Hilary Rosen Rightly Called Out Claiming Ann Romney “Hasn’t Worked A Day In Her Life”

I’m making a bit of a comeback today as I really wanted to comment on the recent media spat between First Lady hopeful Ann Romney and Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen.

First things first.  I think that Rosen was rightly called out on her obvious poor choice of words when she said that Romney as a stay at home mom “hasn’t worked a day in her life”.  To be fair, I don’t believe that’s what she meant but someone in her position certainly should know better that making a situation-specific comment like that can easily be generalized into a sweeping statement.  I think it was refreshing actually to see politicians from both sides coming to Romney’s defense.

Rosen’s statement obviously requires a little context.  The comment came as a result of something that Mitt Romney said on the campaign trail.  He claimed essentially that he understands the plight of American women right now because of his relationship with his wife.

First of all, I’m getting tired of just about every politician in America talking about how they can identify with the average American.  They can’t.  Most politicians in Washington are wealthy, lead privileged lifestyles and don’t have to think about many of the issues that middle income families are dealing with.  To say that they can “relate” is in its best case scenario condescending.

Especially for someone like Romney.  This guy’s worth a quarter of a billion dollars.  He lives in a huge house, takes lavish vacations and probably has multiple people working for him that take care of the day to day stuff like vacuuming the floors and taking out the garbage.  People know that he and Ann are rich and have the all the resources of the world at their fingertips.  Why is he going out and talking like he’s just an average guy living paycheck to paycheck like most of the people he’s trying to get to vote for him?  It’s absurd.

I’m certainly not criticizing Ann Romney or the fact that she was a stay at home mom.  Parenting is perhaps the toughest job out there and she should be commended, not criticized, for that role in her life.  But Hilary Rosen’s comment that she “hasn’t worked a day in her life” was on target in the sense that she and Mitt can’t identify with most Americans since they don’t live in their situation.  Most politicians can’t, Barack Obama included.  They’re just too wealthy and have too much power to fully understand.

Hilary Rosen does deserve criticism for her Ann Romney comments but the underlying reason that caused her to say it in the first place might not be that far off base.