Is The Country Ready?

ROCHESTER - 'Is the country ready for a woman?' 'Is the country ready for a black guy?' I hear these questions all the time. I have news for you: it doesn't matter. I could give a rat's ass if some hill billy in Mississippi is ready or not. He ain't gotta be. The fact remains that because the coasts are ready, the South and Midwest don't have a say. The conservative right surges ahead with a scary agenda opposed by the coasts, but they don't care what we think. They write us off and move ahead. We should return the favor.

Basically, as long as Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Washington DC are ready, we only need to worry about convincing Ohio. All those states voted for Gore and Kerry. Gore won New Mexico and Iowa and Kerry added New Hampshire. If either had won Ohio, we wouldn't be in this mess. Does anyone believe that Clinton or Obama would lose any of these states? I don't. Let's not take them for granted entirely, but let's not waste our time caring if Kentucky is ready for Clinton or Obama. They probably aren't. Let them vote for Skeletor all they want. Again, their opinion doesn't matter.

The Republican coalition of Midwestern and Southern states has delivered back to back victories in the Electoral College, but if the last Republican rust belt state flips, the party is over. Finally, Ohio may have flipped. In 2006 they booted Republicans from their state house left and right. This is a good sign. Scary as it may seem to hand the nation's future over to a bunch of Indians, Bengals, Buckeyes and Zips fans, they are more us than some Hot Pocket worshipping nut job in Alabama. So screw Billy Joe and let's get the Dawg Pound on board. Ohio should matter to Northerners. Ohioans face the same issues we do. Aging infrastructure, loss of jobs, rising crime in the cities, urban decay, and cursed sports teams. Shame on us for not bringing them to our side sooner, but we can not afford to bring them over any later. It should be an easy sell. Is Ohio better now than it was in 2000? I don't think so.

I am tired of hearing 'is the country is ready.' If YOU wonder if the country is ready, I suspect YOU aren't because, thanks to the electoral college, the country doesn't need to be ready. Only 21 or 22 states need to be ready, and they are. Midwesterners and Southerners had their President for 8 years, now it is our turn. But only if we can turn Ohio to our side, where they should have been for years.

Play The Sex Card...Play It!!

ROCHESTER - By now, I am sure many of you have seen the NY Chapter of the National Organization of Women's (NOW-NY) response to Senator Kennedy's endorsement of Senator Obama. If not, here it is (from: http://www.nownys.org/pr_2008/pr_012808.html):

Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, and the Family and Medical Leave Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). “They” are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). "They" are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women's money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future.

This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation- to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who “know what’s best for us.

Wow. To start off, how did we Kucinich lovers get thrown into this mess? Kucinich has not endorsed anyone. And did those other groups have the misogynistic audacity to suggest that someone other than Senator Clinton could be a fine president? If Kennedy had endorsed Clinton, I doubt the NAACP would have stooped to that level. I guess NOW felt that this was the time to play the 'sex card.'

Kennedy has championed the rights of the underprivileged for 45 years in the Senate. He has been the standard bearer for equal rights, health care, and educational access. Those issues cross all lines, gender, race, religious and otherwise. Ultimate betrayal? I hardly think so. Even Clinton said that endorsements don't decide elections, voters do.

By taking this approach, NOW-NY sends a message that women should vote for Clinton simply because she is a woman. That is exactly the kind of identity politics that causes divisions in our society. There are those out there that will not vote for Clinton because she is a woman. That is wrong. There are those that will vote for Clinton only because she is a woman. That is fine. I refuse to believe that Kennedy, or anyone else, should be vilified for endorsing someone. If Kennedy endorsed a white male, you can make the case for status quo-ism. Endorsing a black man, does not fall into that category one bit. Shame on you, NOW-NY, for being sore losers. You have made yourself look foolish, small and petty. You have cheapened your wonderful platform and made yourself look like any other special interest group. Clinton knows Kennedy is not the end all of the Democratic Party. Clinton knows hard work and voters win elections, not endorsements from elected officials. You should be learning from her wisdom and guidance as an outstanding official and politician, and endorsing her agenda. Not merely endorsing her gender.