Iowa Republicans are up in arms today on social media, outraged that retiring Senator Tom Harkin said this about Joni Ernst’s campaign commercials (via Andrew Kaczynski):
“And there’s sort of this sense that, ‘Well, I hear so much about Joni Ernst. She is really attractive, and she sounds nice.'”
“Well I gotta to thinking about that. I don’t care if she’s as good looking as Taylor Swift or as nice as Mr. Rogers, but if she votes like Michele Bachmann, she’s wrong for the state of Iowa.”
To hear Republicans tell it, that is the most offensive comment ever.
People who oppose equal pay and longer paid parental leave for working women, who would force women to continue unwanted pregnancies, who think women’s employers should be able to veto insurance coverage of birth control, are in no position to play “PC police.”
Harkin’s meaning was clear: Ernst’s advertising has promoted her as appealing, while mostly avoiding substantive issues. But no matter how nice she may be or may appear in her own marketing, she supports policies that are wrong for Iowa.
By the way, Harkin has a perfect voting record on women’s rights issues and has always supported equal pay for women as well as reproductive rights and access to family planning. Republican hero Senator Chuck Grassley has opposed all of those policies at virtually every turn.
UPDATE: Inadvertently confirming that she wants this election to be about anything but substantive issues, Ernst went on Fox News Monday to distort what Harkin said:
“I was very offended that Senator Harkin would say that. I think it’s unfortunate that he and many of their party believe that you can’t be a real woman if you’re conservative and you’re female,” she told Fox News. “Again, I am greatly offended about that.”
Of course, Harkin neither said nor implied anything about a “real woman” not being conservative. He said Ernst supports policies that are wrong for Iowa. And as @SusaninIowa pointed out, it’s telling that Ernst wasn’t offended to have her voting record compared to Bachmann’s.
There was no need for Harkin to apologize for his remarks on Monday.
6 Comments
Haters
gonna hate, hate, hate
jdeeth Sun 2 Nov 8:36 PM
I advise Braley campaign
to shake it off.
jdeeth Sun 2 Nov 8:37 PM
Sorry to see Tom back off.
Every word in that statement was true and he had nothing to apologize for.
hvlundberg7328 Mon 3 Nov 10:38 PM
Sorry, but
Male politicos should never ever ever (see what I did there) remark on the looks of a female candidate. If he had left the comments to personality, it would have been OK.
Sure, the faux outrage is running full steam, but it was still wrong. None of this was helped by Swift coincidentally announcing a Des Moines concert date yesterday.
Ultimate effect minor. Just one more in an unbelievable string of bad luck for Bruce Bailey or Bill Bradley or whatever his name is.
jdeeth Tue 4 Nov 5:56 AM
I like you John
I never agree with you on policy, but I usually agree with your assessments.
Yes…I do think Harkin’s statement implied that she was less than a male candidate by making “pretty” and “nice” an argument. It was insensitive but not hateful. Mostly it was stupid the Senator didn’t know better.
I think there’s been kind of a media frenzy in this race which is feeding off gaffes. Bruce Braley got an early characterization of putting his foot in his mouth. I don’t think President Clinton, the First Lady, Senator Harkin etc are a string of bad luck. Most of their mistakes were pretty benign. I think that it’s been a climate of everyone watching the Democrat side very closely and letting nothing go. I hope we can do that again 😉
john-thompson Tue 4 Nov 2:24 PM
Normally, I'd agree. But. . .
Harkin didn’t actually comment on her looks. What he said was that he hears other people say she looks nice, she sounds nice, etc. And he was countering those comments in what I thought was really a pretty clever formulation: you can look like T. Swift and have the personality of Mr. Rogers, but if you vote like Michelle Bachmann you’re still bad.
And coming across as harmless to Iowans (but tough on pigs and Washington!) is all she’s offered, so it has to be fair game. We’ll go after her on substance – as soon as she runs on some.
I think Harkin made it worse by apologizing. In my alternative universe I’d like to know how it would have played if he’d said “You know, maybe I could have worded that differently, but if Ms. Ernst’s claim is that she can go to Washington and ‘make ’em squeal’, well, I just don’t see how she thinks she’s going to do that if an off-hand joke by a retiring Senator gets her in an uproar.”
Ernst has made her toughness (point a gun at viewers maybe?) a selling point. Call her on running for the fainting couch at the first hardball and see if you can make that image evaporate.
zeitgeist Tue 4 Nov 4:58 PM