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October 08, 2014 09:02 PM UTC

Jill Repella - Scaring Women to the R Side

  • 12 Comments
  • by: kwtree

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

 Bob Beauprez and Jill Repella,photo from Beauprez CampaignRecently, in Pueblo, Beauprez attempted to sidetrack discussion about reproductive choice with a strange diatribe about how women are really scared about Hickenlooper's release of violent parolees, and this is the security issue for which women should vote Republican.

Lieutenant Governor candidate Jill Repella posted a statement on the Beauprez website :  HIgh Risk Parolee Scandal. She touts her female credentials: "As a single mother, I find that [release of parolees] appalling." Repella, a woman promoting this as a woman's issue,  attempts to woo women to the Republican side as "security voters".

Beauprez got booed by the audience, and lambasted by Mike Littwin, for bringing  the murder of prisons chief Tom Clements by parolee Evan Ebel into the debate to make his point about women's safety. Hickenlooper responded factually, that prisoners are no longer released directly from solitary confinement onto the streets.

Prison and Parole Reform:

Reforms to the prison system were started by Clements, and have been continued by his replacement, Rick Raemisch. There is a LONG way to go. It doesn't help that services to help people transition from prison to public life are not well funded, and probably won't be under TABOR restrictions. Parolees usually have to come up with their own funds for the required fees, drug tests, etc. This while they are homeless,  jobless, and without mental support systems, unless the prisoner's family steps up.

The way prisoners are confined and released is in fact a public safety and human rights scandal. Men and women should be outraged and asking for reform.

But Beauprez will not be campaigning for any increases to transition services for prisoners. He didn't put out any actual policy solutions to the problems of transitioning people from the criminal justice system to the streets. He's just going to be tougher, somehow. And if he had his way, Colorado would still be jailing people for possession of small amounts of marijuana – Bob doesn't care for legalization.

The Beauprez campaign claims that Hickenlooper  is attempting to "hide the story" about parolee crimes. This is just spin. The Bureau of Prisons does not release public details about parolees to the media unless a crime has been committed.  The Post article, a great investigative piece by reporters Brown, Osher, and Crummy, cited by the Beauprez campaign, provides ample details about the parolees and their crimes. There is no indication that Hick hid anything from the media.

Jill Repella is stepping up as Beauprez' surrogate in the effort to persuade women that they will be safer and more secure under a Beauprez/Repella governorship. Even though the Beauprez campaign has not published any actual policies for public safety.  Even though Beauprez, as Governor, would certainly sign a law to restrict access to abortion, if the legislature loses its collective mind and sends him one. Even though putting more people in prison, with less funding, doesn't make the community any safer.

So, women wouldn't have control over their own personal health decisions, and might be jailed themselves for nonviolent, victimless crimes such as marijuana possession, or for having a miscarriage or abortion – but with Big Head Bob in charge,..maybe women will just feel safer?

I won't.

 

photo of Bob Beauprez and Jill Repella from the Beauprez campaign, via the Villager online edition

Comments

12 thoughts on “Jill Repella – Scaring Women to the R Side

    1. I've been blessed to travel extensively in my adult life; a significant portion of those experiences put me square in the sub-Saharan African bush.  What I find is a universal truth is that women everywhere (whether you're a poor black woman in the bush or a rich, white woman in an American suburb) want the same thing for their families. 

      I personally find this whole (American) "Security Mom" theme being peddled by the neo-cons as disgusting as it is hypocritical (not unlike the hypocrisy of the pro-life/pro-war moms).  But it clearly doesn't surprise me or anyone else that's been even half-awake since 9/11.

      Over the past decade-and-a-half while our "security moms" have stood silently by, while we have slaughtered millions of children in foreign lands in the name of oil, err liberty, they live in relative peace and prosperity.  They might be reminded that the largest terror attack on US soil happened on the watch of one of their own. They might be reminded of even little things like a child that dies from an epileptic seizure every 10 minutes while Congress sits idly by doing nothing to let alternative medicines (that work) in to the marketplace. They might be reminded that their own Cory Gardner voted to remove $40 billion from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program in the Farm Bill – a move that would have decimated the food security of 10's of thousands of Colorado children. They might be reminded that their own candidate for Governor would prefer to send refugee children back to their home country – a guaranteed death sentence.

