Edward Kennedy (Mass.) (Babington, AP/Bergen Record, 7/12).

Wisconsin Antiabortion Group Backs McCain

In related news, the antiabortion group Wisconsin Right to Life has backed McCain about one year after the organization and the senator "clashed" over McCain's campaign finance law, the AP/Google.com reports. "McCain supports our position on the issues, and that's what matters now," Dan Pilon, the president of WRTL's board of directors, said, adding, "I've learned that once you have a fight, it's over and done and you forget about it. You don't go around holding grudges." The group's political action committee endorsed McCain in April.

Some political analysts say that the group, which has been credited with driving the Wisconsin Republican party to the right by helping candidates who oppose abortion rights win primary elections, could help convince conservatives who are uncomfortable with McCain to vote for him. "If they are behind him, the party is likely to be able to mobilize its core supporters behind McCain," Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist, said.

For this year's general presidential election, WRTL efforts to promote McCain should be more widespread than their efforts to promote President Bush in 2004, Barbara Lyons, the group's executive director, said. Employees and volunteers plan to contact 500,000 households in the state that the group has identified as sympathetic to the antiabortion cause, using mailing, Internet advocacy and telephone calls.

WRTL in 2004 filed a lawsuit against the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which the group claimed restricted free speech. The law banned corporations and unions from paying for advertisements that mentioned a candidate within 60 days of an election and 30 days of a primary. The group filed the suit after it was prohibited from running ads calling on voters to urge Wisconsin's two senators not to filibuster Bush's judicial nominees. The ads were banned because Feingold was up for re-election.

The Supreme Court in 2007 ruled in favor of WRTL, and the court's decision "opened a door for interest groups to become an influential voice in the closing days of an election," according to the AP/Google.com.

Although Lyons said she was not pleased with the court fight over the campaign finance law, it was an easy decision to endorse McCain, who has a 25-year record of voting against abortion rights. "Obviously, we were very concerned about our free speech rights and we went to court to protect them," she said, adding, "But in terms of the endorsement, what we had to look at is, what is the record of McCain in comparison to Obama? The difference is incredibly stark" (Foley, AP/Google.com, 7/11).

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