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Well, I'm getting ready to go vote (have to do an absentee ballot because I'll be in a Red Cross training session all day Saturday, the primary day). Being here this week has been interesting. Yesterday I got a computerized phone call from some jerk in Texas with a long list of scurrilous "facts" about Hilary--none related to her ability to be President, all more suited to some unwatchable soap opera. Does anybody believe those things? Well, yes--that's how Bush defeated McCain here in 2000.
On the other hand, this NYT Op-Ed piece is quite close to my feeling about a real problem in her campaign.
It's a hard decision. It's quite true that the policy differences between HRC and Obama aren't big enough to influence me, so the question is really who can win, and if he/she wins, who can lead?
And beyond that, I really think, what's the narrative you identify with? A lot of my friends are really into the Hilary storyline, not just the one about second chances and redemption that Collins mentions in that piece, but I think also into the Woman's Turn At Last trope. But in my life, my mother was the person in our family who made it in the outside world, got jobs only men had had previously, and blazed a trail I've only followed, not so well. So, while I truly believe in the need for more opportunity and power for women in a rational way, I'm not so captivated by that tale. For me, child of civil rights marches and the days of MLK, the compelling story is the wearing down of racist policies, and so finally the idea of a black president is the one that touches me.
I don't mean this to be a political argument, just an observation about how we (or I, for one) see the political drama today.
And interesting that the two traditional white guys, both with some ideas I really like, seem to be out of the story altogether.
On the other hand, this NYT Op-Ed piece is quite close to my feeling about a real problem in her campaign.
It's a hard decision. It's quite true that the policy differences between HRC and Obama aren't big enough to influence me, so the question is really who can win, and if he/she wins, who can lead?
And beyond that, I really think, what's the narrative you identify with? A lot of my friends are really into the Hilary storyline, not just the one about second chances and redemption that Collins mentions in that piece, but I think also into the Woman's Turn At Last trope. But in my life, my mother was the person in our family who made it in the outside world, got jobs only men had had previously, and blazed a trail I've only followed, not so well. So, while I truly believe in the need for more opportunity and power for women in a rational way, I'm not so captivated by that tale. For me, child of civil rights marches and the days of MLK, the compelling story is the wearing down of racist policies, and so finally the idea of a black president is the one that touches me.
I don't mean this to be a political argument, just an observation about how we (or I, for one) see the political drama today.
And interesting that the two traditional white guys, both with some ideas I really like, seem to be out of the story altogether.