Pitting Women Against McCain

The battle for women voters continues.

Seeking to drive a wedge between women and the McCain-Palin ticket, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union launched an ad today portraying McCain as a foe of equal pay for female workers.

The ad shows women from various occupations, telling viewers that they make less money than men. It cites pay discrimination at Wal-Mart, since the ad is run under the banner of the union's "Wake Up Wal-Mart" campaign. What's McCain have to do with this? "He sided with corporate lobbyists against equal pay," the voiceover says. "Tell John McCain we can't afford it any longer."

(The fact-checkers at Politifact.org note that McCain says he supports equal pay for women.)

The ad is running in Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington D.C. It goes nicely with radio ads by People for the American Way, which also cast McCain as unfriendly to equal pay. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood is using a different issue -- violence against women -- to deter female support for McCain-Palin.

It's not an accident that the union's ad came out on the day of a debate featuring the GOP's first female vice presidential nominee.

-- Will Evans

8:15 PM ET | 10- 2-2008 | permalink

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