McCain and Women

 One of the more surprising things I've come to learn from reading about McCain in this campaign is his reliance on the women of his life to further his political ambitions.  There is no one close to American politics who accept powerful women such as McCain so effortlessly.  We've read the stories before on how McCain pays his female staffers better than Obama.  He also hires more women than men and places them in higher paying positions.  

When he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, his critics cried "tokenism".  But I felt that the decision was in-line with his attitude towards placing women in powerful position.  Only when he started pulling the sexist card out of thin air for his TV ads did I cringe because it felt like it was out-of-character for him to do.  He did admit later on that the attacks on Palin were not sexist.

Ultimately, the number one indicator of his comfort with powerful women is with his marriage with his beer heiress wife Cindy.  By all accounts, she was the one that got him to where he is now.  I don't think there is a male politician in American who can attribute their rise to a woman.  She owns their houses and cars according to reports and he seems to not care about his whole "breadwinner" thing.  Contrast this relationship between the Obamas.  Michelle has now been put away under lock and key.  

Bill Clinton was a feminist hero even though he exhibited such distasteful approach to women.  The same feminists clobber McCain because he picks a woman for a position of power.  I don't doubt that McCain might appoint the first cabinet composed of majority women.  Is this important?  We've come to the point in society that 58% of all college students are women and it's been like that for a little more than 20 years.  There is no dearth of qualified women to take helm of bureaucracies.