Scott Brown puts on his earnest face.
Facing a major gender gap, Republicans looked for—and think they've found—a way to make themselves seem pro-woman.Republicans, including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, are making
the radical statement that domestic violence is bad. That's right, ladies. Republicans don't think you should be abused. I know, it's a pretty overwhelming show of support, amiright? Doesn't it make you just forget all about equal pay and birth control access?
As early as May, Montana GOP Senate candidate Steve Daines ran a testimonial ad highlighting his vote for final passage of VAWA. The unusual, one-minute ad featured Rebekah Uzenski talking about how her ex-husband would beat and choke her and lock her in bathrooms.
“I am so thankful that there’s men like Steve out there that actually stand up for women’s rights and what’s right,” she said.
New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown just rotated back on the air an ad he first ran in June that features his sister, LeeAnn Riley. In it, Riley talks about the physical abuse in their home growing up and says that her brother was “there to protect myself and my mom.”
Of course, Daines' vote was only courageous, as the ad describes it, in the context of House Republicans having refused to hold a vote reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act for nearly a year after the Senate did so. Meanwhile, this is absolutely typical Scott Brown: His answer to policy questions is always to point to the women in his family. He may be a wonderful husband, father, brother, and son, but he has to be measured as a legislator by how he treats women who aren't related to him.
Democrats are pushing for a Congress in which voting for the Violence Against Women Act isn't seen as an unusual, courageous thing, and the more people from Steve Daines' party who are elected, the less likely that is. And again, domestic violence is a very real and serious issue, but it's hardly the only issue facing women. The fact that Republicans don't have much else to say to women is telling.
Please chip in $3 to remind Republicans that women care about more than just domestic violence.