I don't need to tell any of you here why you shouldn't vote for Tea Party whack job Ken Cuccinelli (R. VA) in this year's Governor's race. But if you have some friends are relatives who are sitting on the fence about this race, especially if they're female, Cosmopolitan Magazine gives three great reasons you shouldn't want Cuccinelli as your next Governor:
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/...
1. Cuccinelli tried to have Planned Parenthood defunded in Virginia because the organization offers “abortion on demand to our children.” While PP does provide abortion services and it’s unfortunately what they’ve become known for, that’s only one small part of the vast health services they provide — including medical checkups for people who really need them. The people who use Planned Parenthood aren’t just wayward teens who got knocked up. They’re women (and men!) — most of whom are lower-income. That includes college students or young women just starting out on their own (which might describe many of you reading this), whose entry-level salaries don’t leave much to pay for anything in the way of doctor visits after you factor in the rent check, gas money, and one trip to the grocery store. Planned Parenthood provides an opportunity for lower-income young women to take proper care of their health, so anyone who wants to cut that off should give you pause.
2. Cuccinelli is against abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Now, even if you’re pro-life, can you imagine being raped? Or even worse, by a family member — and then being forced by law to have the baby? If Cuccinelli is made governor, women in these situations would be forced to go through with these pregnancies. Then, to add insult to injury, since there would be no Planned Parenthood, they wouldn’t have access to affordable prenatal care to help them have healthy babies. So on the surface, Cuccinelli may seem simply pro-life, but if you look deeper into his platform, you start to realize that he doesn’t have any plans to provide support to women and their babies even though he wants us to have them under any circumstances.
3. He’s also on a strange kick to reinstate the “Crimes Against Nature” law, (one that was found unconstitutional a whole decade ago), which essentially makes it a felony to give a blowjob. if this happened to pass and were actually enforced, can you say “overcrowded jails”? And does that make Cosmo an accomplice to the crimes, considering this publication gives sex tip of all kinds to help women feel empowered in bed? I love Orange Is the New Black but prefer to look at life in jail through Netflix as opposed to experiencing it firsthand. - Cosmopolitan, 9/29/13
More below the fold.
Cuccinelli's radical remarks and anti-woman agenda have been hurting his chances big time against Terry McAuliffe (D. VA):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Cuccinelli appears to be in an uphill fight to win the governor’s seat. This past spring, a Washington Post poll showed him leading McAuliffe in a two-way race, 51 percent to 41 percent. Last week, a Post-Abt SRBI poll showed McAuliffe ahead, 49 percent to 44 percent. With libertarian Robert Sarvis added to the mix, McAuliffe led 47 percent to 39 percent. An NBC-Marist poll released last week showed McAuliffe leading 43 percent to 38 percent, with Sarvis at 8 percent.
The Post-Abt SRBI poll shows a huge gender gap. In the three-way matchup, Cuccinelli is winning among men by 10 points. But he trails McAuliffe among women by a whopping 27 points, 58 percent to 31 percent. Among likely voters, he trails McAuliffe by 24 points on the question of whom voters trust to handle issues of special concern to women.
Neither candidate is particularly well liked, but after the pounding by McAuliffe, Cuccinelli is viewed unfavorably by almost half of all Virginians. Among independent women, 57 percent rate Cuccinelli unfavorably, while 29 percent rate him favorably. - Washington Post, 9/28/13
Now Cuccinelli and his right-wing buddies have been trying to close the gender gap.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
A conservative PAC called Women Speak Out Virginia is offering free bus rides for Virginia women to GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli's debate against Democratic rival Terry McAuliffe on Wednesday night.
The group, affiliated with the anti-abortion advocacy group Susan B. Anthony List, sent an email Monday to women offering rides on two free shuttles, and free "Women for Ken" T-shirts.
"Planned Parenthood is gathering outside the debate, claiming to speak for ALL Virginia women," the email says. "If Planned Parenthood doesn't speak for you, and you are proud to support Ken, we need YOU there! This will be the first televised debate of the campaign, so we need a big presence!" A representative of Women for Ken, part of Women Speak Out Virginia, wasn't immediately available for comment. - Huffington Post, 9/25/13
He's even tried to highlight his record as Attorney General protecting women:
“As attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli has made it a priority to stand up for the weak and the vulnerable,” Caruso says in the ad. “He’s focused on human trafficking. He’s focused on child pornography. Being a mom of two young girls, that impacts me more, I think, than what he does for me as a prosecutor. Ken Cuccinelli looks out for those who cannot help themselves. He cares about keeping our children safe.”
Cuccinelli frequently mentions the same topics Caruso invokes in his campaign speeches, also emphasizing his work combatting sexual assault when he was an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, and his time volunteering at a homeless shelter in Arlington. Those experiences were also invoked by the candidates’s wife, Teiro Cuccinelli, in the first ad of his campaign for governor.
McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin suggested that Cuccinelli’s message efforts would fall flat.
“After spending his entire career on an extreme social agenda trying to make abortion illegal, ban common forms of birth control and refusing to support the Violence Against Women Act, Ken Cuccinelli’s last-ditch effort to whitewash his record will fall flat with voters,” Schwerin said. - Washington Post, 9/27/13
Now if the Cooch was serious about protecting women, here are five things he could've done to protect them:
http://www.care2.com/...
