Photo by Melissa Webster

The lights were low in Hal & Mal's Red Room the night of the vice-presidential debate on Oct. 2. A high-pitched hum of excited chatter filled the room, with a big screen set up at the far end.

Most of the people in the room were women. Young and old, black and white women stood and sat in small groups of two, three and four. Men were well-represented, of course, but this was a night for women, and the anticipation in the nearly standing-room-only crowd was palpable. Katie McClendon showed up in heels and a suit, coifed just like Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the resemblance uncanny, down to her Tina Fey glasses.

Two poised, professional young friends, Signe Shackelford, 27, who works with the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, and Yvette Dzakeasu, 22, an intern with a local non-profit organization, sat together talking and sipping from plastic cups before the debate began.

One white, the other black, the two presented an undeniably feminine image of youthful, more tolerant attitudes combined with strong opinions and knowledge about the 2008 political scene.

"I like that she's a woman; I like seeing women in positions of power," Dzakeasu said of Palin. "I think that it's unfortunate that she's not very eloquent, and she doesn't seem to be familiar with a lot of issues. … It's embarrassing, and it makes me feel really frustrated."

Like most of the women in the room, Dzakeasu and Shackelford had seen the video clips of Palin that had been circulating on the Internet since Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain announced her as his running mate, like the one with Charlie Gibson where she was unable to define the Bush Doctrine of anticipatory self-defense. "His world view," she responded when Gibson asked what the Bush Doctrine meant to her.

And the one with Katie Couric where she was unable to give an example of McCain's pushing for regulation: "I'll try to find you some and bring 'em to ya," she said.

"She doesn't seem very well-informed at all about any issues," Shackelford said. She couldn't name a single Supreme Court case (other than Roe v. Wade)."

A few moments later, Palin and Democrat Joe Biden appeared on the big screen, and the crowd at Hal & Mal's applauded and whistled, then quieted as someone turned the sound up to see if Palin would redeem herself.

'Drill, Baby, Drill'
With her faux-messy updo with its long, exactly right bangs, her perfectly applied makeup, rimless glasses, figure-flattering peplum suit and shiny red high heels, Palin strode confidently onto the stage.

"Hey, can I call you Joe?" she asked Biden, in a confident, all-American-girl manner, reaching out to shake his hand. Alaska's governor seemed to be in her element.

Throughout the night, Palin looked directly into the TV camera for "everyday American people—Joe Six-Pack and Hockey Moms. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people," Palin said.

She held her own against Biden's superior knowledge of issues, correcting him when he said, "drill, drill, drill."

"The chant is 'drill, baby, drill," Palin said.

"Good answer, great delivery, great dig at Biden," wrote Michelle Malkin, conservative blogger and Fox News channel contributor in her online debate thread about Palin's response to a question about the war in Iraq. Malkin, sounding a bit like a pugilistic referee for the presidential horse race, filled the thread with, "take that," "SCORE!" and, "Round to Palin" while commenting about Palin's looks and "glowing smile."

But some of the women at Hal & Mal's weren't sure. At Palin's first colloquial "darn right," several women looked at each other quizzically, as if to say, "Did I hear that right?" The second time she said it, they knew they hadn't misheard.

And then she did it.

"Did she just wink?" someone asked.

By the fourth or fifth wink, a few women lurched forward in their chairs, mouths open in disbelief.

Sabina Schoenhofer, a Democrat, summed it up for many women at Hal & Mal's. "I'm surprised and even grateful that Palin didn't make as big a fool of herself as I anticipated."

But, she added, Palin didn't represent the women of America well.

"For one thing, she gets up there and acts like a little girl, not a mature, adult woman. That embarrassed me, to be quite honest," Schoenhofer said.

Brandon resident Pam Johnson, a pro-life Democrat who listened to the debate on the radio, said her answers seemed to be rambling and disjointed: "[T]here was not any substance. It was so evident, the repetitive nature of the sound bites being employed. I won't say I was surprised, but it was extremely evident in a radio setting."

"Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have been universally noted, discussed and mocked," Michelle Goldberg wrote on the conservative Guardian U.K. Web site. "Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night."

'A Quick Study'?
The fact that McCain chose as his running mate an unknown first-term governor from a state with fewer residents than the average Mississippi congressional district (around 700,000) surprised many voters, including the very women McCain hoped to attract. And, while 84 percent of voters polled after the debate by CNN thought Palin did better than expected, 53 percent said she was unqualified to serve as president, one percentage point better than before the debate.

