Politics

Female Dem candidate accuses Democrats of ‘War on Women’

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A female Democratic congressional candidate is accusing her party of waging a “War on Woman” after a Democratic committee omitted her from a recent poll.

Marisa DeFranco, a Massachusetts Democratic congressional candidate looking to unseat incumbent Rep. John Tierney, slammed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for its “blatantly sexist move” and a “war on women” in a new press release.

“The Democratic Party holds itself out as the champion of women, but in a blatantly sexist move, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee commissioned a poll in our race and omitted Marisa’s name from the poll,” the campaign’s release reads. “Yes, the party that has howled about the ‘War on Women’ left Marisa out of the poll even though she is the only candidate to date who has qualified for the ballot in the 6th District of Massachusetts. Keeping a candidate out of a poll effectively mutes her voice and keeps voters in the dark as to their choices in a race.”

A recent DCCC-commissioned poll on the 6th District race reportedly left DeFranco — who has been critical of Obamacare and proposed a milder brand of immigration reform that stops short of citizenship for illegal immigrants —- off the list of candidate options.

The poll showed Tierney with a wide lead over another challenger, Seth Moulton, but it has the DeFranco campaign fuming.

“If the Republican party (sic) did something so disrespectful to a woman candidate and her supporters who have been working their hearts out, we would be hearing about the ‘War on Women’ in every media outlet across the land. But the DCCC runs a poll with only the two men in the race and disregards the woman effectively writing her out of the picture and no one in the establishment blinks an eye,” the campaign release reads.

The campaign went on to attack Tierney for failing to stand up for his female Democratic challenger.

“Why is John Tierney standing by, allowing a woman to be discriminated against?” the campaign asked.

According to DeFranco, who was unsuccessful in getting on the ballot in 2012 for the Massachusetts Senate race, she just wants a chance.

“Our campaign is not asking for special treatment, only equal access,” DeFranco said in a statement. “We need to show the Democratic Party machine, the DCCC and everyone else that they cannot ignore, dismiss and erase out of the picture women who dare to challenge the status quo.”

Democrats have traditionally used the term “War on Woman” to smear Republicans for policies and comments Democrats believe to be unfriendly toward women. It is unusual for a Democrat to level to the charge against other Democrats.

“This sexist double standard is unacceptable,” the DeFranco release continued. “Who needs Mitt Romney’s etch-a-sketch when the Democratic machine can just as easily write a woman off with an eraser? If only 18% of Congress is women, and there is only 1 Democratic woman governor in the whole country, whose fault is that?  Why doesn’t the Democratic party run more women?”

When the Lowell Sun asked why DeFranco was not included in the poll last week, a committee spokesman told the paper “the poll speaks for itself.”

(H/T Legal Insurrection)

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