      Get over yourselves. There is no one in the world more secure than "You".

      Only 26 more days of waterboarding by these scoundrels…

      1. Good points, Michael. I don't know how we "deal with" the irrational fears of the most privileged women and men in America. The beheadings and Ebola publicity take their toll, and cable news keeps selling the fear factor, because, well, it sells ads. Politicians, especially GOP politicians, are using fear to try to get votes.

        CodePink tries to make common cause between privileged and less privileged women across the globe based on compassion, the wish to raise families in security and with opportunity, and hope. (What you were talking about "reminding" people of).

        What I see in dealing with these right wing women in my own extended family is that they are nice people who send money and supplies and missionaries to Africa and other places – they do reach out in compassion, but as far as I can see, they never question their own privilege or the big picture of how their country conducts its corporate affairs. There is no "political is personal" – it's all personal.

        I think that the only way to end the influence of the fear mongers is to vote them out. To some extent, to vote them out, we need to begin speaking their language, reassuring that we can and do protect against the crazy and chaotic and cruel universe. Udall is starting to pivot that way in his latest ads. If Hick wants to stay governor, or if Dunafon has more than a prayer of being governor, they need to speak that reassurance, too.

        Because I don't know if there are enough of us rational people around, anymore.

  1. MSNBC has been having great fun with the whole Republicans must think women are really dumb thing, gleefully featuring montages of all those wedding dress ads, each featuring a fill-in-the-blank Republican dress/candidate as the one women choose as to die for, including our own BWB. It's funny how they seem to have no idea how insulting to women their various ways of targeting them are.

    Their premise seems to be that women are easily frightened, helpless dimwits who must be addressed in the only terms they understand, all of which revolve around fashion and the need for dreamy knights in armor or daddy figures to keep their fragile, frightened little selves safe. Don't bother them with foreign policy positions to address security concerns. Why bother their pretty little heads with facty stuff that will just give them headaches? Just tell them to be scared and to depend on daddy to protect them and that no, that dress does not make their butt look big.

    1. The generic wedding dress ad really does take the cake (no pun intended).  But there are a few more weeks to go and I wouldn't be surprised if they out-do themselves before it's over.

      BTW, did everyone else notice how the housewives standing around in the kitchen criticizing Udall for being a single issue candidate are all white, appear to be upper middle class, and have tastefully decorated and immaculately sparkling kitchens?  They're like characters out of a '60's soap opera.

      If the GOP really wanted to try to pick off some suburban indie (and Dem) women, they'd have someone resembling Roseanne scrubbing a toilet while giving her speech……..

  2. Not a surprise, "security" is the Republican national byword right now. (Apparently someone's generic polling shows that Republicans are still considered better on "security" issues than Dems.)

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/us/politics/republican-strategy-midterm-elections.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

    With four weeks to go before the midterm elections, Republicans are pointing to the Islamic State, Secret Service failings and Ebola as evidence of what they call White House incompetence.

    Remember, Americans, be afraid, be very afraid . . . 

     

  3. Just a reminder of Prof. George Lakoff's Stern Father model that the GOP uses:

    Mark Karlin: You have emphasized over the years many Republicans being attracted to a strict paternal authoritarian model of national government. Can you think of one exception to that theory in the last 50 years among GOP presidential candidates? I can't.

    George Lakoff: I can't either.

    The entire article goes on to explain why the current Colorado races are running neck and neck even though there is a stark difference between the irrational world of the GOP candidates and the rational world of the Democrats.

    http://truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/12401-george-lakoff-progressives-need-to-use-language-that-reflects-moral-values

    1. Important to remember, Davie.

      From Lakoff's "Little Blue Book", about self – interest and rational thought:  "This is an inadequate theory of reason and language, which leads to many liberals thinking that what is moral is universal and can be taken for granted, and that all one has to do is present the facts and people will reason to the right conclusion. It keeps not happening."

      Ouch.

      At least, I saw Udall (at the Pueblo debate last night) responding to Gardner's "Be very afraid" attack with "Strong Daddy" "I'll take care of you" imagery. So at least we're aware of and responding to the fear-mongering appropriately.

      I don't know how female candidates can project a "Strong Mommy" image. I think it may be more difficult. On the right, female candidates pose with guns, advocate for easier access to guns, talk tough about crime.

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