Respondents to a Pew Research poll released a few days after the debate described Palin as inexperienced and unqualified almost as often as they said she was honest and confident. "Competent" and "knowledgeable" appeared way down on the list. For a vice presidential candidate on the ticket with a man whom insurance actuaries predict will die within three years, that's sobering.

Can Palin draw votes with only the power of populism behind her?

"She's obviously very smart," said Cindy Phillips, Republican National Committee woman for Mississippi. "She's obviously very experienced, and she's a quick study. That's all obvious in just looking at her."

Republican Pat Bruce founded the Madison Countians Allied Against Poverty Center, which she described as an "upscale Salvation Army." Now retired, she believes Palin can unravel the bureaucracy of anti-poverty programs like TANF.

"I think that Sarah Palin has a lot of common sense," Bruce said, a Republican resident of Madison. "And she's a mother. You know, and I know that we women bring a different perspective to any matter."

Yet Palin did not mention poverty in the debate.

"When they see a woman on the ticket, the initial reaction is, 'Good for her," said Ellen Malcolm, head of EMILY's List to Time magazine in September. "But as they start focusing on the issues, they will see Sarah Palin is out of step."

Poverty is an issue that affects women and children far more than it affects men. It's also an issue from which Palin is far removed. Her annual salary of $125,000 alone (not to mention her husband's income and the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend on oil revenues of $3,269 for each of her family members this year) puts Palin in the top 19 percent of all American workers. But, as the Associated Press reported, "Add up the couple's 2007 income and the estimated value of their property and investments, and they appear to be worth at least $1.2 million," which moves the Palin's into the top 1 percent of all Americans.

Palin's salary alone is about five times the median Mississippi woman's income of $25,800 and six times the median income of African American women in the state.

McCain's platform is similarly out of touch with the issue, benefiting that top 1 percent far more than those in lower and middle-income brackets. McCain wants to make the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy permanent, and has proposed additional tax cuts for upper-echelon businesses.

In Mississippi, 26 percent of adult women 19 to 64 years old lived in poverty last year, along with 31 percent—more than 231,000—of the state's children. Compare those rates to the numbers for adult men—22 percent in Mississippi—and a picture of the disproportionate burden of poverty emerges. Nationally, the poverty rate for women is 17 percent, and 14 percent for men.

Palin's relatively short record in public office shows little legislation of consequence for the poor. Last January, she proclaimed Feb. 1 as Alaska Earned Income Tax Credit Awareness Day, and urged eligible Alaskans to apply for EITC, a tax credit that allows low-income people to keep more of what they earn. She also encouraged giving to charity—specifically the Salvation Army—by declaring Nov. 15, 2007 "Red Kettle Day."

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama strongly supports policies to alleviate poverty. Last April at the Democratic Compassion Forum, in fact, Obama committed to cutting poverty in half in 10 years.

"I make that commitment with humility because we've got a lot of work to do economically in this country to bring about a more just and fair economy," he said. "It starts with recognizing the wages for average families have gone down during the most recent economic expansion. That's never happened before."

In January, McCain said that lower- and middle-income Americans need help; however, the McCain/Palin Web site, which details the many issues the Republican Party feels are important, does not single out or directly address poverty, instead addressing "immediate relief for families" under economic plans. Under that heading, the only specific recommendation is suspending taxes on gas this past summer.

The Obama/Biden platform outlines numerous anti-poverty policies that the team will fight for if elected. He proposes a payroll tax credit for middle-class taxpayers, which will affect 71 million working women. He also proposes an increase in the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011. Obama wants to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and provide child-care tax breaks for low-income families. Recently, he also proposed a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures for loans from banks in the $700 billion bailout.

Obama says that he will cut taxes for 95 percent of workers and their families, and provide cuts for low- and middle-income seniors. He also intends to let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire, and would raise taxes on capital gains and dividends for those making more than $250,000, while providing a $3,000 tax credit for companies creating new jobs. He also wants to close business tax loopholes, end deductions for industries such as oil and gas, and wants to introduce tax penalties for companies keeping their profits overseas.

