A week ago, Craig Thompson of the East Bay Express wrote the article Tauscher's a Tough Target. In this article he examined the opposition to Ellen Tauscher, especially in the blogosphere. Thompson's main focus seems to be telling us that Tauscher's a good fit for California's 10th Congressional District and we should stop wasting our time.
He begins by trying to discredit Working For Us PAC as disorganized and unprofessional. After this, Thompson claims that opposition is weak inside CA-10. It was this section that caught my eye. He says
Yet the Netroots are hardly deep in Tauscher's district. Moulitsas cites the California political Web site Calitics as his guide for the local pulse, but its contributors could find only a few local politicos who don't care for Tauscher — one of them a high school student. The most prominent resident they found was Gabriel Baty, vice chair of the El Cerrito Democratic Club and a member of the Contra Costa County Democratic central committee.
This section stood out to me because I am that high school student.
In one way I am flattered, in my mind being insulted in a newspaper means you've reached the big time. That said, I'm also upset by his comment. The idea that my opinion is less valuable because of my age and that the prominence of a high school student's blog lessens the value of the issue is down right insulting.
What Thompson did not include was that I am a voting high school student. Being in high school hasn't prevented me from participating in McNerney's campaign, serving as Youth Outreach Coordinator for the Lamorinda Democratic Club, or deterred me in my current ventures to start the Contra Costa County Young Democrats. Maybe he couldn't find this information. After all, I hid it all very carefully as the first two sentences of the second paragraph in the blog he is so dismissive of.
Overall, however, the flattery and insult were drowned out by my amusement at the irony of my role in this article. It is the belief promoted in Thompson’s article-that some are less worthy to have an opinion-that was the focus of my blog about Tauscher in the first place. My entire blog targeted her for promoting the idea that politics is for politicians and that the citizens of this country should just smile, nod, and fund her campaign. It is not very often that you are deemed not worthy of having an opinion about being told you're not worthy of having an opinion.
Bobby Kennedy once said, "All great questions must be raised by great voices, and the greatest voice is the voice of the people - speaking out - in prose, or painting or poetry or music; speaking out - in homes and halls, streets and farms, courts and cafes - let that voice speak and the stillness you hear will be the gratitude of mankind." Well, Mr. Thompson and Congresswoman Tauscher, we are speaking.