Wilson's sexism excuse

(Photo Credit: Mike Terry, Deseret Morning News)

Jenny Wilson, whose come-from-ahead loss is the talk of the politicos in Salt Lake City, is blaming Rocky and sexism for her failure at the voting booths.

Mayor Rocky Anderson's last minute op-ed Salt Lake Tribune piece on the ability to serve as mayor and a mother of small children — could spell trouble in recruiting more women to run for public office, Wilson said.

"Rocky's charges and all of the discussions out there, I think, if anything, are going to suppress women from having an interest in running for office," Wilson said. "Now I feel like there will be some sense of, 'Oh great, I've got kids. Look what happened to Jenny.' And that's too bad."
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The fact Wilson is a woman did not hurt her campaign, former GOP congresswoman Enid Greene said. And Anderson's last minute op-ed two days before the election regarding motherhood was "simply desperation on his part," Greene said of the Salt Lake City mayor, who publicly endorsed Keith Christensen, who also lost in the primary.

"I don't think a lot of people voted for or against Jenny Wilson thinking about her children as much as Rocky would have had them do otherwise," Greene said.

But Wilson said she was the subject of undue scrutiny purely because of her gender.

"The distinctions on this men to women, the increased lens on my family, nobody wrote about the family lives of Ralph Becker, Dave Buhler or Keith Christensen, and there is plenty to say there, both good and bad," Wilson said. "Yet everybody knows I've got these two kids, and, oh, are they going to be OK in all of this, and how do we feel about that, when nobody is asking those questions about the others?"

However, US Sen. candidate Pete Ashdown gives us some backstory that illustrates the fundamental problem with Ms. Wilson's campaign.

Dave Everitt and Ralph were persistent but not obnoxious in seeking my endorsement. I gave money to Jenny early on and what came back is that the campaign expected my endorsement even before she returned my questionnaire.

I was also pleased that Dave took my advice on the proper way to build an email list and also did not use robocallers. As you stated previously, your own household received four robocalls from the Wilson campaign. I firmly believe that robocalls are for sucker candidates and they do more harm than good. [emphasis added]

I call bullsh!t on Jenny, and amazingly agree with Enid Greene [Waldholz]. It was Jenny's campaign's sense of entitlement and crappy answers to lame debate questions that did her in, not the fact that she has ovaries.

She can blame Rocky, sexists, or those rude bloggers all she wants, but the truth is, she ran a crappy campaign. While it is true that Buhler was likely to get a top spot because he had the Republican-LDS base solidly behind him, she still could have beaten Keith and Ralph since she had more money than Ralph, better name recognition than Ralph, and didn't have to run away from her party/record like Keith.

Yet she ran a cautious campaign and struggled in debates and never really rallied Democrats in one of the bluest cities in the state. So if she wants someone to blame, she better start looking in the mirror.