Speaking for the Children
In September, MomsRising.org Executive Director Kristen Rowe-Finkbeiner and 15 of the organization's 150,000 members showed up at the State of Alaska regional office in Washington, D.C., with a letter for Palin. Signed by nearly 22,000 moms, dads and others from around the country, the letter asked simply, "Governor Palin, if elected vice president of the United States, how will you support mothers and families?"

"We were turned away by the governor's office," Rowe-Finkbeiner said, adding that they dropped the letter in the mail as requested, but have yet to get a response.

"We are extremely disappointed that we were not even allowed to deliver this letter today," said Rowe-Finkbeiner in a statement. "Health care, paid sick days, paid family leave and after-school programs are among the issues that are top-of-mind for many families."

Many American women look up to Palin, a mother of five, as a successful example of a working mother.

"[H]ere is a woman who grew up in a regular family, both parents in education. She goes to Idaho to college, gets her journalism degree, meets this guy, they get married, they have five children," Phillips said. "She's worked in a business, decided to run for (council member), mayor. A lot of women I know who have been involved in politics, her story is very much their story."

Realistically, though, many American women don't have the luxury of Palin's salary, or a husband who spends every second week at home taking care of the kids.

"So far, Palin's status as a working mother tells me what mothers around the country already know: If you are willing, and can afford, to leave your newborn baby and children in someone else's care, you, too, can take on any job," wrote Jennifer Ehrlich for Boston.com. "The devil is in the details: How to make ends meet once you pay for childcare and the mortgage?"

Many of the issues identified as "women's" issues are, in truth, family issues. The economic reality for most American families is that women work; about half the U.S. work force is comprised of women, and roughly 90 percent of women rely on some type of child care so that they can work, whether that is all-day care for infants and pre-schoolers, or after-school care for kindergarten-aged and older children.

In Mississippi, like most states, yearly full-time child-care costs for an infant are on par with about a year of tuition costs for a state college: around $4,500.

"That's pretty staggering to realize," said Carol Burnett, executive director of the Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative. "Especially when you're talking about a single mother who's working at minimum wage, who has an infant child and she didn't have much maternity leave."

Making child care affordable, Burnett explained, is one of the most effective ways to support women moving from welfare to work and out of poverty.

"Studies have shown that a parent that leaves welfare to work is 82 percent more likely to be at work two years later if she has child care," she said. "It's pretty dramatic."

The quality of child care is also important.

"For children in their early years to have what it takes to be able to succeed in school, they have to have a language-level of words (and) vocabulary emphasis in their early education, (which) begins at birth, so that they can come to learning environments, in primarily public schools, with a vocabulary that will permit them to then take on the harder tasks of reading and math," Grace said.

Without adequate early learning skills, children are much more prone to fall behind and never catch up in school, Grace said, exacerbating the dropout rate down the road, and even adding to the crime rate.

"That's not to say that everyone who can't read is going to end up in Parchman," Grace said, "but if you were asking (Mississippi Superintendent) Hank Bounds or some other school superintendent why kids are dropping out, part of their answer would be (kids that fall behind are) not able to function in doing the work that they're being required to do."

While some women receive child-care fee assistance through federal programs, only about 20 percent of very poorest women are served in Mississippi, which does not contribute any state funds beyond the minimum required matching required to receive the federal dollars. Mississippi's Department of Human Services also had a bad habit of leaving federal dollars on the table under former director Don Taylor.

"Mississippi uses some TANF money for child care but not as much as we could," Burnett said. "In '06, Mississippi had about $30 million in TANF dollars that we just didn't use for anything. In '07, that number was around $23 million. The effort is to try to get the state to direct those monies that aren't being spent on anything else to go to child care to try to serve more children."

Hand in hand with affordable child care, women's organizations are also working to get more family-friendly legislation introduced: Paid sick days and paid family medical leave are two issues near and dear to working women.

"[N]early half the private-sector workers, 21 million women, have no paid sick days," said Ellen Bravo, former director of 9to5, (now the National Association of Working Women) and coordinator of the Multi-State Working Families Consortium, during a teleconference. "Seven out of 10 who do can't use them to care for a sick child."

In the U.S. Senate, Obama and Biden were co-sponsors on the Healthy Families Act, which would require employers with 15 or more workers to provide seven paid sick days to care for their own or their families' medical needs, and both voted for in favor of FMLA.

