Will She?
A gossipy politico tells the Pitch that Sen. Claire McCaskill intends to endorse Barak Obama for president.
The senator’s press secretary, Maria Speiser, tells us McCaskill “has no immediate plans to endorse any of the candidates in the Democratic presidential primary.”
Whatever. A nod from Claire won’t make a difference in Barak’s race. But it’d make some sense, because McCaskill and Obama teamed up last month to introduce what they called the HERO (Homecoming Enhancement Research and Oversight) Act, which would direct the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs to fund research evaluating “the physical, mental health, and readjustment needs of service members returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” And in February, after the Washington Post exposed the despicable conditions and neglect of soliders at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, they proposed the “Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act,” legislation requiring better care and more frequent inspections.
McCaskill endorsing Obama is interesting because of how this campaign will ultimately take on an element of girl vs. boys. If McCaskill goes with Barak instead of Hillary, we might see more of the hysterics that accompanied a recent report that she had been less than enthusiastic about cranking up the old, and tired, debate about an Equal Rights Amendment. Rest assured, sisters, McCaskill favors the ERA. But she was absolutely right about its divisiveness – for some reason, it turned half a generation into jerky-kneed Rush Limbaugh listeners.
Some gals undoubtedly argue that’s exactly why we need the damn thing now. But hey, I already lived through the ´80s once. I even wore a green T-shirt with “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex” printed on the front. I’d rather not go through it all again. I’d rather just wait for ol’ Phyllis Schlafly to go to her glory – hell, she’s 83 -- at which point, maybe a new generation of women who were liberated pretty much as soon as they were born can take care of the constitutional formalities. I get the feeling McCaskill would, too. – C.J. Janovy
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