Tales from the Trail

Mothers relax on the grass with their babies at Central Park during a warm day in New York, March 22, 2012. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

The recent flap over women voters — especially stay-at-home mothers — has sent both Republican and Democratic pundits scrambling and with good reason: many stay-at-home moms aren’t affiliated with either party and are a ripe target for swing votes, a new poll shows.

The survey from Gallup Inc also finds that moms who don’t work aren’t exactly a pampered lot, despite Ann Romney – the wife of a multi-millionaire businessman – being portrayed as their standard bearer. It found most moms who stay home are more economically disadvantaged than their working peers.

Women with more education and those with higher family incomes are far more likely to work after having children than lower-income women and those who have less schooling, the polling firm found.

“It does appear that stay-at-home mothers are more economically disadvantaged than working mothers, rather than more advantaged. And this may be directly related to education,” Gallup said in its poll released this week.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum hailed the influence of strong, independent women on Tuesday night, a turnaround from his past statements that critics have called sexist or anti-women.

In a concession speech given just as rival Mitt Romney won the Republican presidential primaries of Arizona and Michigan, Santorum took the chance to tell voters “a little more about who Rick Santorum is” and sang the praises of his 93-year-old grandmother, his wife Karen, a former lawyer who gave up work to raise their family, and their daughter Elizabeth who campaigns for her dad on her own.

“I grew up with a very strong mom, someone who was a professional person who taught me a lot of things about… balancing work and family, and doing it well, and doing it with a big heart and commitment,” he said.

President Barack Obama’s weekend outings to play golf have become regular events, especially when the weather cooperates.

But Sunday afternoon, an almost picture-perfect fall day, marked the first time in Obama’s presidency that a woman joined the golf game.

White House domestic policy aide Melody Barnes was among those who headed out to the Fort Belvoir army installation in Virginia to play golf with the president.  White House aides of varying levels of seniority typically play golf with the president but until Sunday, the games were all male.

White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers is rarely at a loss for words, which makes Tuesday's question-and-answer session at the National Press Club in Washington downright astonishing.

Summers, whose term as president of Harvard University ended rather abruptly after he made some unfortunate remarks about women and math and science aptitude, knew he was on very thin ice when he was asked a question about gender differences in retirement savings.

As soon as the question was asked, laughter spread around the room. Summers himself paused for a good 20 seconds before cracking a joke about how the question must have frightened his staff.

Barely had President Barack Obama outlined a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan meant to narrow the focus to eliminating the threat from al Qaeda and its Islamist allies, before the U.S.-led campaign ran into what was always going to be one of its biggest problems in limiting its goals. What does it do about the rights of women in the region?

The treatment of women has dominated the headlines this week after Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed a new law for the minority Shi'ite population which both the United States and the United Nations said could undermine women's rights. Karzai has promised a review of the law, while also complaining it was misinterpreted by Western journalists. 

In Pakistan, video footage has been circulated of Taliban militants flogging a teenage girl in the Swat valley, where the government concluded a peace deal with the Taliban in February. The graphic and disturbing video, which has been posted on YouTube, has outraged many Pakistanis and the flogging was condemned by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani as shameful. There have been contradictory reports of exactly when and why the girl was punished, although Dawn newspaper quoted a witness as saying she was flogged two weeks ago for refusing a marriage proposal.

President Barack Obama, who is surrounded by women at home – wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia – on Wednesday declared Girl Power a priority for the federal government.

In creating the White House Council on Women and Girls, which will include members of his Cabinet, Obama said he wanted to make sure that women and girls were treated fairly in all matters of public policy.

“We have many of those Cabinet members here. Some of the men showed up — we put them in the second row,” Obama said to laughter at an event to sign the executive order creating the council.

First lady Michelle Obama took a turn in the spotlight Thursday, hosting a reception for a woman whose treatment at Goodyear prompted Congress to change the law on pay discrimination. 
 
It was one of the highest-profile public events for the first lady since the inauguration last week. And it was on behalf of a woman — Lilly Ledbetter — who got to know the first couple well during the presidential campaign.
 
President Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act into law in the East Room of the White House flanked by a small crowd of lawmakers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
 
“This is what change looks like,” Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland joked to the audience as the lawmakers crowded around the document Obama was to sign.
 
The first lady later spoke about Ledbetter at a reception in the State Dining Room as guests sipped orange juice and cranberry juice and munched cherry orange scones, apple muffins and other pastries.
 
“She is one of my favorite people in the whole wide world,” Michelle Obama said. 
 
“She knew unfairness when she saw it and was willing to do something about it because it was the right thing to do, plain and simple.”
 
Ledbetter discovered after 19 years on the job at Goodyear Tire & Rubber that she was the lowest-paid supervisor at her plant despite having more experience than some male co-workers.
 
A jury found she was the victim of discrimination. But the Supreme Court reversed the decision two years ago, saying discrimination claims must be filed within 180 days of the first offense.
 
“I will never see a cent from my case,” Ledbetter said. “But with the passage (of the bill) and president’s signature today, I have an even richer reward. I know that my daughters and granddaughters and your daughters and your granddaughters will have a better deal.” 
 
For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Michelle Obama greets guest); Reuters/Jim Bourg (Obama hands pen to Ledbetter after signing bill)

NEW YORK – Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire — that’s how Sen. Clinton put it on Thursday at a women’s breakfast where she joined the Democratic White House hopeful to campaign for him in New York.

She said Obama had noted that she looked rested since she ended her campaign against him for the Democratic nomination, and she told him she’d been exercising for a change.

“During the campaign …  Barack would get up faithfully every morning and go to the gym. I would get up and have my hair done,” she said as she introduced him.