A liberal blogger who was fired from Democrat John Edward’s 2008
presidential campaign has attacked the Iowa GOP caucuses, blaming
the “misogyny” of Republicans in the Hawkeye State for the recent
surge by conservative Rick Santorum.
“Right on schedule, Rick Santorum is getting a push in Iowa
amongst people who probably don’t know how to use the googles
anyway. … [A] bunch of evangelical leaders have endorsed him,
which might put him over the top in Iowa,”
Amanda Marcotte wrote at her Pandagon blog. She said this is
because “while Iowa wingnuts are wingnutty in all the usual ways,
they prioritize ‘bitches ain’t sh—’ way more than the Republican
voters do in other states,” and attributed Santorum’s recent
success in Iowa to his “puppy dog-like excitement for portraying
women as life support systems for uteruses and nothing more.”
Marcotte went on to deride the Iowa caucuses, scheduled for Jan.
3, as irrelevant to the Republican nomination process, and also had
harsh words for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Minnesota
Rep. Michelle Bachmann.
Marcotte became notorious in early 2007 when she was hired as
“blogmaster” for the Edwards campaign. Her hiring by the former
North Carolina senator resulted in attention being focused on
Marcotte’s previous writing at Pandagon, including mockery of the
Catholic catechism that suggested an abortifacient drug could have
been used to prevent the birth of Jesus:
Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her
with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?
A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient
mythology.
Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review noted at the
time that Marcotte also compared the Catholic Church to fascist
dictatorships. Such writings provoked outrage from William Donohue
of the Catholic League, who demanded that Edwards fire Marcotte and
another liberal blogger, Melissa McEwan, who had been hired by the
campaign. Donohue called their work “incendiary … inflammatory
… scurrilous,” and said the Edwards campaign had been “tarnished
by two anti-Catholic vulgar, trash-talking bigots.” Marcotte
resigned from the campaign barely two weeks after she was
hired.
Marcotte wrote Wednesday that “Iowa is just a many month
battle for Republicans to compete for the title of Who Hates Women
the Most,” saying the “main reason” Huckabee won the 2008 Iowa
caucuses was that he “was perceived as the most gleefully
misogynist Republican contender.” Marcotte wrote that
Bachmann “adds an extra-special layer of bile to the misogyny
Olympics” and described Iowa Republicans as “mired … in the
notion that any use of the vagina for anything other than pushing
out babies is seriously wrong and needs to be punished
severely,”
Santorum and Bachmann are widely seen as competing for the same
social-conservative constituency that helped Huckabee gain an upset
victory in the 2008 Iowa GOP caucuses. Santorum has recently been
endorsed by a number of prominent conservative activists in the
state, including Iowa Family Leader president Bob Vander Plaats and
Iowa Family Policy Center president Chuck Hurley, as well as by
Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz. Santorum’s effort to
replicate Huckabee’s success in Iowa was emphasized Wednesday when
he announced that
Shelley Ahlersmeyer would serve as his national grassroots
coordinator, the same role she played for Huckabee four years
ago.
