I agree with Ann on this issue. The Obama campaign has put out feelers, looking for a rape survivor who is willing to film a campaign commercial for them to highlight the differences between the Obama/Biden ticket’s support for women, and especially victims of hate crimes against women, and the McCain/Palin ticket, which is laden with an ugly history from the rape kits debacle to McCain’s no votes on various bills to fight violence against women. Considering that there is a legitimate difference between the tickets, then this is not “playing politics”. Politics is the stuff of real life, and when we put something like violence against women out of the reach of “playing politics”, we fail to understand that violence against women is a political issue and politicians should address it. I like how Ann puts it:
Political and issue-based campaigns frequently recruit people with first-hand experience to speak publicly and in ads. I wondered, would my reaction be so strong if the Obama campaign was seeking a laid-off autoworker to discuss his economic policies? Decidedly not.
For instance, if you want to see a stomach-churning ad about a taboo subject that most people would rather not talk about, but has to be talked about for political reasons, check out this ad from the South Dakota Campaign For Healthy Families, a group that’s fighting the South Dakota abortion ban: