Posted on 07/12/2008 7:34:07 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
(At J&L Steel Erectors, Senator touts himself as better choice than Obama)
Hudson, WI - In a first-of-its-kind event for his campaign, a town hall meeting for women only, Republican John McCain argued Friday that "when you cut through all (of Democrat Barack Obama's) smooth rhetoric," McCain's economic agenda of business tax cuts, lower spending and expanded trade makes him a better candidate for women than Obama.
The company was chosen as the site for the town hall meeting because it is a female-owned business. The event was intended as an outreach to women.
The audience is overwhelmingly women at Sen. John McCain's campaign stop Friday in Hudson. The crowd also was largely, but not entirely, supporters of the Republican.
Lauding Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign, and even hailing the first female speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, McCain sought to connect with a demographic that, in his words, is "as we all know...a majority of the voters."
McCain offered a biting critique of Obama, accusing him of being a tax-raiser and a naysayer, especially on energy issues, which have dominated the first heavy exchange of TV ads in the Great Lakes battleground states.
"His answer is no...no to more drilling, no to more nuclear power... You know, for a guy whose official seal carried the motto of, 'Yes, we can,' Senator Obama's agenda sure has a lot of, 'No, we can't,' " McCain said.
Obama has not ruled out supporting nuclear power but has said he has safety concerns about it.
The Illinois Democrat also opposes the expanded offshore drilling that McCain is touting, arguing that it won't have an effect in oil production for years.
But the event, at J&L Steel Erectors, was intended as an outreach to women in particular. On Thursday, Obama hosted an economic event geared to women in northern Virginia.
At the Hudson event, McCain was accompanied by his wife, Cindy. The local businesswoman who introduced McCain - company Chief Executive Officer LouAnne Reger - joked about fashion, dieting and her two divorces as she warmed up the crowd.
"I know you all want to know how to lose five pounds in one week. All you have to do is host a town hall for John McCain," Reger told the crowd, drawing laughter.
"Do you want to know how to lose 30 pounds?" Cindy McCain said a few moments later. "Help your husband run for president."
The hundreds in the audience were overwhelmingly women.
"Yesterday (Thursday) in New York, Senator Obama went on at great length about how much he cares about women's issues," McCain said. "I believe him. But when you cut through all the smooth rhetoric, Senator 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."
McCain supports extending the Bush tax cuts and also proposes a cut in corporate taxes and a doubling of the child credit. Obama has proposed a series of tax cuts for middle-income earners and below, while favoring higher income and capital gains taxes on people making more than $250,000.
McCain sought to assure voters in Hudson he felt their economic pain, especially after published comments this week by his longtime friend and adviser Phil Gramm that the United States has become a "nation of whiners" and the country is in a "mental recession." Gramm said later that he was referring to "our leaders" when he said that, not average people.
"Juggling family and career can be hard," McCain told his audience. "Now you have to deal with the rising costs of both running a business and raising a family."
Pay legislation 'flawed'
Democrats criticized McCain this week for opposing legislation in Congress aimed at ensuring pay parity for women; McCain has said the legislation was flawed.
"We have not done enough. I'm committed to making sure that there is equal pay for equal work," McCain told the crowd Friday.
In a statement Friday, Obama senior adviser Anita Dunn said: "Senator Obama believes every woman deserves equal pay for equal work. He has a plan to help working women by guaranteeing seven paid sick days to the 22 million who currently have none, and by providing child tax credits, additional after-school programs, and a tax cut for 71 million working women and eliminating capital gains taxes for 8.7 million women who own small businesses or start-ups. Senator McCain thinks the Supreme Court was right to make it harder for women to challenge pay discrimination at work, and he opposed legislation that Obama co-sponsored to reverse that decision."
In an Obama campaign call with reporters Thursday in advance of the McCain visit, U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Madison) said, "There could not be a starker difference (between the two), both with regard to working women and pay equity."
Baldwin said that for "all the strain that the middle class in Wisconsin and the rest of the nation is feeling right now, Senator McCain is not offering any meaningful short-term (stimulus) plan or meaningful middle class tax cut."
A recent report by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that McCain's tax cuts would go far more to upper earners, while Obama would raise taxes on upper earners, but lower them more than McCain for people below the highest brackets. McCain argues that his plan would do more to stimulate job creation, and thereby benefit Americans broadly.
Third visit to Wisconsin
McCain's visit was his third to Wisconsin in the general election campaign and brought him to what is easily the fastest-growing part of the state, St. Croix County, which gave President Bush a nine-point cushion in 2004.
High-growth suburbs have proved fertile for the GOP in recent elections. Bush won Wisconsin's six fastest-growing counties four years ago (although he badly lost the biggest top-10 county in growth, Dane).
Since Hudson is in the Twin Cities media market, the visit is also a media two-fer, drawing heavy coverage in Minnesota and Wisconsin, both states that Democrats narrowly carried in 2004 and that McCain would like to flip from blue to red.
"This is a battleground state. There's no doubt that Wisconsin will be one of those states that decide who the next president of the United States is," McCain said Friday, although most recent polls have given Obama a double-digit lead in both states.
The crowd at Friday's event was made up largely, but not entirely, of McCain supporters. Some people interviewed supported Obama or were undecided.
The McCain campaign said seats were mostly allocated through a group of pro-McCain women in the state who recruited friends, phone-tree style, to come.
Also greeting McCain was a now customary contingent of costumed and non-costumed demonstrators: a Citizen Action cow ("Got Health Care?"), and McCain and Bush impersonators from One Wisconsin Now play-acting around a giant mock rubber stamp.
From the title, I thought this would be a really interesting article....
A clarification to the title...
McCain’s campaign courts women.
I believe it was president Clinton who targeted women.
Look at how “targeting women” is usually used in the media. It’s what rapists and robbers do. This isn’t unintentional!
‘At J&L Steel Erectors, Senator touts himself as better choice than Obama’. This certainly is a convenient followup to revrum jackson’s comments and diminishes barry’s credentials in front of a woman-owned company.
LOL! Documented, of course, with all of their immunizations up to date.
Of course it was intentional. This is from the Wisconsin “Urinal” (Journal) Sentinel. :)
Look at how “targeting women” is usually used in the media. It’s what rapists and robbers do. This isn’t unintentional!
ROFLMAO, you mean that his “good friends” in the DBM don’t really like him after all?
Gee.
What a shame.
If we didn’t have the voter fraud we have in this state McCain would win as President Bush really did in 2000 and 2004. Are there any earthquake fault lines or any possibility of Tsunamis or Hurricanes projected for Dane county? Just a delightful thought.
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