Employees who go to work sick actually cost businesses money, Bravo said. And big retailers like Wal-Mart are some of the worst offenders, paying minimum wage and not providing benefits of any kind to the majority of their workers. Chances are, if you need to take more than a few days off or take time to care for a sick child or parent, you won't have a job to come back to.

On issues relating to child care and family-friendly workplaces, the McCain/Palin platform is vague. Historically, McCain supported unpaid family leave in 1993 and 2004 (for companies with 50 or more employees) as long as the bills guaranteed businesses would not have to pay, and Palin designated Family Child Care Week in Alaska last March to "encourage all Alaskans to recognize the vital role family child care homes play in the lives of our children."

The McCain/Palin ticket supports the Bush No Child Left Behind program, and promises to "focus federal resources on ensuring that the neediest children have access to a range of high-quality programs," according to its Web site. The ticket proposes a new "Centers for Excellence in Head Start" program, and would base additional funding for at least one existing Head Start Center per state, based on performance.

In Mississippi, though, Head Start serves only about 26,000 of the 231,000 poor children eligible, and McCain's plan does not expand the program. With higher standards than child care centers, the program is an invaluable education tool, but, because it also operates during normal school hours, it cannot fully take the place of child care for parents who work full time.

As a state senator, Obama supported a $10 billion investment in early learning grants and quadrupling Illinois' Head Start enrollment.

The Obama/Biden team supports expanding and initiating family-friendly policies, including support for the Healthy Families Act. They would seek to expand FMLA for more purposes, including elder care, parents' participation in school activities, and time to address domestic violence and assault. They would also expand after-school opportunities and reform the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit providing a 50 child care credit for low-income families.

"There are some programs that are very important that are currently under funded," Obama said during the first presidential debates Sept. 26. He agreed that the government needs to cut spending in some areas, but he said other areas, such as early childhood education, need more funding.

The 'Mommy Gap'
"I'm a feminist who believes in equal rights, and I believe that women certainly today have every opportunity that a man has to succeed, and to try to do it all, anyway," Palin told CBS News' Katie Couric. "I've been expected to do everything growing up that the boys were doing. We were out chopping wood, and you're out hunting and fishing, and filling our freezer with good wild Alaskan game to feed our family. So it kind of started with that."

But is Palin's definition of "equal rights" for women—chopping wood, hunting and fishing—the same as the concerns of most American women?

Palin's membership in Feminists for Life hardly qualifies her as a "feminist." The organization focuses exclusively on alternatives to abortion for college-age women, without providing any alternatives to women with children.

The Equal Rights Amendment championed equal pay for equal work. Yet nearly 40 years after the bill was defeated as "unnecessary and redundant," American women make less than 78 cents for every $1 earned by comparably educated and experienced American men, up from less than 60 cents in 1970. And it's worse for minority women: African American women earn 69 cents, and Latinas, 57 cents. Single mothers as a group come in at a pitiful 60 cents.

Attempting to debunk the "feminist myth" of the gender wage gap, in 2002, economist June O'Neill, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, found that childless women between 27 and 33 earn 98 percent of what men do when controlled for experience, education and years on the job. O'Neill cited "lifestyle choices" such as having children—and leaving the work force to care for them—and a preference for safe, sedentary jobs with flexibility for the difference in wages.

But women in the work force aren't defined by the five-year span O'Neill cites; most women work their entire adult lives because they have to. "Choices" such as taking part-time work are often dictated by economic factors such as the cost of childcare or elder care.

"I think anybody who studies this issue (the wage gap) knows that it's true. There has been study after study that prove the case," Johnson said.

In 2004, Daniel H. Weinberg completed a wage gap study for the U.S. Census Bureau that controlled for the factors O'Neill cited in more than 500 occupations, Weinberg concluded that "men make more money than women in the same occupations at all points in the earnings spectrum" from 23 percent more in the lower range to 54 percent more in the upper range.

In "The Best and Worst State Economies for Women," the Institute for Women's Policy Research ranked Mississippi No. 48 in 2006, Women's median full-time earnings were $25,800, compared to the national women's median of $31,800. Mississippi men earned $35,000, compared to a national men's median of $41,300.

Bravo also said that the gap is largest for those who have the highest education and work the longest hours, "just the opposite of what you'd think," she said, and that the "mommy" wage gap—the gap between women with children and everybody else—is increasing. She explained that women, especially in low-paying jobs, are in no position to bargain for anything, including wages, dismissing an oft-heard charge that women don't bargain effectively.

