FAIR PAY.

While Rick Davis and John McCain simply hope women will vote for Sarah Palin, the Democrats are trying to force McCain to actually take a stand on women's issues.

Democrats have hammered Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) this summer over his vote against legislation pushing equal pay for women and men. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act will get a second act in September, as Democrats seek to remind voters that McCain opposed it, according to an e-mail from the Democratic Senate message center. It lists "[e]qual pay legislation" as among the issues the Senate will take up in September.

The Fair Pay Act expands the amount of time available for women to file discrimination claims after our conservative Supreme Court ruled that discrimination is okay as long as you can hide it for 180 days. My understanding is that this bill is the same as the Paycheck Fairness Act passed in the House this summer, which also addressed discrimination but set aside funds for salary negotiation training for woman as well as pushed the EEOC to better "collect and disseminate wage information based on gender," so that it is easier for workers to find out if they've been discriminated against.

Rudy Giuliani hit Obama this week for voting "present" in the Illinois Senate, which was actually a legislative strategy designed to blunt the effectiveness of state Senate Republicans in trapping Democrats in uncomfortable positions on wedge issues. McCain on the other hand, rarely shows up in the Senate to vote. Last time he had a tough decision to make on this bill, he just wasn't there. If voting "present" says something bad about Obama's leadership abilities, what are we to make of McCain not showing up at all?

--A. Serwer