For whatever reason, Republicans don’t like to admit that most of their support comes from white men. So right on cue, we’ve got a new non-male demographic group that will propel Republicans to victory in November, Bill-Paying Moms (h/t Commander Guy). Never mind that the reality is a huge gender gap, with women tending to vote for Democrats and men tending to vote for Republicans.
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Culture of Truth
Republicans block legislation to create tax breaks for companies that move foreign-based jobs to the U.S. and penalize those that send jobs offshore. Four Democrats and independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut voted with 40 Republicans against allowing formal consideration of the bill.
Martin
Bill paying moms are supposed to help the GOP? Heh. They’re the ones that stress most over the cost of health care, whether their kids’ doctor bills will be covered by insurance, and so on. Good luck with that one.
mistermix
It’s just a way to call women who vote for Democrats welfare queens. They don’t pay their bills, the government does.
JPL
@mistermix: Good point. The Repubs know their base.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
The polling is from NY. I’m sure females will just love to vote for the guy who told his wife hours before their son’s funeral, that he had a 9 year daughter.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
So, since my husband stays home and does the actual bill-paying (and childcare) while I go out to the office to bring home the nitrate-free meat substitute product, does that make him a girly man, or make me Not A Real
‘MerkinMom, or both? I’m so confused – please, big Republican Mommy, tell me how to vote against my own self-interest here!Bubblegum Tate
Bill Paying Mama Grizzlies are the ubermensch.
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: That’s easy, vote for the person with the “R” after the name.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
First it was Soccer Moms, then Security Moms, now Bill Paying Moms?
My wife pays all the bills and manages all the finances. We decided not to breed. Do the 8 cats and 3-legged dog count?
David Brooks (not that one)
The bill-paying moms are only paying the bills because their husbands tell them to.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@mistermix:
Good point.
Dork
Not able to connect the dots here.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@JPL:
There is also polling from New Jersey.
geg6
I don’t know a mom who doesn’t pay the bills and I also don’t know one who’d vote for a Republican.
El Cid
So, the non-working wives of insta-Mansion, golf-course located rich husbands support Democrats?
Because, you know, they’re not bill payers?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@mistermix:
But we know the biggest welfare queens wear overalls. Oh wait, that was the 80s.
Now the biggest welfare queens wear Armani suits and drive very expensive cars
Rick Massimo
This is what Republicans do. They make up names for things. They don’t come up with ideas to fix stuff; they make up names for things (and people). It’s all they do.
Imam Obama, Obamacare, cap and tax, etc., etc., etc.
All they do. Ever.
Chat Noir
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Your household is similar to mine. Three cats and one neurotic dog. And I take care of the bills, which is fine by my husband. Although I kind of think Marsha Blackburn would say I don’t count because I’m a Democrat.
Martin
@JPL: He’ll get credit for that. After all, if Cuomo had the affair, he would have insisted on having the pregnancy terminated at taxpayer expense and then surrendered NY State to Canada.
Thems the rules in Wingnutland
Martin
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Do you declare them as dependents? If not, then no, they don’t count.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@Rick Massimo: … and Right to work, freedom to farm, free forests…
I guess Newt and Frank Lutz and the rest don’t actually have to be smart, just smarter than the average resentment-fueled white male?
JPL
OT.. The Rolling Stone interview with President Obama is getting a lot of attention. As someone pointed out FOX News is highlighting his rap music but of course took it out of context. duh. Anyway the entire interview is worth a read.
I’ve always said that he is less concerned about reelection than he is with doing what’s right. I thought this paragraph was interesting
Chat Noir
@Rick Massimo: And remember, to them it’s the “Democrat Party,” not the “Democratic Party.” That one just pisses me off to no end.
Linda Featheringill
@JPL:
Jimminy Cricket!
One wonders why marriage is still around.
Or, perhaps, why marriage to political animals is still around.
I probably owe the male half of the human species an apology. Most people [men and women] are not so insensitive. Probably most politicians are not that insensitive, either, although I’m just guessing here.
But still . . . .
Mark S.
The vast majority of conservative women I know are conservative because of social issues, not fiscal ones. I realize that isn’t very scientific, but there aren’t a lot of Megan McCardles running around.
JPL
@Martin: The timing of his mea culpa is unforgivable. Old white men will think he was being honorable but believe me that’s it. I’d donate to an ad that highlights his treatment of females and minorities. I don’t think Cuomo has it in him to run one though.
