Sandra Fluke’s accidental celebrity, this year, may have come about over a Capitol Hill clash on women’s reproductive rights, and an unworthy epithet hurled at her from a right wing radio blowhard, but when she takes the podium, Wednesday night, at the Democratic National Convention, in Charlotte, she is going to reveal to the country that her interests in women’s issues goes, she says, “beyond the contraception conversation.”
In a quick briefing with bloggers attending the convention, Wednesday afternoon, Fluke, who has been campaigning for President Obama’s reelection, insisted that she also has conversations with “outraged” voters about Romney and Congressional Republicans reluctance to embrace a coherent policy on the issue of fair pay. “I was actually looking for a plan from someone running for president,” she said, somewhat sardonically.
“He doesn’t have any plan for how we’re going to close that pay gap, how we’re going to put that $400,000 back in each woman’s career, on average.”
“Mitt Romney won’t even say if he supports it,” Lilly Ledbetter, who lost a suit for pay discrimination because the law said she waited too long, and who’s name is on the first bill President Obama signed, to rectify the lawsuit issue, reminded those gathered in Charlotte, Tuesday. “President Obama does.”
To be sure, when Ms. Fluke talks, Wednesday night, she will cover the issue that earned her a feature role, this political season. “For me, this election is about information,” she said in the briefing, “If you understand the positions that Mr. Romney has taken, if you know that he vetoed a bill [as governor] that would give victims of rape access to emergency contraception in the ER, if you know [both Ryan’s and Romney’s] records, it’s a very clear choice.”
Besides the causes that she says she is “really passionate about,” what will probably come through the most will be Fluke’s gratitude for what her new found fame affords. “It’s really empowering,” she said,” and I’m just really thankful to have the opportunity to work for the policies that I care about, and to champion the cause of women that I care about, and to support this president.”
“Every one of us has the responsibility to do everything we can for the things we believe in.”
-PBG
Prose and Thorn 