WASHINGTON — Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz spoke to liberal activists yesterday at the Netroots Nation conference in Minneapolis....
And? I heard they were pretty pissed.
She delayed weighing in as the party leader on Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, waiting until a coordinated effort was underway before calling on Weiner to resign his seat.
“I think she got a big promotion that she wasn’t ready for,’’ said Jeff Berkowitz, a Republican strategist who has worked for the Republican National Committee under several chairmen. “There is a huge leap from representing a small liberal district in Florida to all of the sudden being the national spokesman for a major political party.’’
Wasserman Schultz is hardly the only national party leader to be taken to task by the opposition. Former GOP chairman Michael Steele faced intense criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike after a two-year tenure marked by a series of verbal missteps and chronic financial woes. Democrats say there is no comparison.
Actually, there is:
Related: Democrats Caught With Drawers Down
Repugs only lost their shirts.
David Axelrod, a top strategist for Obama’s reelection campaign, said Wasserman Schultz has inspired rank-and-file Democrats....
When you find one let me know.
A mother of three and a breast cancer survivor, Wasserman Schultz, 44, has represented a reliably Democratic Fort Lauderdale-area district for four terms. Along the way she has earned a reputation as a workhorse and as an outspoken liberal happy to duke it out on TV with her GOP counterparts.
I never see here because I never watch that s***. Bad enough reading it.
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"Wronged political wives make husbands fix own messes" by Katharine Q. Seelye, New York Times / June 19, 2011
NEW YORK — In the past two years, that script has been tossed aside. From Jenny Sanford in 2009 to Maria Shriver last month, wronged political wives have been rebelling against being typecast as “the good wife.’’
Related: Schwarzenegger Sex Scandal
Now, Huma Abedin, the wife of Anthony D. Weiner, a New York Democrat who resigned from Congress on Thursday in disgrace over lewd online antics, has shredded the script entirely.
Not only did Abedin not show up at any of his news conferences, but she has issued no statements. Abedin, 35, who has been married to Weiner, 46, for less than a year and is pregnant, has remained mute to the media....
Gee, she's kind of cute; Weiner is a real dick.
“She’s worrying about the bigger picture, her own family, her own life, the baby, how to get back to living a normal life,’’ this person said, adding that Abedin “has no plans to leave him at this point, but that could change.’’ The couple is spending the weekend together in the Hamptons.
I heard she was devastated.
Also see: Hampton Hypocrites
Abedin represents a new generation of political wife: Strong professional women less dependent on their husbands as the sole breadwinners and more likely to say, “This is your mess, you clean it up.’’
“The rule book has been thrown out,’’ said Ruth Mandel, director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. “These other women started to look less like supportive spouses and more like victims. So people began to ask, ‘Why does she have to do that?’ ’’
One reason has been children. Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, said that some women had stood by their men to try to protect their children.
Another big reason has been politics. Polling shows that a wife’s reaction is a strong cue to voters, Lake said.
“If the wife is there, they are more accepting,’’ she said. “It matters to them if the wife says they are pulling together, but if she looks injured, they will turn against you.’’
Weiner’s political career, for the moment, is on ice....
Should have put ice on his.... never mind. But he is at peace.
Abedin guards her privacy even as she is married to one high-profile public figure and works for another....
All these people guard there privacy while the government they head violates yours, 'murkn!!!
Still, expectations for the betrayed wife of today have been flipped upside down: the question now is not why Abedin was not at the news conference, but why would she be there?
A joint appearance does not necessarily say anything about the long-term prospects for a marriage. Dina McGreevey, the wife of former governor James E. McGreevey, Democrat of New Jersey, stood by him in 2004 when he announced he is gay and had had an affair with a man; they later went through a bitter divorce.
Related: SEXPIONAGE
But standing by does not have to be an act of passivity. After Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, said in 2007 that he had sinned — he had been implicated in a prostitution ring — his wife, Wendy, went further than most political wives and took the microphone herself. She said she had forgiven her husband and was proud to be married to him. He was reelected last year.
Being a SAP is being active?
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Related: In The Corner To My Left....
