Comments on the Ann Romney flap

Boiled down and without the meta-messages of language, the Ann Romney flap is all about whether or not the lovely Mrs. Romney is a authoritative source on how the economy is affecting the economic vicissitudes of the distaff side of the United States electorate. And the total unassailable fact is, she is a woman raised in a wealthy household married to a very wealthy man. Has she indeed talked to a true cross-section of women to get an idea of the actual economic issues facing them, or rather has she met with a few Tea Party focus groups that have told her exactly what they think the problems are – which indeed they aren’t, for most of America? Below are some comments from Rosen making similar points. And then I snidely provide some possible comments that Ann has provided to Mitt about how the economy is affecting women that she knows.

Ann Romney and Working Moms

"Noting to CNN’s Anderson Cooper that Romney — a daughter of privilege who became wealthier still while married to Mitt — had “never worked a day in her life,”  Rosen voiced the suggestion that she was, perhaps, less than ideally suited for relaying the financial worries and stresses of most American women to her husband’s presidential campaign. “She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues  that a majority of the women in this country are facing, in terms of how do we feed  our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future,” Rosen said.

Hilary Rosen was right and Romney is out of touch

"You don’t have to be a combatant on either side of the Mommy Wars to recognize that Ann Romney’s privileged life experience is not typical. She’s never had to worry about the price of a gallon of gas as she filled up the Cadillacs. She is at the tail end of a generation that did not agonize over the choice of whether to stay home with the kids and from an economic platform that gave her the luxury of making that choice"

1. Mitt, our maid says that the wage we’re paying her is not sufficient for her to pay her children’s tuition. That must indicate that college is getting expensive, because they aren’t even going to Ivy league schools!

2. The women at the hair salon say that the investment companies are really clamping down on salaries. In fact, Megbeth’s son is so strapped that he was only able to buy his fiancé a 1.5 carat diamond engagement ring, rather than the 3 carat ring she was expecting. That is SHOCKING!

3. Did you know that our limousine service driver says that gasoline is almost four dollars a gallon? He said that his wife actually has to use ground beef rather than ground sirloin when she makes tacos for the kids. Gives me shivers.

4. I actually had to pay $400 for this manicure. The salon owner said that he has to pay his girls enough to live on. What are we going to do about getting more jobs in America that pay well, Mitt?

5. The caterer for our garden party told me that the cost of gas is making food more expensive. Maybe we should serve less pate and more braunschweiger next time, to show we care.

6. The women in the focus group told me that ever since Barack Obama was in office, they have not been able to afford all the cable channels because their husband’s aren’t getting the pay raises they were used to before the recession. We have really got to fix this economy.