1) Stop trying to ban birth control: Cuccinelli has repeatedly stated that he isn’t trying to ban contraception, but has authored bills that protect “life at the moment of conception.” When asked directly, these “personhood” bill supporters always claim that they have no intention of coming for birth control, too, but when questioned more closely, they admit that in their world, birth control is never anything that involves hormones. Instead, any form of hormonal contraception is an “abortifacient” and would be banned as an end result of legislation.
Don’t believe me? Ask anti-choice advocate Lila Rose, who chastises the Washington Post’s reporting on Cuccinelli’s desire to ban birth control as wrong only in the fact that the paper does not admit that hormonal birth control is really causing mini-abortions. “Washington Post, have integrity and report the facts. If a drug or device is designed to also kill children, it is not just contraception, it is also an abortifacient.”
2) Stop trying to close the state‘s abortion providers: Two clinics in the state have already shuttered, knowing they have no way to comply with the new Board of Health rules that require them to rebuild as ambulatory surgical centers. Those new rules were pushed by the A.G., who refused to allow the earlier board of health to grandfather in already existing clinics and leave them exempt from the new legislation. What happens when people don’t have the ability to access abortion, especially in a timely manner? Some will go to dangerous lengths to try to induce an abortion. It won’t just hurt those who attempt to self abort, but also those who miscarry and are accused of self-abortion. In a state with low abortion access, every pregnant person is assumed guilty unless she can prove otherwise.
3) Support the Violence Against Women Act: Once upon a time, reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act was a given. It was only since the Tea Party takeover in the House that suddenly the idea of protections for women became controversial. As Congress fought over passage of VAWA, 47 attorneys general across the country signed a letter urging them to stop playing politics and reauthorize the bill. One of just three A.G.s refusing to support VAWA? Cuccinell.
Which of course leads us to….
4) Stop supporting men‘s rights activists: Is child support a “subsidy on divorce”? Does the practice “enable and even [encourage] mothers to simply walk away, take the children with them and basically plunder the father for everything he has”? So claims Stephen Baskerville, the former president of a fathers’ rights group called the American Coalition of Fathers and Children. Baskerville praised Cuccinelli’s legislative bills because they “help” fathers in custody and divorce cases, as reported by Huffington Post. “Cuccinelli offered two bills as a state senator in line with the movement’s objectives: one that would have prevented a parent from obtaining a no-fault divorce if the other parent objects, and another that would have encouraged judges to penalize a woman who asked for a no-fault divorce in custody and visitation battles.” Fathers’ rights groups have also campaigned for Cuccinelli, according to Huffpo, apparently seeing a kindred spirit in the candidate.
5) Give women equal pay protection: On the campaign trail, McAuliffe introduced a proposal to ensure that women received equal pay protections in the workplace. The proposal would increase penalties for companies found to be paying employees differently based on their gender, despite doing the same work. When asked for his stance on the issue, Cuccinelli refused to answer. - Care2, 9/26/13
It's not just Cuccinelli's record that's made reproductive rights and women's health big issues in this race. Republicans in Congress have also been hurting Cuccinelli's chances:
http://www.thenation.com/...
Remember Republicans’ soul-searching after they lost big in 2012 thanks to the largest election gender gap in modern history? Apparently that search turned up empty, since the resolution they approved this weekend forces millions of American adult women to ask permission of their employers before they get their birth control pills covered in their health insurance like all other medications.
What's more, the so-called “conscience clause” would also give employers control over coverage for pre-natal services. That's right: these anti-choice legislators who claim to base their ideology on a “respect for life” want to take coverage way from women that ensures healthy pregnancies. That's not respecting life. It's disrespecting women.
I’m not so sure this is a winning strategy for them. Case in point: the race for Virginia's next governor. In the most widely watched campaign of 2013, Republican Ken Cuccinelli is losing the race to Democrat Terry McAuliffe among women by 24 points according to a recent Washington Post poll. Much of this gap is driven by women aghast at Cuccinelli’s radical positions on choice, including declaring “personhood” for all fertilized eggs, which would outlaw many forms of contraception and even in-vitro fertilization if taken to its full extreme. If Cuccinelli loses in November, it will be entirely because his radical positions are driving women to the polls to vote against him. Choice has become the issue in the race, and Cuccinelli has done everything in his power to hide his record. - The Nation, 9/30/13
And T-Mac has warned the Cooch that going after women and LGBT Virginians would hurt him in this election:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
"There are consequences to this mean-spirited attack on women's health and on gay Viriginians," McAuliffe reminded viewers at the first debate this week. A bill Cuccinelli backed would have banned some forms of birth control. In a swing state with conservative tendencies where McAuliffe just a generation ago might have been drummed out as an interloping liberal, he has built a lead in the contest. - Huffington Post, 9/30/13
Come November, we are going to make Cuccinelli pay for his anti-woman, anti-gay agenda. If you want to donate or get involved with McAuliffe's campaign, you can do so here:
http://terrymcauliffe.com/