Naomi Schaefer Riley writing in The NY Post has a brutal assessment of why Wendy Davis has no future in politics.
It’s a brutal assessment that I think is right, and one that will drive Davis’ most ardent supporters crazy because it cannot be wordsmithed or talking-pointed.
The problem gets to the deepest emotional level that cuts across the political spectrum:
After Jeff finished paying off the last of Wendy’s school loans, she filed for divorce and gave up custody of her children. According to Jeff, his wife just decided, “While I’ve been a good mother, it’s not a good time for me right now.”….There are single mothers all over the country in dire straits who can’t afford to have such a thought. And even if someone offered them the chance to get away from it all and start over without a child, few of them would say yes.Sure, there are women who pursue high-powered careers and need to spend time away from their children. Take Florida Rep. Deborah Wasserman Schultz, who (according to a recent New York Times blog) manages to do plenty with her 9-year-old and 13-year-old twins over the course of a weekend at home. She played basketball with her son, read with her daughter, shuttled one to ballet, took another to the bookstore and out to lunch.Still, when her son complains about her work schedule, she says, “My heart hurts.” Can you imagine Wasserman Schultz saying “it’s not a good time” for her to be a mother? ….A few years ago, one of my guy friends was dating a woman who didn’t have custody of her child. Every one of this man’s female friends told him to run. The fact that she would either willingly give up custody or that a judge would deem her unworthy of even joint custody raised alarm bells.Feel free to call it sexism, if you want. But it’s a double standard that I don’t expect will change any time soon.Americans will forgive a lot in a politician. But a woman who leaves her kids is just beyond the pale.
This line is devastating:
[Jeff Davis] not only took on raising his own daughter alone, but also another girl, who’d been abandoned first by her father and then her mother.
Cue the cries of outrage. They won’t do any good.
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