If there is anyone who reads this blog and fails to realize that I am a political junkie, you should probably smack yourself in the head with a 2'x 4' because your brain needs a good kickstart!  I have been watching the post-election analysis, and, so far it seems to me that both parties are majoring in Missing the Point 101.


The Sunday talk shows were full of discussions about the death of the "white male party," either pronouncing this election as it, or sternly warning that it will arrive in 2016.  The emphasis here was on the "white."  I would argue that equal emphasis should have been placed on the "male."  Almost the only place I heard THAT discussion was on Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry's TV show.  One FOX News female talking head actually pointed out that Obama had women by 2 more percentage points in 2008 than this year.  Excuse Blondie, but since that is based on exit polls, your 2 points are probably well within sampling variation and therefore your "insight" is worth exactly nothing.  The other point I would make about your silly statistic is that women are mothers of soldiers, husbands of soldiers, daughters of soldiers, sisters of soldiers, and in 2008 there were no doubt some of these who had had enough of the wars George Bush started, and despite having been lifelong Republicans, thought Obama was more likely to bring the soldiers home.  Of course, since Romney talked big about Iran, and seemed likely to start another war, I'm not really sure why they would have reverted to voting Republican, unless the economic situation really had scared them.  So I think I'll stick with the margin of error as the most likely explanation.


I do not vote Republican for several reasons.  Until they got married:  "one party, one religion" to the Catholic Church I voted for a few Republicans here and there.  Local races, mostly, or state races.  Once that happened, I ceased voting for any of them.  If they didn't represent that medieval institution's viewpoint themselves, they lacked the backbone to make it sit down and shut up.  


Of course, I have never voted for a Republican in the Presidential slot for one simple reason.  I realized long long ago that the republican party did not , for the most part, work toward any policies that improved my life.  Beginning with Ronald Reagan,  the Republican policies felt like an assault on the life I held dear as innately, uniquely AMERICAN.  I saw the closing of opportunities in Reagan's closing of libraries, in the changes to the student loan system which resulted in thousands of college students coming out of college with debts their first jobs did not pay enough to cover and not even bankruptcy could address the frustration of trying to eat and have shelter and repay a loan.  Since then, I have seen increasing assaults on upward mobility, civil rights, and frankly the nature of what our Founding Fathers intended.  All the while, the Republican party grew increasingly skilled at blowing wind up the pants and skirts of their voters, litereally terrorizing them in many cases.  I have said for years that if the Republicans accuse the Democrats of something, it is to deflect attention from the fact that they were doing it.  Nowhere was this made more clear in post-election analysis than in the many ludicrous explanations for their loss.  My favorite was that the Democrats suppressed the vote, when, in fact, it was Republican governors,  election officials, and operatives who were purging legitimate voters,  shortening early voting hours, dumping Democratic voter registrations, and the like.  QUICK!  Name one Democratic person who was accused of or caught doing such a thing!  


The other thing about the Republican Party is that they are good at "widow dressing" and "tokenism." Both these policies make me sick.  Republican women candidates are such Stepford Wives.  They ran out the only two women in their party that I might have ever considered voting for in a Presidential/Vice Presidential contest:  Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.  


Like most people, I confess that my party tendencies were inherited from my parents.  Of course, my father, who died in 1963 just after my 10th birthday was a Republican while my mother and her parents were Democrats.  In 2008 my political science B.A. brother, my mother and I had the discussion of whether my father would still have been a Republican today had he lived.  My mother was pretty sure he would have parted ways with the Republicans once they adopted their Southern strategy, because above all, my father hated racism.  He would, she said, have found the increasing "lockstep"attitude of the party faithful an abomination, since another thing he hated was totalitarianism.  Mother's uncle was best friends with Sam Rayburn, the long-time Speaker of the House.  They had served together in the Texas Legislature around the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries.  However, I have my complaints with the Democratic Party as well.


Here's where the emphasis on the "male"comes in.  I did not vote for Obama in 2008, because the sexism coming from the Democratic Party, in my opinion, was as disgusting, perhaps more so because I didn't expect it, as the sexism of the Republican Party.  There were a number of reasons I was never sold on Obama.  First and foremost was he answer during a televised interview to the question "Would you support your opponent if you don't win the nomination?"  To me, since the nominee is the party leader, there is only ONE correct answer to that question, an unhesitating, enthusiastic "absolutely, I am committed to my party's victory."  Obama's response was something along the lines of "I don't know if my voters would support her."  To me this said two things:  first his voters largely were not party loyalists, which raised the question in my mind of OK who the hell are they?  Second, he was not answering the question of what he himself would do, which stongly implied he would not.  Not my idea of a party leader.  After he secured his nomination, I was told I owed my vote to him.  My response was that he indicated he couldn't deliver his voters to Hillary if she had won, so why should her voters be expected to vote for him?  Now the secret to jy little rebellion was this:  I live in Texas, which I knew would be red in 2008 and I knew it would be red this year.  So, frankly, whatever I did or did not do in the voting booth, my vote wouldn't really count since all Texas's electoral votes go the winner of the state, and it wasn't going to be a Democrat.  So I wrote in Barbara Jordan for President and Ann Richards for VP, two dead Democratic women I had had the pleasure to know. 


This year I voted for Obama, despite the fact I knew the state would go red, and despite the fact that I still don't feel warm and fuzzy toward him, because I wanted the election in Texas to be as close as possible to make the Republican Party do some serious introspection.  I also voted for him to make them realize their comments on women and rape and women's reproductive health are disgusting.  I believe a woman's right to control her reproductive life is the basis of her freedom to fulfill herself  emotionally, psychologically, professioally, economically and socially.  Fine with me if she wants to have twenty babies, one a year for twenty-plus years.  If beig a wife and mother fulfills her and she can provide for those children financially and emotionally so they grow up healthy, great!  I have no quarrel with mothers and wives.  I'd be one myself if I hadn't miscarried.  Instead, I'm a wife not a mother.


So I was amused when I heard Republican pundits talking about Marco Rubio and capturing the fast growing Hispanic population vote in 2016.  Psst, guys, most of our Hispanics are of Mexican and Central American origin.. As far as I have een told, read, or heard, they aren't wild about Cubans.  Of course, that makes it inexpilcable to me that in Texas they voted for Obama AND for Cuban American Cruz for Senator!  I heard several Republicans say öf course they voted for a Hispanic name over a white guy!" Maybe.  Or maybe another cause was in play.  After all, in 2008, teh Republicans thought Hillary voters would be won over by shallow, provincial Sarah Palin, too!


I was amused because, just as 2008 was the Blacks "turn" to elect one of their own, instead of the 51% of the electorate that is female's "turn,"  now apparently it is the Hispanics' "turn" and still not the women's "turn" to elect one of their own.


The Democratic pundits were no better.  Sorry, Joe Biden, you may not have voted for yourself a final time this year, but  I'm here to tell you no male, white, black, brown, Asian, or purple will receive my support in 2016.  I say women decided this election, and women will decide 2016.  I want a female candidate, perhaps several to choose from.  My dream, of course, is that Hillary comes back, bringing her long experience and world popularity with her.  I will understand if she says "no." I thind she has the best shot, however,


I am an old white woman with a disease that will take me to other pastures soon enough.  I would LIKE to vote for a woman for REAL before I die and see her sworn in.  I cried for Obama's inauguration.  I want to cry in joy again.



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