Who are you calling chicken? At a three-day convention focused on recruiting new female Republican voters earlier this month, some overly-zealous anti-Hillary, um advocates, were slinging souvenirs with bird-brained slogans not about the politician’s platforms or practices, but of course about her physique.
gee oh pee-ew
The chauvinistic swag was spotted outside of a VIP reception area, and went viral when San Francisco Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci tweeted “popular buttons at @CAGOP convention already take on @hillaryclinton #2016 in a big way… Ouch!!” and included a photo showing a row of buttons squawking “KFC Hillary Special: 2 Fat Thighs, 2 Small Breasts… Left Wing.” A charming and chilling throwback, some buttons also read, “I still hate Commies even after they changed their name to Liberals.”
Popular buttons at @CAGOP convention already take on @hillaryclinton #2016 in a big way… Ouch!! pic.twitter.com/3SdIqZs7GG
— Carla Marinucci (@cmarinucci) October 6, 2013
In addition to the shameful reduction of a renowned politician to a dual analogy one part Playboy and one part family-sized bucket o’ friend chicken, this sophomoric joke isn’t even unique to the GOP or Clinton. “This past summer,” Salon blogger Mary Elizabeth Williams explained, “Australia’s Liberal National Party managed to tell the gag first and even more offensively, by whimsically placing on the menu of a fundraising dinner a Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail:“Small Breasts, Huge Thighs & a Big Red Box.” Imagine what it must be like to be the person who saw that story and thought, “Oho, that’s rich! America needs this! Fire up the button press!”
The good (ish) news is that Marinucci later tweeted that the buttons were pulled after they ruffled plenty of feathers. She wrote, “Less than hour after we 1st tweeted, appears offensive #Hillary buttons gone from #cagop. Many here also appalled.”
But since Marinucci first revealed the buttons, the California GOP social media team has not issued any apology or statement of disapproval over the incident — “not in its Twitter stream, not in its Facebook page, nor on its Web page” Salon.com noted. Are gaffes with female voters simply unavoidable for the GOP since some of their beliefs lean a bit misogynistic? Or will the Grand Old Party find a way to connect with women voters before 2016? To learn more about supporting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for President in 2016 visit ReadyForHillary.com. — Casandra Armour
