One thing I desperately wanted to see in Tampa was the GOP’s war on women. I hoped for dunking booths, pillow fights and some kind of thing where guys tell them they aren’t looking for a relationship right now.
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So I went to the Women! Up pavilion just outside the convention. What I saw shocked me: pink drinks, boas, a hair salon, a Susan B. Anthony exhibit, and bumper stickers that say REPUBLICAN WOMEN CHOOSE THE “RIGHT” MEN.
The white-and-pink, flower strewn space was sponsored by billionaire Super PAC contributor Sheldon Adelson’s wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson. There was no war against women here. “This is like heaven on women,” said TIME writer Katy Steinmetz. And she would know. She is a woman.
The least matricidal room at the pavilion twas the Susan B. Anthony museum, which contained a wall listing women’s great political triumphs, almost all of which involved Democrats. Another wall was just photos of female Olympians. So technically it should have been called the 3/4 Susan B. Anthony, 1/4 2012 Women’s U.S. Olympic team museum.
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On Tuesday, there was only one group enjoying the pavilion and they were all men. They were being looked after by Mary Anne Carter, the charming policy director of the YG Network, which is a non-profit and not a Super PAC and cannot do any of the things a Super PAC does. The YG Network is run by John Murray and Brad Dayspring, who also happen to run the Young Guns Super PAC. The Young Guns are a Congressional group affiliated with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who loves both guns and women.
Sitting on a pillow-strewn couch just feet from a print of an oil painting of a haughty Obama stepping on the Constitution while the founding fathers look on in horror, Carter said that Republican women are most concerned about practical issues, specifically gas prices. Not mushy emotional issues. “You would think men would only date Republican women,” said Steinmetz.