On Fox News, Sabato equated Democrats to “mommy,” Republicans to “daddy”

Written by Jeremy Holden

Published

Recycling a standard gender cliché frequently used by the media to discuss Republicans and Democrats, Larry Sabato said: “Look, when you analyze parties, you need to think of them this way: The Democratic Party is the mommy party, and the Republican Party is the daddy party.”

During the March 25 edition of Fox News' Your World With Neil Cavuto, Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, asserted: “Look, when you analyze parties, you need to think of them this way: The Democratic Party is the mommy party, and the Republican Party is the daddy party” -- recycling a standard gender cliché frequently used by the media to discuss Republicans and Democrats. Sabato went on to claim, “The mother is loving and caring and takes us back in and provides the safety net. The father is the disciplinarian -- tough love. He makes us face up to hard realities, at least in many families. Well, the mommy party is the Democratic Party. The daddy party is the Republican Party. And I think if you look at the economy, you look at the housing, the mortgage crisis, a whole wide range of things, you will find that the parties fulfill these images.”

From the March 25 edition of Fox News' Your World With Neil Cavuto:

NEIL CAVUTO (host): To John McCain today -- he was talking about housing, but concerned more with all the pricey government programs aimed at fixing housing. Historian Larry Sabato says it is a decidedly different tact: Democrats proposing a government solution for people in pain; the presumptive Republican nominee risking no such solution for the vast majority who are not. So, Larry, how does this fall out? I mean, one of the things in that Hillary Clinton press conference a few moments ago was this notion that maybe John McCain was pulling a Herbert Hoover. Will that register?

SABATO: Well, Neil, without insulting the American public, I'd have to say a fair proportion of the public doesn't know who Herbert Hoover was. So I don't think that will necessarily sell. Look, when you analyze parties, you need to think of them this way: The Democratic Party is the mommy party, and the Republican Party is the daddy party. Now, you and I both love both our mothers and fathers, right? But they play different roles in many families. The mother is loving and caring and takes us back in and provides the safety net. The father is the disciplinarian -- tough love. He makes us face up to hard realities, at least in many families. Well, the mommy party is the Democratic Party. The daddy party is the Republican Party. And I think if you look at the economy, you look at the housing, the mortgage crisis, a whole wide range of things, you'll find that the parties fulfill these images.