Hey ladies, want to know what Rick Santorum thinks of you? Don't bother reading the transcripts from last night's South Carolina debate. Knowing one of his staffers thinks a woman president would be the worst thing that could happen to American families should sum it up nicely.
The Santorum campaign is ignoring criticism that the Republican presidential candidate is sexist. But the decision to keep charging ahead in the fight for votes in the Palmetto state with staffer Jamie Johnson on the payroll is like a giant screw you to womankind.
Johnson's private email was written last summer, but it surfaced on Friday thanks to the Des Moines Register, using it as one example in a list of nine reasons why Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's campaign for the GOP nomination failed. In it the Christian employee of the evangelical Republican notes:
Is it Gods highest desire, that is, His biblically expressed will ... to have a woman rule the institutions of the Family, the Church, and the State?
Soooo, we can feed our kids, clothe our kids, educate our kids (Santorum's wife Karen homeschools their brood), but dagnabit, if we were to actually govern them, we'd all be headed to hell in a handbasket? Please allow me to wipe the suds from my busy dish-washing schedule off my hands, walk out of the kitchen, and check Rick Santorum off my list of people I will ever vote for (as if I hadn't already). I have a uterus, he probably doesn't want me getting my hands dirty with matters of the state anyway.
Oh, I know, I know, Rick Santorum did not write this email. It was written by Johnson on his personal account to a personal friend. And the way Johnson tells it, that means it has no bearing on the race for the GOP nod.
Too bad Rick Santorum hasn't bothered to tell women that.
Because Rick Santorum employs Jamie Johnson, and is continuing to employ him despite his incendiary comments. The minute this news came out, Santorum had a choice to make. He could actually come out and say his staffer was way off base. He could defend not just Karen but his three daughters, telling voters that he would champion them in a run for political office the way they've supported his dreams.
But Rick Santorum hasn't told women he values them. Not with his words and not with his actions. He's made it pretty clear he doesn't think we can handle politics -- be it as a candidate or as a voter.
Do you really want to vote for this man?
Image via Victoria Harjadi/Flickr