On gender politics

Yeah, I'm tired of the political rhetoric from this campaign, too. But I read an article about the election gender gap in the NYTimes today, and it struck a chord.

“What was really frustrating is that there was this myth manufactured by Democrats in Washington that the Republican Party as a whole is against women,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who said she watched with disappointment as her friend Senator Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts was tarred by the broader fight and lost his bid for re-election, to a woman. “There is no doubt we need to do a better job as a party in reaching out to women, recruiting strong women candidates and sending a more positive message,” Ms. Collins said.

When you put a goal in the party platform that would not only ban abortion, but also some forms of contraceptives, then I think it's fair to assume that is one of the party's objectives. When Republicans fight as hard as they did to allow companies to opt out of providing contraception coverage in their health plans, then yeah, I look at that as being against women. I'm not sure Democrats manufactured a myth, here.

“It has never made sense that my party, the party of individual freedom and personal responsibility, thinks the government should be involved in issues” like abortion, Ms. Collins said. “We are the party that trusts individuals to make their own decisions. That is one of the defining issues of the differences between Republicans and Democrats. So this is just bewildering to me.”

This is something I have always wondered about. I DON'T agree with the statement that a defining  issue between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans "trust individuals to make their own decisions".  But they do talk a lot about individual freedoms, especially in regards to guns. When the issues have to do with sex (abortion, contraception, homosexuality), all of a sudden individual freedom and personal responsibility are not part of the Republican conversation.

I feel like this was a pretty rough campaign. Attack ads were more ubiquitous than ever. In the past, I think Republicans were successful in their smear campaigns (e.g. swift-boating), and Democrats were not very good at hitting back (kinda like the first presidential debate, what little I could stand to watch). While I would prefer to think candidates should campaign on their own issues and goals, without resorting to such relentless attacks, that leaves you open to the situation from the movie American President, where "they're the only ones doing the talking". In this campaign, I thought the Democrats did a good job of capitalizing on the mistakes, lies, and mean-spirited positions that many of the Republicans took. Yes, there were some failures, but overall, I think this election was a success for liberal's and women's issues, and that Republicans made their own beds when it came to alienating women voters.

And by the way, I think it should be a rule that when a health plan doesn't cover contraceptives, it can't cover Viagra either.

A higher standard

I was just browsing articles on Huffington Post when I found this one from Mark Nickolas. He took the answers Obama gave at his first press conference, and used Word's readability tool to compare them to the answers W gave at his first press conference. The results? W's answers were at a 7th grade reading level, and Obama's were at a 10th grade level.

Now, I'm not familiar with Word's "readability", but I'm not at all surprised at those statistics. Bush did a lot of things I didn't like, but what I found unforgiveable was his disdain for intellectualism. Even if I don't agree with them, I can respect someone who seeks the advice of experts, especially if that person listens to experts on both sides of a question. Someone who just listens to his cronies does not deserve any position of authority, much less the Presidency.

The power of blogging

I came home from work yesterday to find an email from the BBC. They'd seen my blog and wanted to know if they could talk to me on their World Have Your Say "conversation show" (I guess that's "talk radio" in Brit-speak). The email had arrived at 8:30, and the show was on at noon my time, so of course I missed it. But wow! How else would I have even been contacted if I didn't blog?

Anyway, the topic was "whether the fact that Obama won the US election means we live in a more equal world", according to the email. On the website they unfortunately changed it to the more succinct, but rather silly, "Has Obama created a more equal world?”.

My response: The election indicates that we have at least moved beyond the Bradley effect, where a highly qualified candidate found that people "just couldn't bring themselves to vote for a black man". We did see that a majority of American voters could bring themselves to cast a vote for Obama despite his darker skin. But note that the election was still cast in terms of race. And as the soldier in Doonesbury said "he's half white, you know". And he was raised in a white family. In Hawaii, which does not seem to me as if it would be a center of Black culture (but I may be wrong on this - unfortunately not that familiar with "real" Hawaii.) Given the mess we are in after 8 years of Bush, with the opposition a 72-year-old cancer patient who makes reckless choices such as... no, I'm not even going to go there again. Anyway, I would have expected the popular-vote to be the landslide the electoral vote was, instead of less than 7%.

