The McPanderer Feels Your Pain

Yesterday, the McPanderer held a virtual town hall (read: conference call) with supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton. I wanted to participate, but living overseas prevented me from being on the call.

As expected, Senator McCain rolled out token female supporter Carly Fiorina to offer empathy for Senator Clinton’s uphill battle in the campaign:

"Having started as a secretary and eventually become a chief-executive officer, I not only have great admiration and respect for Hillary Clinton and her candidacy and her leadership, but I also have great empathy, I must tell you, for what she went through," Fiorina said.

McCain himself went out of his way to offer her praise—something he didn’t do when she was getting beat up by his fellow Republicans during the GOP debates last fall and this spring:

"I respect and admire the campaign that she ran," McCain said. Every place I go, I'm told that Sen. Clinton inspired millions of young women in this country. And not just young women, but young Americans."

He also talked about his commitment to put more females in prominent positions in government:

"I have, time after time, urged my party look, we have a lot of women who are more than qualified, more than capable of governing this country," he said, citing Fiorina, former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as role models.

"At the end of my first term, you will see a dramatic increase of women in every part of the government of my administration," he said to applause.

Participants in the conference call town hall had to register in advance at Citizens for McCain at his website:


I didn’t participate in the conference call, but I’m sure that Senator McCain didn’t mention his position on fair pay, which I wrote about this week:

According to this report, although women only make 77 cents for each dollar a man earns, John McCain opposed legislation to make it easier for women to file equal pay lawsuits:

But earlier this year, McCain opposed critical legislation needed to advance women’s right to equal pay. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act responded to last year’s Supreme Court decision preventing Ledbetter from recovering damages for years of discriminatory pay. The Court required lawsuits to be filed within 180 days of the day the discrimination began, rather than within 180 days of the most recent discriminatory act—even if the victims of discrimination had no way to know they were being paid less at the time the discrimination began.

When asked about his opposition by a teenage girl, he said that the bill was too friendly for trial lawyers. He proposes to address the unfair pay issue by encouraging women to pursue more education and training. He also opposes increasing the minimum wage and nearly 60 percent of minimum wage earners are women.

I’m also guessing that he didn’t spend much time on views on abortion, summarized by atdnext last week. And I’m also guessing that he didn’t repeat his pledge to endorse “strict constructionist judges” to the Supreme Court.

John McCain is not a maverick. He is not a moderate. He is a conservative Republican who opposes abortion, universal health, and fair pay wants to pack the court with Justice Alito clones. His newfound concern for women is disingenuous and will end as soon as he gets what he wants from them—their votes.