Inequality is a woman's issue in more ways than one
by digby
Dylan Scott at Talking Points Memo has been looking at Hillary Clinton's speeches and discerns a set of economic themes she's begun to talk about. First of all she's taking a page from the Elizabeth Warren book (Bill Clinton's too) and talking a lot about the plight of the middle class which is always smart. (And important.) I expect any Democrat would do the same in this era.
But I thought this was pretty fresh:
Clinton has also been enthusiastically putting a progressive and populist framing on these issues.
"Americans are working harder, contributing more than ever to their companies’ bottom lines and to our country’s total economic output, and yet many are still barely getting by, barely holding on, not seeing the rewards that they believe their hard work should have merited," she said at New America in May.
"And where’s it all going? Well, economists have documented how the share of income and wealth going to those at the very top -- not just the top 1 percent, but the top .1 percent or the .01 percent of the population -- has risen sharply over the last generation," she said. "Some are calling it a throwback to the Gilded Age of the Robber Barons."
So income inequality has been a big part of the message. But it's also been married to inequality between the sexes. At both the New American and CAP events, the same factoid made an appearance: That three-quarters of jobs that rely on tips -- like "waiters, bartenders and hairstylists" as she said on both occasions -- are held by women.
"Forget about a glass ceiling," Clinton said Thursday. "These women don't even have a secure floor under them."
And she said Thursday that these issues should be used to mobilize voters -- in the 2014 midterms and moving forward.
"When we can turn an issue into a political movement that demands people be responsive during the election season, it carries over," Clinton said. "These issues have to be in the lifeblood blood of this election and any election."
I haven't heard many politicians mix those issues in a way that makes sense and I think it's a good idea. Women have been especially screwed economically in this epic down turn (well, actually, forever) and tying their equality in with income inequality is a very interesting political approach. Now whether or not she's going to propose policies that will reflect that rhetoric is something else again, but the rhetoric in presidential campaigns can be important so this is promising. Making a head-on appeal to female voters on an economic basis is something I might not have thought the (presumptive) first woman nominee would do.
Of course, there's the whole area of national security foreign policy where she will undoubtedly be proving her macho bona fides so I suppose she has plenty of running room. Unfortunately.
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