"The maternal wall is standing in the way of many women ever getting to the glass ceiling," said Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners. Lake went on to say that a 2007 Cornell University study showed that women with children were offered jobs 79 percent less of the time than women without children, when all other factors, education, experience and so forth, were equal.

One of the gauges used to measure wage discrimination is how companies pay men and women with children. A man with children is seen as responsible; his wages increase about 2.1 percent for each child. In contrast, when women have children, their wages go down about 2.5 percent per child. This is according to a 2003 Government Accountability Office study.

"The gender wage gap results in an average annual loss of more than $4,000 per American family. … If single working mothers earned as much as men who do comparable work, their poverty rates would be cut in half," states the Center for Policy Alternatives on its Web site.

McCain opposed the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would require employers to demonstrate wage gaps are due to factors other than gender, and skipped the vote for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which would enable women to file gender wage discrimination claims, while making it known he would have voted against it if he were in session during the vote.

Obama believes the government needs to take steps to support equal pay for women, and in "The Impact of the Obama Economic Plan for America's Working Women," Obama states that he will fight to close the gender wage gap, strengthening and enforcing anti-discrimination laws. Among the specific legislation he supports is the Fair Pay Restoration Act, which he co-introduced in the U.S. Congress.

Violence Against Women
In what has to be one of the Palin's most puzzling pieces of legislation, the little town of Wasilla, Alaska (population 6,300 in her last year in office), where she served as mayor from 1996 to 2002, charged women for the rape kits used to collect evidence of sexual assault, a cost usually allocated to the investigating police force.

Reportedly, Palin instituted the practice because she opposed the emergency contraception the kits supposedly contained. But typically, a rape kit contains materials used to help police identify and prosecute an attacker: tubes for blood collection, cervical and rectal swabs, slides, wooden splints, bags, boxes and forms to document the attack, for example.

"Sarah Palin: The Rape Kit Controversy" is a short four-minute film produced by the Wasilla Project, a group that describes themselves as "a group of friends who often work together on various film projects, and who had a common interest in understanding who Governor Palin is."

Dianne Woodruff, a Republican who serves as a Wasilla City Councilwoman, found that rape kits represented about $14,000 in a budget of between $6 to $9 million at that time.

"I can't believe they couldn't have reallocated some of those funds for something as important as (rape kits)," she said on the film.

In Alaska, the rate of reported rapes is twice as high as the national average. Alaska's rate is 76 rapes per 100,000 (remember, the total population of the state is less than 700,000). In 2007, Amnesty International "singled out Alaska for what it considers to be a discriminatory, two-tiered deployment of police … and 'failing to exercise due diligence when it comes to sexual violence against … Alaska native women," according to the Alaska Justice Forum.

During her tenure as governor, Palin did not specifically address the issue of violence against women, although she did make reference to being "tough on crime" in her 2008 State of the State Address this past January.

Like Alaska, Arizona's Native Americans also experience high rates of domestic and sexual violence. McCain is strong on many law-and-order issues, including the death penalty and mandatory prison sentences. In 2005, Sen. McCain, as chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, introduced legislation that would make Indian women safer in their own homes.

Intimate partner violence, usually committed against women by men, is an ongoing, serious problem, exacerbated by ignorance and poverty. One in four American women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime, and 1.3 million women are assaulted by their partners every year.

The Violence Policy Center ranked Mississippi fifth in the nation for its rate of domestic homicides in 2006. That ranking has improved in the last year. In 2007, with 20 homicides, the state ranked 21st in the nation.

Sen. Obama introduced legislation to fund training for domestic violence service providers and to develop "best practices" in domestic violence prevention. He co-sponsored the Violence Against Women Act, enacted in 2006, written by running mate Biden. That act provided $1.6 billion to enhance investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women, increased pre-trial detention of the accused, provided for automatic and mandatory restitution of those convicted, and allowed civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave unprosecuted. The Obama/Biden platform supports strengthening domestic-violence laws in the U.S., and fighting gender violence abroad.

The Right to Choose
Levi Johnston, 18, the father of 17-year-old Bristol Palin's unborn child and her fiancé, has dropped out of high school to become an electrician's apprentice on the North Slope oil fields, ostensibly to support his new family after the baby is born in December. Gov. Palin, who is staunchly anti-abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, and believes that life begins at fertilization, said in a statement that her daughter has her "unconditional love and support."

