Spokespersons and pundits stick their feet in it all the time. But rarely do we see public relations heavy artillery brought out to do damage control to the extent provoked by Hilary Rosen’s remark earlier this month that Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life.”
President Obama himself responded to it: “[I]t was the wrong thing to say.” First lady Michelle Obama tweeted repudiating Rosen: “Every mother works hard and every woman deserves to be respected.”
Clearly, Rosen’s short verbal assault on Romney was something the Obama campaign apparatus saw as a very serious problem. But why?
It seems ridiculous to think that women, married and at home or otherwise, would change their vote based on this relatively trivial observation.
Veteran Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg called this “a nothing story” and predicted that it would have no effect on how women vote in this election.
But no one can accuse the Obama political machine of being dumb. Quite the opposite. So, again, how to explain the high-level PR damage control barrage to clean up the perceived mess made by Rosen? The issue was not so much what Rosen said, but who said it. More than Rosen’s words, her persona itself is an assault on working-class, traditional-thinking Americans of both sexes.
Rosen, who works closely with the White House, is a high-dollar “inside-the-Beltway” Washington power broker. She is also a lesbian who, with her now-estranged partner, a prominent gay rights activist, adopted two black children in 1999. Her current partner is president of the American Federation of Teachers — the nation’s second-largest teachers union.
Rosen, who helped BP defend its image during the Gulf oil spill, has also earned millions in the very influence-peddling business that Obama promised he would purge from Washington. Her lifestyle embodies and boldly conveys the view that traditional American values and the traditional American family should no longer be considered “the way” but one of many possible legitimate lifestyle choices.
Obama, who must gain the support and confidence of the same middle-of-the-road, white, working-class Americans who swung to him in 2008, cannot let Rosen become a poster child for his party.
Obama was elected in 2008 by voters who were unhappy with the Republican Party and unhappy with the status quo in Washington. He sold himself as a new kind of politician — a fresh beginning.
Recall his lofty words: “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.” Obama had no record then, so his charm and rhetorical skills closed the deal for him with voters.
Now he has a record as a man of the hard Left, who heads a party of the Left, but he needs to be re-elected in a country that is right of center. The most recent Gallup polling on this shows that 40 percent of Americans self-identify as conservative, 35 percent as moderate and 21 percent as liberal.
It has never been clearer that there is indeed a liberal America and a conservative America, and that today’s big question is which will define what the United States of America will be like.
The president and his party have a huge political challenge, to continue the shell game with voters and obscure the fact that they stand for liberal, left-wing America and that Rosen does indeed typify their party.
It’s why Rosen’s remarks and sudden high profile provoked political panic in the White House.
Examiner Columnist Star Parker is an author, and president of CURE, the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (urbancure.org). She is syndicated nationally by Scripps Howard News Service.