Chat Noir
@JPL: I just finished reading it a few minutes ago. I thought it was good. For me, one of the key quotes is this:
General Stuck
OT
I WanT MY CUNTRY BACk!!
Sorry wingnut, it done gone to Mexico,
Regards, GOP
Benjamin Cisco
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: That’s not a low bar, that’s a trench.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@JPL:
I knew it, Obama’s a fucking firebagger! Veal Pen Flapdoodle!
@Mark S.: Yeah, half a dozen of my aunts and most of their friends, all on Social Security, Medicare, a lot of them with some kind of gov’t pension, and they’re all single-issue voters on abortion.
Bubblegum Tate
Wait, what’s this about Paladino and a secret son?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Martin:
My wife is much too honest to try and do that. OTOH, if I thought I could get away with it…
Given our vet bills, some months they feel like dependents.
I’m sure people with actual human children will take offense at that statement.
JPL
@Chat Noir: That was good. Maybe later we can convince the BJ business and economic editor to have an open thread and we can discuss the entire interview.
daveNYC
At last, some good news.
fasteddie9318
@General Stuck:
Tester voted against the outsourcing bill? WTF is his problem?
eric
@JPL: this is totally on teh gheys and their destruction of marriage. Such ruffians!!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Are Bill Paying Moms being forced to use long division? Get the government out of our maths!
freelancer
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist:
This describes so many voters I know that it is just mindblowing.
I suggest the Bill Hicks’ solution to contentious issues amongst low-info voters:
Kristine
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Did they tell you why?
Steve
I don’t want to stereotype, but since the whole frickin’ notion of Bill-Paying Moms is a stereotype, you’d think that maybe a few of these deficit hawk moms would be interested in balancing the budget by cutting defense spending. Mothers aren’t exactly known for being thrilled as their kids go off to war, after all, nor did most of them play with tanks as children.
Jim, Foolish LIteralist
@Kristine: Me personally, no, but my parents and other relatives have had a lot of awkward to tense conversations. My mom and her three sisters were having lunch last fall, one aunt was shocked to find out the other three were all for Obama. She actually said “But what about Life?” in a tone of disbelief. That’s how they talk. Old school Catholics. Some of them still go to Novenas (I think –one of those old fashioned, mid-week services), a couple are members of something called the Rosary Society.
DonkeyKong
“Soccar Mom’s” went into hibernation and emerged as “Grizzly Mom’s” that would break into peoples homes in North Lake Tahoe and tear off freezer doors eating frozen bunt cakes and costco packs of frozen burrito’ only to leave a basketball size crap in the garage.
Nobody has seen the “Grizzly Mom’s” after that. However, if you cup your ear into the media windscape you can hear the howl of the “Bill Paying Mom’s” in the middle distance.
Zifnab
Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
Five words that should win over every working woman’s vote to the Democratic party for a dozen electoral cycles.
Course, I’d be surprised if one American in ten even knew what it was.
I blame the liberal media.
bill paying single mom
are they out of their fucking minds? oh yeah. i forgot.
as a single-bill-paying-mom, I am extremely clear on who has put me and my kids in the position we are in, and it ain’t Obama.
JPL
@DonkeyKong: Are we sure that scientists did not screw up and implant mice brains into grizzly moms. I wonder what O’Donnell would think about this possibility.
someguy
If Republicans = The Stupid Party, then Men = The Stupid Gender.
Allison W.
What if you pay your bills with unemployment checks?
WereBear
@someguy: I wouldn’t tab all guys that way; they have an amazing ability to focus, while women have an amazing ability to multitask. (On a standard Bell curve, of course.)
However, this makes men less able to handle situations with a lot of nuance and missing information. In some ways, they can’t handle suspense; they would rather make a wrong decision and get out of there.
So today’s Republican party, “often wrong but never uncertain,” appeals to men who never learned that skill.
someguy
@WereBear:
So the 80% of us white males, who vote Republican, are basically somewhere between autistic and profoundly mentally retarded, depending on whether we’re high functioning or low. Explains a lot, really, when you think about it.
Bob L
@Jim, Foolish LIteralist: Sounds like my aunts. All old school Catholics so abortions are the only thing that count. Drives my own mother nuts because of the Social Security stuff.
Davis X. Machina
@someguy: I dunno, sounds good to me. Like all good theories it is parsimonious and preserves the phenomena.