On the subject of reproductive rights, Palin's choices—to have a Down syndrome baby, and to support her pregnant 17-year-old's decision to keep her baby—are loudly applauded by pro-life groups.

"Her choice to value life in a very personal way speaks volumes and gives those of us in the pro-life community in Alaska cause to believe that we truly do have a pro-life leader in charge of our state," Debbie Joslin, the president of Eagle Forum Alaska, told LifeNews.com.

But for many women, even those who consider themselves pro-life, the issue of reproductive freedom is not just about abortion rights.

"I am pro-life; it's a religious thing for me," said Johnson, who still finds the idea of Palin as vice president to be "scary."

A statement Obama made at the Civil Forum on Presidency at Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., in August is frequently taken out of context, causing a media uproar. He is quoted as seeing the issue of abortion as "above my pay grade."

But here is what he actually said: "I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade."

"One thing that I'm absolutely convinced of is that there is a moral and ethical element to this issue," he continued. "And so I think anybody who tries to deny the moral difficulties and gravity of the abortion issue, I think, is not paying attention."

Krista Tippett, host of NPR's Speaking of Faith spoke with Amy Sullivan, Time magazine correspondent, evangelical Christian and Democrat, earlier this month. Sullivan recalled Hillary Clinton's speech three years ago on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, when Clinton said what many women know to be true: that the choice of abortion was often a sad, even tragic choice.

"That must've been the first time a Democrat ever said those words about abortion," Sullivan said. "And yet, just a few years later, not only can the Democratic presidential nominee show up to a conservative Evangelical church for a discussion, which would've been news enough a few years ago, but … he can acknowledge that there's a real moral dimension to abortion, and that the goal should be to make it less prevalent than it is."

The issues of reproductive rights go further for many women than the right to choose whether to take a pregnancy to term; it's about whether all life is sacred—for women, for the earth, for those already born. Many such women see abortion as a private issue between a woman and her God. They want their children to have scientifically accurate, age-appropriate sex education, and they believe all people, not just women, should have access to contraception.

During the Bush administration, accurate and appropriate sex education has virtually disappeared in favor of ideological-based programs. The problem with these programs—as Palin's own daughter, Bristol, so vividly demonstrates—is that they do not work.

Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs—the kind the federal government backs with millions in tax dollars—don't reduce teen pregnancies or STDs, according to "Emerging Answers 2007: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Diseases," a report from the non-partisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

In 2005, the teen birth rate began rising again after several years of modest decline, reported the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. But rates for sexually transmitted disease among teens have exploded, with one-quarter of all teenage girls, and nearly half of teenaged African American girls infected. So while teens may be educating themselves on how to avoid pregnancy, in some cases at least, they are not getting adequate information to prevent STDs.

Despite evidence to the contrary, Palin and McCain are adamant in staying the course in their anti-abortion, anti-sex-education stances. Both have said Roe v. Wade should be overturned. McCain has voted no to comprehensive sex education, emergency contraception, the right to choose and international family planning funding. He also voted "no" to legislation that would require insurance coverage for prescription contraception.

Trusting women to make their own decisions, Obama and Biden, conversely, support a pro-choice stance, including preserving women's rights under Roe v. Wade. Obama was a co-sponsor of the Prevention First Act to increase funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education, and end insurance discrimination against contraception. When he was in the Illinois Senate, Obama voted against a bill to ban late-term abortions because it did not protect the life of the mother.

Heels On, Gloves Off
In the final weeks of the 2008 presidential campaign, as the McCain/Palin numbers continued to sink after the vice-presidential debate, the Republican campaign announced that they were changing tactics and getting tough. On Oct. 4 at a rally in Carson, Calif., Palin—a woman who might get to appoint three U.S. Supreme Court justices should she become president—said the Republican campaign would become more negative, according to Reuters. "As one of my campaign staffers reminded me as I was walking out, 'OK now the heels are on, the gloves come off'," she told thousands of people Oct. 4.

She then launched a personal attack on Obama based on little more than air. Quoting a New York Times story about Obama's past relationship with '60s radical Bill Ayers, which concluded the two had never been close, Palin accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists."

"This is not a man who sees America as you and I see America," Palin said of Obama. "We see America as a force for good in this world. We see America as a force for exceptionalism. ... Our opponents see America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who would bomb their own country."

