Harry Reid mans up for Lilly Ledbetter

Most readers know that Lilly Ledbetter is the woman whose courageous
battle has led to progress, though not enough progress, for women
receiving equal pay for equal work. Recently, Ledbetter stood side by side
with one of her greatest supporters when she endorsed Sen. Harry Reid
(D) for reelection in Nevada.

Lilly Ledbetter is the Good Lord’s answer to Sharron Angle, who taunts
Reid with her call to “man up.” What Lilly Ledbetter knows and
Sharron Angle will never learn is that a real man stands tall, as Harry
Reid has stood tall for a lifetime, to fight for every woman in
Nevada and every woman in America receiving an honest day’s pay for
an honest day’s work.

Lilly Ledbetter’s support for Harry Reid has dramatized a major issue. Sharron
Angle can say “man up” all she wants, but Sharron Angle has
spent a lifetime opposing the actions that would give all women equity in
pay, and supporting the policies that lead to pay discrimination against
women in virtually every stratum of their work lives.

Harry Reid has manned up big time for women in his lifelong fight for pay
equity. He has fought for women over the opposition of those reactionary
forces that oppose pay equity for women, and now donate large sums of
money to Angle because they, like Angle, like things the way they are
in a world that is too often unfair to women at work.

What I would propose to Democrats is to put Lilly Ledbetter on television
to appeal to women throughout Nevada and throughout the nation, for
Democrats like Harry Reid and so many others, who stand up for women in
the workplace.

This would be so much more compelling, and ring so much more true to
women, than so many of the ads that pollute the airwaves today with
untruths, half-truths and falsehoods that are in such great disrepute with
voters.

John F. Kennedy used to joke that if you have a man’s job, find a woman.

Lilly Ledbetter proves, very dramatically, that if you want a real man,
find a man like Harry Reid who fights for women receiving an honest
day’s pay for an honest day’s work, which Reid has spent a lifetime
working for, and Sharron Angle has spent a lifetime working against.