Say Anything Blog

Another “hope and change” moment brought to you by the “new politics” candidate:

Barack Obama’s campaign earlier this month sought to find a rape victim to appear in a campaign commercial, according to an e-mail obtained by Politico.

Kiersten Steward, director of public policy at the Family Violence Prevention Fund, served as a conduit between the campaign and victims and women’s advocates.

“Obviously, this is a big ask and I haven’t seen a script but presumably it will be a brief ‘this is what happened to me, we need someone who will fight for women like me, these are the guys to do it,’” Steward wrote in a Sept. 15 e-mail. “Again, that’s just my assumption, given how these things
usually go.”

Steward, a former top aide to Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), said the Obama campaign would have a crew in Washington and was hoping to film that week.

She didn’t respond to a message.

The Obama campaign wouldn’t detail the strategy behind finding an individual to discuss such a sensitive topic but did suggest the ad may be aimed at underscoring their candidate’s support for abortion rights and ongoing effort to retain those women who backed Hillary Clinton in the primary.

“Choice is an important issue, and we’re going to continue talking about it in battleground states through the election,” said spokesman Bill Burton.

We are often told that asking a woman not to murder her child, especially when it’s the product of a rape, is a horrific and unacceptable thing.  And I don’t doubt that carrying a child of rape to term is awful (though not awful enough to justify killing that child).  But can asking a rape victim to exploit her victimhood for political purposes be far behind that?