Krystal Ball Tells Megyn Kelly ‘There’s A Double Standard’
This afternoon, Virginia Congressional candidate Krystal Ball appeared on Fox News to discuss the photo scandal that has plagued her campaign with Megyn Kelly. In it, Kelly discussed the response Ball issued yesterday, calling out her critics attacks as “sexist and wrong.”
Kelly addressed the photos as “horsing around,” saying that Ball was “basically behaving like your typical college moron, who didn’t expect to run for Congress.” She later notes that “So often we forget that candidates for Congress have feelings… you say ‘they wanted to make me feel like a whore.'”
Ball responds that “It was tremendously hurtful… but the tactic of painting successful women as whores — and I can’t believe I’m using this word on your program — that’s nothing new. Ask Sarah Palin, ask Meg Whitman, ask Nikki Haley and Christine O’Donnell. Lots of women face this same thing. So I decided, although I wanted to just sort of hide in a corner and cry, that I couldn’t let these tactics succeed.
Kelly also discussed whether there is a double standard in how female candidates are treated: “Do you think there is a double standard? That if it had been a guy doing this, let’s say it was the ex-husband that’s running for Congress, do you think he would have been given a pass? Because I don’t know, maybe people would say he looks like a moron in college too, I don’t want him either!”
Ball responded: “I think that we should look at the example of Scott Brown. He had pictures from the same age as those pictures of me, only he was completely naked, in the centerfold of a national magazine, and it was not even a bump in his campaign; in fact he has even said that it helped him a little bit in his campaign. And I’m not holding anything against Senator Scott Brown… that’s as it should be, in my view, because those kinds of things to me are not relevant to the campaign trail. And I do think there’s a double standard.
Kelly ended the interview on a sympathetic note, adding “I’m sure you’re an inspiration for a lot of young girls in terms of your ambition and your willingness to come out and try to run for office at 28 years of age!”
Full video below:
