gearing up to defect...to McCain
Thu Feb 07, 2008 at 04:37:13 AM PDT
Yesterday Barrack Obama stated that while all Clinton voters would certainly vote for him, many of his voters would not vote for Clinton.
oh. really.
Well, this isn't a threat, or spite or sour grapes or whatever halfcan plot ya'll will project onto my old wrinkled head -- I'm considering McCain and this once well behaved yellow dog just might be taking a big fat chunk of the electorate with me, one I think ya'll are going to miss down the road, even though we are invisible. that's the new thing now, isn't it? busting down those partisan walls and building new coalitions? Well, I'm getting itchy feet to help build one and if you read on I'll explain why.
A little background -- I've never voted for a Republican in my voting life since 1972 when my dad kicked me out of the house over my McGovern bumper sticker. But I'm not just a stuanch Democratic voter, I'm a union organizer, a rabid partisan and I've been active in every campaign I ever voted in. I flew my flag upside down for twelve years through the Reagan and first Bush adminstrations. In 2004, I didn't eat for three days after election day and for three years now I've been slathering at the end of my chain for this election cycle.
And in all sincerity, let me put my only motive here up front -- I don't want to change any minds in the choice between Clinton and Obama. If you can't read, don't write. I'm old and wise enough to know I couldn't persuade anyone here to switch horses. And the truth is, I do think Clinton will be damn near impossible to elect for reasons that have little to do with the president she would be.
In all sincerity I'm appealling to Obama and his supporters here to wake the hell up, before it's too late, and not take me or the millions like me for granted. I'm doing close to the last thing I know how to get you to see what you're doing.
Last night my son asked me why I thought college educated folks were breaking hard for Obama. I didn't have a theory but my ass had one -- that college degrees are concentrated more in his younger demographic and much less prevalent in her demographic of women over 50. (I said it was my ass's theory, not a good one.)
Which sent me off explaining how Mr. Obama may be in for one huge surprise if he thinks he's incapable of generating a backlash and screwing this whole pooch.
You know the trigger point with me and I suspect boatloads of women like me? Experience. As in, we have it, but it's all slashed up and mixed in with having kids and supporting a husband's career and being shoved into crap jobs and discounted for not being real. There's a tremendous number of us who have been passed over for promotions and forced to pass up opportunities because we were women, because we came to the game too late, because we couldn't pick up stakes and follow our star because our kids and parents needed us where we were.
But many of us are SMART, dammit, we are EXPERIENCED and we are QUALIFIED -- but then as soon as some great opportunity is right in front of us, that we have finally earned the chops to take on -- uh oh, we're too old, it's time for energy and change, we need some fresh ideas now, sorry.
And if you want to see a middle aged woman jump like a pithed frog, tell her experience, especially a middle aged woman's set of unconventional experiences that she fought like a dog to pull together doesn't count and doesn't matter as much as youth and energy.
I'm sorry, but Obama really needs to stop reading his own campaign lit and dial down the hubris. Every time he or one of the Hillary Haters that make up a small but loud and significant slice of his supporters takes a swipe at Hillary they are taking a big fat painful swipe at me and the millions of women like me. And screw the youth vote, the black vote, the Latino vote, the gay vote and every other chip shot fragment of the electorate -- no one is winning this thing with women over 40 voting against them. Not even Obama.
Can Hillary win? Maybe not. Will Obama voters switch to her? Not unless he sets that example early and then still there would be critical fall off. Is she electable? It's doubtful. Can Obama win without her base? No.
I've lost count of the number of times I've been hurt and insulted by the rhetoric coming out of the Obama campaign, aimed at Hillary that ricochets and hits me. Experience doesn't matter. Unconventional experience is not real experience. If your husband is a dumbass so are you. You've f$cked things up so bad only young people can fix them. You're stupid because you watch the Hallmark Channel. You don't understand the real issues. Your marraige says more about you than your own accomplishments. If you cry you must be weak. If you cry you must be unstable. If you cry you must be putting it on to get attention. If you show emotion you can't be trusted. Your ambition is unattractive. Your ambition is suspect. You've worked hard and accomplished things, but those accomplishments are now irrelevant. All tough women are ball-busters.
For the first time in my long life I could just end up voting Republican. Hell, I could end up campaigning Republican in my spare time. Not out of sour grapes or spite, but because the candidate of my old party has rejected me, taken me for granted, refused to recognize my struggles and smacked me upside the head one too many times.
And let's look at McCain for a minute. He and I are okay on a few things, off on a few things and so far only part company on two issues at the top of my list -- the war and healthcare. But with a kid over there, which is the lesser of two evils -- the guy who'll commit resources until it's finished in his mind or the guy who so far hasn't convinced me he knows how to get my kid out safely. hmmm.
Onto healthcare. The guy who thinks private competition will solve the problem or the guy who given the wide open opportunity won't commit to making it universal. Again, I'm perplexed. And besides, with a Democratic Congress, won't we get healthcare anyway?
At the end of the day, am I better off with the guy who tries to appeal to me, who seems to need my vote? or the guy who takes my vote for granted. hmmmm. At least the old guy won't consider me irrelevant.
truth is? If I try to vote Republican my hand will probably fall off. But I can't speak for other women equally insulted but perhaps less rabidly partisan. Myself, I could see me sitting the whole thing out which would be a considerable loss to Obama and the Party.
but the longer the Hillary bashing goes on, the more women (and men) it alienates. As impossible as it might seem, millions of us respect, trust and admire her enough to go out in the snow and vote for her. Please think about that hard and long.
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wooooo! what a fun ride that was.
I'm editting this in to the original diary at about comment 400 or so. I tried embedding the following in the comment stream, but it keeps getting lost.
Anyway, thanks to all the commentors out there who more than proved two of my underlying points --
- McCain would be a horror
- not too many of you seem to have read "How to Make Friends and Influence People"
now some sobering thoughts:
Millions of women over 40 out there would take three buses in the snow to vote for Hillary Clinton. Why? Because they admire and respect her for all the work she's done for women like them and their children before during and after the Clinton Whitehouse. They also understand too well the resistance she must have faced along the way.
These millions of women, many millions of whom don't necessarily vote Democrat when they are angry, may very well be getting very angry.
Hillary may be unelectable, but so is anyone who the millions of women over 40 vote against.
It's quite likely these women will be grossly offended by vicious attacks on Hillary Clinton, especially with Limbaugh talking point that are ten years old at least. This may well hurt their feelings, and most voters vote on feelings, however immature that may be.
I assume many of the posters here are visible supporters of their candidate in their communities as activist or even just as known supporters. Please remember, when you speak about your candidate, in essence you are speaking for them to most ears. Whether you like it or not, you are the voices of the campaign.
Thanks again for the ride, it was awesome!
Editted to add, thanks to one late commentor for giving me the name of the new coalition I'm thinking about building --
"Reality-Denying Specks of Irritation" -- the RDSIC -- I like it!
