Rick Santorum, discussing the GOP presidential loss last year, made a good point while missing a much larger one.
The former Pennsylvania senator recalled all the business owners who spoke at the Republican National Convention.
“One after another, they talked about the business they had built. But not a single—not a single —factory worker went out there,” Santorum told a few hundred conservative activists at an “after-hours session” of the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington. “Not a single janitor, waitress or person who worked in that company! We didn’t care about them. You know what? They built that company too! And we should have had them on that stage.”
Well, that would have proved at least as entertaining as Dirty Harry talking to an empty chair: “Hi, I’m a factory worker. As soon as they figure out how a machine can do my job or hire people in another country to do it for slave wages, I’m out of here… with no severance.” Or: “I’m a janitor, who apparently makes so much Newt Gingrich suggests that they give my job to my kid… who’s still in school.” And, of course: “I’m a waitress. I stand on my feet 10 hours a day just to keep my head above water. I have no health insurance, and I make so little, my retirement plan involves falling over into a customer’s steak and eggs.”
And I think their respective companies all had them sign strongly worded documents insisting that whatever they built or might someday build belongs to the company alone.
“When all you do is talk to people who are owners, talk to folks who are Type A’s who want to succeed economically, we’re talking to a very small group of people,” he said. “No wonder they don’t think we care about them. No wonder they don’t think we understand them. Folks, if we’re going to win, you just need to think about who you talk to in your life.”
That’s nice, Rick, but none of your party’s policies makes any attempt to help them. Considering the GOP platform, here’s what would actually make sense:
“Hi, I’m a janitor. I barely make ends meet, but what are ya gonna do? What will really ruin things for my family is if gays could marry. Can you guys handle that?” Or: “I’m a factory worker whose plant is being shut down and its operations sent to China. However, that’s not the worst thing happening in America. Some women are getting abortions when their rapes weren’t legitimate!” And, of course: “I’m a waitress with this persistent cough that I should probably see a doctor about, but if I take time off, I won’t make rent. Anyway, I hear that illegal immigrants are going to take my cushy job!”
Maybe if they do enough of this in 2016, they’ll win.
serhasacomplaint 
Monica at 40…
Monica Lewinsky turns 40 today.
Fifteen years ago, this photo of a 24-year-old Lewinsky was more ubiquitous than every current reality TV star combined. Her physical relationship with President Bill Clinton spurred debate about what actually defined sex. Clinton’s original, strongly worded denial was rooted more in legal technicalities than the straightforward and fairly simple definition of “what would really piss off my wife?”
Lewinksy’s peculiar dry-cleaning habits left Clinton with no option but to confess to the affair that threatened the security and prosperity of no single American citizen.
Unfortunately, this took some steam out of Hillary Clinton’s statement on The Today Show about a “vast right-wing conspiracy” against her husband; however, Clinton’s philandering didn’t make it any less true. The right never fully accepted Clinton’s election in 1992, just as it never fully accepted Barack Obama’s election in 2008. The efforts to unseat Clinton and tag the Democratic party with its own Watergate were altogether pointless and needlessly destructive, but rather than serving as the nadir of what House leader Richard Gephardt called the “politics of personal destruction,” it proved to be the cold open.
Curiously — or perhaps not so curiously — Lewinksy suffered the most from the scandal. Independent Counsel Ken Starr has returned to obscurity and perhaps contents himself with community theater productions of The Crucible. Clinton’s eventual impeachment is now a mere footnote in a presidency that most Americans regard fondly. Hillary Clinton’s public humiliation arguably softened her image in the public and helped her win her New York Senate seat. Newt Gingrich lost the Speakership but returned to run for president in 2012.
Monica Lewinsky, unfortunately, became the national joke, and as she enters mid-life, it’s unlikely she’ll ever supplant in public memory her starring role in a presidential sex scandal.
Yet in a just world, no one would know her name.
Posted by Stephen Robinson on July 23, 2013 in Political Theatre, Social Commentary
Tags: Bill Clinton, Ken Starr, Monica Lewinsky