So yeah, we're further along than we were in 1970 in terms of race. And having an African-American family in the White House is GREAT! But I think we can all agree that Obama is an EXCEPTIONAL man. And in 1960 the big news was that another EXCEPTIONAL man had been elected despite the fact that he was a Catholic. Have there been any Catholic presidents since Kennedy? We have never elected a President who was not Christian. Or who was female. Or Asian. Or homosexual (at least as far as we know). And in day-to-day life, women get paid less, more blacks go to jail, most homosexuals cannot get married. There are plenty of inequalities to go around.

All that being said, I am "cautiously optimistic". I do think we are moving in the right direction in terms of tolerance, at least, for a variety of differences.

Enough being serious. I hope the Obama girls enjoy their puppy. I hear it will be a shelter dog, which is really cool. I saw a post where someone suggested they should get an Alaskan Malamute bitch. That made me laugh.

And this morning I was walking in the snow. Not sticking to the roads, and will soon change to rain, I'm sure, but for now - it's snowing. Bravo went racing around like a nut-case more often than usual as a result.

Have a great day, everyone!

Clinton and McCain

So much of my mail these days consists of campaign flyers. I usually flip through on the way from the mailbox to the house, and immediately toss them all in the recycling bin. Today, though, it was dark by the time I got home (grumble, grouse), so I had to bring them inside. And one caught my eye.

It was a tribute to Hillary Clinton, with a picture of her and John McCain on the front, and a statement about how she had cracked the glass ceiling. Inside, the photo was of McCain and Palin, with text linking her views to McCain's and promising that HE would make sure "Hillary's efforts are not forgotten". And on the back, a quote from Joe Biden, saying that Hillary "might have been a better pick than me" for VP.

So let me get this straight: I am supposed to think that McCain is more like Clinton than he is like, say Bush, right? And that since he picked a woman as his running mate while Obama passed over Clinton, he cares more for women's issues? So obviously, if I supported Clinton, then the logical person to vote for is McCain.

Yeah, right. We all know that the main reason he picked Palin was because he thought it would get the Clinton vote. Palin, with her right-wing, conservative Christian, pro-gun, anti-choice views, her pride in "being a maverick" and her inexperience in any political arena with a population larger than 700,000, is not anywhere close to Clinton by any measure. Being female is about all they have in common, and I am insulted that McCain and the Republicans believe I should consider that sufficient.

We interrupt this blog for a political message

Yes, I voted in the primary yesterday. I can't say that I am truly excited about Al Franken, and I'm not exactly sure why not. So I guess I need to learn more about his stance on issues.

In the meantime, however, I have to plug my district's terrific candidate for the House, Ashwin Madia. Yes, he's a lawyer, a Marine, and a former Republican. BUT he saw the light on the party issue, and while in the military, he successfully defended a homosexual man against discrimination. He has served in Iraq. He's a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. He's pro-choice and supports full GLBT rights including marriage. His top issues:

• End the Iraq war responsibly
• Create and implement solutions to global warming
• Balance the budget
• Expand access to health care
• Renew federal commitment to education
• Safeguard our fundamental freedoms

That might not be the order I'd put them in, but I can't argue with those goals. I'm looking forward to voting for him in November, and I'm really hoping we can move this district back to the Blue side.

You may not be able to vote for him in the general election, but you can vote for him now:

J-Street PAC is having an online contest. People can visit a website and vote for their favorite house challenger. The candidate who receives the most votes will receive a check for FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS. Please click this link and vote for Ash. Then send the link to some of your friends and ask them to vote for Ash.