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After describing Republican U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina’s accomplishments as a businesswoman, McKeon ended his introduction by saying she hadn’t done too badly “for a girl.”
McKeon apologized this week in an interview with The Signal, saying the remark was meant to be a joke.
“If I offended anybody by it, I apologize,” McKeon said Wednesday night at a Fiorina campaign event on Centre Pointe Parkway.
“I was just trying to be a little light,” he said. “I won’t do it again.”
Two of the more outspoken critics of McKeon’s remark were women who run a blog for local mothers.
“Frankly, that got a groan,” said Andrea Pohlot, who helps run SCVmomsblog.com. “He was joking around and trying to be funny. It’s not that I didn’t get the joke; it didn’t add anything to the conference.”
Pohlot and the site’s co-creator, Jackie MacDougall, posted open letters to McKeon on their site. The letters both commend him for throwing the event and chide him for using the conference to promote his political and religious beliefs.
“There is still a stereotype that women have to try and overcome,” Pohlot said. “He had an opportunity to support women without perpetuating a stereotype.”
Fiorina, the former chairman of Hewlett-Packard, said she got his joke and wasn’t irked by it.
“I wasn’t offended at all,” Fiorina said. “Buck is a friend, I knew what he meant by it.”
Pohlot and MacDougall both said overall the conference was worthwhile. They went to workshops on entrepreneurship hosted by College of the Canyons Chancellor Dr. Dianne Van Hook.
“The conference was great,” Pohlot said. “The breakout speakers were engaging and all in all, it was a great event.”
Sometimes even experienced public speakers make mistakes in front of an audience, McKeon said.
“If you come up with one misspoken word, then fine, that’s life,” McKeon said. “I hope people got something positive out of (the women’s conference).”