"During the final stretch of this long campaign, Palin has been unleashed like the pit bull she likes to compare herself to," wrote Mary Mitchell in the Chicago Sun-Times Oct. 9. "Together, McCain and Palin have managed to bring out the worst behavior that I've witnessed in a presidential campaign."

Palin whipped supporters into a froth at a Florida rally Oct. 6, saying Obama is linked with a "domestic terrorist," leading one man to shout, "Kill him!" She later told Rush Limbaugh she had nothing to lose by attacking Obama.

On Oct. 9, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks said Palin is "a fatal cancer to the Republican Party."

"Do I think she's ready to be president or vice president?" he asked. "No, she's not even close to that.

Previous Comments

ID

139166

Comment

BTW, all, in addition to this excellent piece by Ronni about women's issues this election, don't miss all the real issue stories (so far, drilling, health care, education, infrastructure) with more to come that my amazing staff is churning out. Horse race is not good enough for us. ;-) See more issue stories on right side of the JFP Politics Blog

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-15T17:19:03-06:00

ID

139191

Comment

Great work Ronni. Yvette who is African but grew up in the UK is doing a fine job at that non-profit she's interning with. She will have much to talk and write about upon returning to London and Africa such as how the political and legal process works here compared to many other places. She will also likely learn more about the race issue in America than she ever wanted to know.

Author

Walt

Date

2008-10-16T08:55:29-06:00

ID

139198

Comment

Probably should post this here, too: Palin has said NOTHING about issues that matter most to women - childcare, health care, access to contraception and real education about how we can protect ourselves from unwanted pregnancies. Oh, and one more very important one: closing the wage gap. These are our issues. To be confronted with a woman candidate who will not say one word about any of these things, well, all I can do is shake my head and vote for someone who will care for these things, even if he is a man.

Author

Izzy

Date

2008-10-16T09:30:08-06:00

ID

139217

Comment

She also *cut* funding for programs for special-needs children before she got pregnant with Trig. So that part of McCain's remarks were truly cynical. And her child is not *autistic*, Mr. McCain.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-16T11:23:21-06:00

ID

139219

Comment

and she cut funding for rape kit testing after a crime - making women PAY for their own kit test! Jesus. It's like making someone who was brutally beaten up and robbed pay for the fingerprint analysis. Worse, even, as rape is possibly a more violating trauma.

Author

Izzy

Date

2008-10-16T11:33:42-06:00

ID

139226

Comment

"She understands reform. And, by the way, she also understands special-needs families. She understands that autism is on the rise, that we've got to find out what's causing it, and we've got to reach out to these families, and help them, and give them the help they need as they raise these very special needs children." Very special needs??? "...town hall meeting after town hall meeting, parents come with kids, children -- precious children who have autism. Sarah Palin knows about that better than most. And we'll find and we'll spend the money, research, to find the cause of autism." I thought Trig had Down Syndrome. McCain seems to think this makes her an expert on autism. "Now, 95 percent of the people in America will receive more money under my plan because they will receive not only their present benefits, which may be taxed, which will be taxed, but then you add $5,000 onto it, except for those people who have the gold-plated Cadillac insurance policies that have to do with cosmetic surgery and transplants and all of those kinds of things." Transplants are optional???

Author

Tre

Date

2008-10-16T12:32:13-06:00

ID

139227

Comment

Izzy, I read about the rape kit thing last month, and I couldn't bring myself to blog about it because I found it too sickening to be believable.

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2008-10-16T12:35:41-06:00

ID

139228

Comment

Tre, I believe that he thought if he said cosmetic surgery first, no one would catch the transplants part. As a matter of fact, some cosmetic surgery is medically necessary. Didn't his adopted daughter have a cleft palate?

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2008-10-16T12:40:54-06:00

ID

139230

Comment

Obama showed great restraint and professionalism last night when asked if misbehavin' Palin was qulified to be president. I thought for a minute he was about to go Chicago broher on her and say "hell nall, haven't you seen the way she's been performing and acting all acroos the country."

Author

Walt

Date

2008-10-16T12:46:13-06:00

ID

139326

Comment

I finally read the whole column, Ronni. Lots of work put in this. I can't help but wonder what kinds of women would be impresed by Palin after listening to her for a couple of months. I don't understand why 2 bald-headed men would fight over a comb either. Both would have to have low standards or just simply refuse to peacefully see the other with something they don't have.

