The Barack Obama campaign website highlights the candidate’s agenda for people with disabilities. It includes a short video in which he calls for building “a world free of unnecessary barriers, stereotypes, and discrimination,” and endorses screening, early intervention, research and education services for people with autism. A comprehensive document called the “Plan to Empower People with Disabilities” is included. It calls for:

• Providing educational opportunities for people with disabilities (which includes such points as fully funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA); early intervention for children with disabilities; and improving college opportuities for high school graduates with disabilities)
• Ending discrimination and promoting equal opportunities for people with disabilities
• Increasing the employment rate of people with disabilities
• Supporting independent, community-based living for Americans with disabilities

Accompanying the plan is an endorsement from four former Clinton administration officials who call Obama “the disability community’s best choice for change.”

The signers are: Seth Harris, former counselor to the U.S. secretary of labor; Paul Steven Miller, former EEOC commissioner and former White House liaison to the disability community; Sue Swenson, former commissioner, administration on developmental disabilities, HHS; and Robert R. Williams, former deputy assistant secretary, HHS.

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Hillary Clinton’s website advocates full funding for IDEA and carries “An agenda to expand economic opportunity for individuals with disabilities.” In it, the candidate pledges to:

• Promote innovative employment strategies for people with disabilities;
• Hire 100,000 qualified workers with disabilities into the federal government;
• Enact a $1,000 refundable worker with disabilities tax credit; and
• Reduce disincentives to work in federal benefits program.

The site also carries “Hillary Clinton’s plan to help children and families affected by autism,” pledging $700 million a year to fund such things as research, teacher training and better health care. Not mentioned are the growing numbers of adults who have autism.

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Mitt Romney’s wife Ann has multiple sclerosis, a fact that hasn’t found its way into many news stories. Here’s one from Kathryn Jean Lopez in the National Review, and another from the New York Times. An excerpt:

The lowest moment of Mrs. Romney’s life was also the key to her political transformation. In 1998, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the neurological disorder that follows no certain course but can incapacitate many sufferers.

… “There have been so many people that have come up and embraced me as an example of what it’s like to face something tough and just get up the next day and keep pushing,” Mrs. Romney said.

Though she used steroids to combat her initial attack, today Mrs. Romney takes no medicine for her disease, instead relying on alternative therapies such as horseback riding — she calls it “joy therapy”— to keep herself well. But doctors say that only medication, which patients often resist because of unpleasant side effects, slows the long-term progress of the disease.

In an interview, Mrs. Romney talked about her decision to forgo medication haltingly, even asking that this article not address it. “I would recommend no one to do what I did because it was such a leap of faith,” she said. She called the medicines effective, but added: “A lot of people get really sick from the drugs and they feel like they’re not helping them anyway. That was kind of my case.”

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No mention of disabilities that we could find on John McCain’s site.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 7:06 pm and is filed under IDEA, autism, civil rights, education, employment/jobs, independent living, multiple sclerosis, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post