Former Obama adviser and memoirist David Axelrod has taken his talents to Great Britain to advise the Labor Party ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for May. Fittingly, he’s facing off against another former Obama adviser, Jim Messina, who is consulting for Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party.
In addition to advising President Obama to lie about his gay marriage position, Axelrod oversaw the Democratic Party’s efforts to accuse Republicans of waging a "war on women"—a tactic he is apparently trying to deploy overseas. Axelrod has pivoted from mocking Mitt Romney's "binders full of women" comment during a debate, to using pink busses full of women to campaign for female votes:
A bright pink minibus of female Labour MPs will tour constituencies to talk to female voters "around the kitchen table" in an effort to win their vote in marginal constituencies, the party has revealed.
Unveiling the campaign, Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman said the pink bus tour was not patronising, as the party recognises that women have different patterns in their working lives which need to be addressed by public policy.
She also defended the choice of colour, saying it was important to make sure the bus was conspicuous.
The Party’s "Woman to Woman" campaign, as it is known, will feature a "women’s manifesto" to be unveiled in April, which will include familiar calls to end the "gender pay gap." Labor is already emulating the Obama playbook by accusing Messina’s conservatives of "turning the clock back" for women. Party leaflets include the slogan: "Use your vote—government should listen to women as well as men."
Critics have dismissed the campaign as a "divisive gimmick," and noted that having a bunch of women drive around in a pink bus to attract female voters is "as patronizing as it gets."