Author

Walt

Date

2008-10-17T12:29:41-06:00

ID

139350

Comment

Is McCain regretting picking Palin as his running mate? Apparently, that's the story in an interview with a Tampa TV station that will air on Sunday night. Stay tuned.

Author

golden eagle

Date

2008-10-18T17:08:04-06:00

ID

139420

Comment

McCain-Palin campaign tampering with Troopergate witnesses?

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-20T16:10:16-06:00

ID

139436

Comment

Christopher Hitchens writes at Slate that the media should stop covering Palin until she gives a real press conference; he's right. And look what McCain man agrees with him: Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an honorable man with a high place in the McCain campaign, when asked about Palin's failure to do so much as a Meet the Press appearance, told the Washington Post: "We're asking the American people to pick the next president and vice president, and we do not expect the American people to do so—'Trust me'—blindly. She will have to do what's expected of people in this business. … In countries where that does not happen, I do not want to live." That highly admirable statement was made Sept. 2. Something of McCain's own reputation for honesty and honor is now involved in keeping Sen. Graham's implied promise. If it is not kept, then why should the press and the networks continue to cover a candidate who could, for all we know, be Angela Lansbury? He also ponders whether she knows she's blatantly lying on the campaign trail, or if she is simply repeating anything McCain's handlers tell her to say: At numerous rallies where the atmosphere has been, shall we say, a little uncivil, Gov. Palin has accused Sen. Obama of accusing our forces in Afghanistan of simply bombing villages. Only a moment's work is required to discover that the words complained of were never uttered in that form and that they occurred in a speech that stressed the need for more ground troops as opposed to more airstrikes (a recommendation, by the way, that begins to look more sapient each week, at least in respect of the airstrikes). Again, I have a question: Did Palin know that she was telling a lie? Or did her handlers simply assume that she would read anything that was put in front of her, however mendacious? And which would be worse? And when will she issue the needful retraction? There seems no way of putting her in a forum where these points could be raised. So, continued media coverage of her appearances is no better than lending a megaphone to a demagogue, the better to amplify her propaganda.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-20T18:32:16-06:00

ID

139493

Comment

Get this: The Republican National Committee apparently has spent more than $150,000 to clothe, accessorize and style Sarah Palin since she was picked by McCain. Per Politico: The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August. According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74. The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September. The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August. Politico asked the McCain campaign for comment, explicitly noting the $150,000 in expenses for department store shopping and makeup consultation that were incurred immediately after Palin’s announcement. Pre-September reports do not include similar costs. Spokeswoman Maria Comella declined to answer specific questions about the expenditures, including whether it was necessary to spend that much and whether it amounted to one early investment in Palin or if shopping for the vice presidential nominee was ongoing. [...] A review of similar records for the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee turned up no similar spending. But all the spending by other candidates pales in comparison to the GOP outlay for the Alaska governor whose expensive, designer outfits have been the topic of fashion pages and magazines. What hasn’t been apparent is where the clothes came from – her closet back in Wasilla or from the campaign coffers in Washington

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-21T21:16:13-06:00

ID

139494

Comment

I just want to know: Does she get to keep the clothes!?! And here's what Andrew Sullivan said about these shopping sprees: "$5 grand for hair styling and make-up? As Americans face a depression?"

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-21T21:48:46-06:00

ID

139495

Comment

I would be interested to see how much Hillary's campaign spent on her clothing and makeup and do campaigns pay for the clothing, makeup and hair of spouses?

Author

msgrits

Date

2008-10-21T22:05:19-06:00

ID

139496

Comment

Look at the Politico piece. She got a hard time for spending money on haircuits, as have men. I remember seeing that one of Michelle's fabulous dresses came from H&M;(for those of you who don't know, that means it cost about $30). And she *always* looks great—much more chic than Palin.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2008-10-21T22:08:44-06:00

ID

139497

Comment

Somehow the story about her outfits sounds like a story a woman would pick up on.

Author

Jeff Lucas

Date

2008-10-22T06:49:10-06:00

ID

139500

Comment

I'm not surprised about the clothes, makeup or hair because if you don't dress up a wolf it will look and sound like a wolf. Sheep clothings at least makes the wolf look like a sheep until it opens it mouth.

Author

Walt

Date

2008-10-22T08:32:15-06:00