Leading up to Susan Molinari’s keynote speech, NBC’s Tom Brokaw let drop one of those colorful little anecdotes that campaigns love to feed willing anchorfolk. According to Brokaw, Molinari was changing the diapers of her telegenic infant Susan Ruby Paxon the other day when the baby “had an accident” on the Paxon family word processor, on which Mom was supposedly ” working on her speech.” It’s an anecdote only a focus group could love, seemingly targeted to the relevant demographic cohorts. It tells us 1) that Molinari is a working mom, and 2) that Molinari wrote her own speech.
Proposition One is indisputable. Proposition Two is false. But the suburbanite working mothers at whom the anecdote was aimed must have been puzzled. Why would anyone change a baby on top of a word processor?
