Republicans have been quite focused on this “equal pay for equal work” issue that developed during the second debate. Either they are scarred and are trying to deflect, or they sense weakness on the part of President Obama and are trying to draw more blood. It is obvious the second possibility is not true. The President was clear in his support for equal pay during his first term and reminded the country during the second debate that he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act, making it easier for women to file lawsuits for back wages, and that he supports equal pay. Romney, meantime, would not say he supports the Act or the sentiment behind it, and could only refer to anecdotal evidence that he hired women from binders while he was the governor of Massachusetts.
Current Republican attempts to deflect on this issue come in the form of their focus on MSNBC and its pay practices for its pundit hosts. Daniel Halper with the Weekly Standard points to Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski’s annual salary of $2 million, which is half of Joe Scarborough’s salary of $4 million, as evidence that even the liberal bastion of MSNBC discriminates against women. This completely misconstrues the issue, however, with a false equivalency. This would be akin to being outraged that all the players on the New York Yankees don’t get paid the same annual salary. They get paid based on their star power and their productivity. To that end, Morning Joe is not called Morning Mika, nor is there any pretense that she is somehow the star of that show. Joe Scarborough, on his own show, of course will make more than his sidekick co-host, man or woman. It would be interesting to see how much Rachel Maddow makes. She is the highest rated host on MSNBC, and probably makes a higher salary than Joe, who is stuck in the abyss of early morning talk. I’m betting that MSNBC is paying a lot of money to keep Rachel around–and of course they have to because money always talks in prime time.
The real focus of inequality of pay for women comes in the context of careers in which women are either passed by for men for promotion without explanation, are directly targeted for pay discrimination based on their gender, or are making less than men in their exact same position without any basis for the pay disparity other than gender. This was what Ms. Ledbetter discovered when she decided to file a legal action against her employer: that she was making less than a man in her exact same position for no justifiable reason.
Instead of dampening the impact of Romney’s vague and unsupportive statements on fair pay during the second debate (to the detriment of his recent apparent gains with women voters) it appears the Republicans are making it worse. First, they point to MSNBC of all places, showing that they do not even understand the fundamentals of this issue. Then, they actually challenge the entire notion that women are getting paid less than men on average, a lie that women are not going to buy. Take a look at Rachel Maddow’s debate with two Republicans on this issue this weekend. They aren’t even going to acknowledge reality:
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Rachel, of course, riffed on this debate on her show, only making things worse for Romney. It probably will be Monday night before we see the substantive impact on women voters the Romney’s debate performance will have, but it will be interesting to see how the polls reflect the sentiment of women voters after digesting Romney’s comments. Based on Republican reaction, it is clear they are worried, and that they are trying to do what they can to repair whatever damage the comments have caused.
The President’s campaign will do well to let the Republicans pull out as much rope as possible on this one all on their own, and not get in the way. There is, after all, some reporting which suggests the White House has not always treated women fairly in terms of pay and respect. Whether this is true is up for discussion, but there is no reason to take the chance at muddying the waters when the Republicans are doing their best to destroy their credibility on this issue all on their own.