I was trying to figure out how to get the brand-new 18-year-old registered to vote this year, and then she told me she had already done it. Yay! It can be taught! How gratifying to realize you’ve spent your life teaching your kids to take the initiative and then they actually do it!
I am also delighted that in this, her very first presidential election, she will have two distinct choices, each of which represents a historical milestone — either the first black American president or the first female vice-president. And then I reach the point where I am no longer so delighted by those choices. As one good friend expressed it, in terms a heckuva lot more colorful, I’m still sitting on the fence and it’s hurting my backside.##M:[more]##
Was I moved by Barack Obama’s acceptance speech? Though not moved to the sobbing tears produced by Oprah Winfrey and caught on camera, I was fascinated and impressed, and yes, admittedly had a lump in my throat listening to his heartfelt oratory and his soaring vision of the future. The man can speak and has improved over time. It is a testament to the American dream that the biracial son of a single mother has come this close to the highest office in the land by virtue of his courage, his smarts, and his hard work. His idealism is refreshing. The historical parallels and references to heroes like John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. remind us of Obama’s place in the context of modern politics and the exciting possibilities that the winds of change would bring.
But I am also frightened by his relative lack of experience in Washington and though intrigued by his proposals for healthcare and economic and social reform, I am even more frightened when I ask who is going to pay for all of it. The inevitable conclusion is that it will be me and everyone else already squeezed hard by taxes. They say death and taxes are inevitable. So would death by taxes should the Democrats take office.
This explains why I flip-flopped to the other side just a couple of weeks ago, declaring that I would be voting with my pocketbook and going Republican. And then something happened that had me scurrying back to the other side. Senator John McCain announced his vice-presidential running mate and I ran back to the relative safety of the party that might tax me to death, but would not give a woman vice-president who is the antithesis of who I am.
Before I proceed, I should explain that I usually stay away from politics because I don’t want to offend anyone, especially friends and neighbors who feel differently. But personal opinion is what a column is all about, and differences of opinion and graceful acceptances of those differences represent what this great nation is all about. If there were no room for disagreement, we would live in a dictatorship. Vive la difference and long live democracy!
My first problem was in how Palin was presented as an alternative for women who were disappointed that Hillary Clinton was not on the Democratic ticket. Oh come on! As I told my husband that night, the only things the two women have in common are their reproductive organs.
For McCain to think that American women would simply trade one woman for another was preposterous. For starters, Clinton is pro-choice and Palin is pro-life. It is a supreme irony that for many Americans, race, in this election, has become a big yawn. Truth be told, the fact that Obama is black is not shaping up to be as big a deal as the fact that Palin and McCain could roll back Roe vs. Wade, especially with three Supreme Court nominations soon to be on the table. It is, in a way, a tribute to the long, long road that the American civil rights movement has traveled. The violence that used to be targeted at black churches was translated for a period to violence against abortion clinics. Choice is the more emotional issue. Palin also supports the NRA, the National Rifle Association, though I guess that might be fairly commonplace in a state that has more caribou than people.
I agree that Palin’s personal life should be off limits, but as one of my favorite pundits put it, as a citizen, I think I have a right to ask which would come first with her, her country or her family. My husband thought I was sexist to think that way because would you ask the same question of a man running for office? My answer: as a mother myself, I would have to ask myself the very same question, and as patriotic as I am, given the choice between country and family, if I were brutally honest, I would choose family.
So it is a legitimate question and will remain so for as long as women will continue to conceive, carry, give birth, and do the heavy lifting in terms of raising children.
