If Libby is really representative of undecided voters, her screed against Teresa Heinz Kerry gives me serious pause. Not just for the state of the election, but for the status of women in 2004. "Some of us may think that it is better for women to stay 'on topic' or to remain seen and not heard," she writes.
I had to check my calendar-- first to make sure what decade we were in, then because I had thought most people who feel that way got behind Bush a long time ago. I for one would prefer that more women spoke up, acted out, and generally shook things up. I guess I'm glad it was Libby who made the comment, because had a guy said it I would have been really angry.
We need more female voices among the political media, more women running for office, and fewer women on the political sidelines until 2 months before the elections. Interestingly, single women prefer Kerry to Bush as something like 70%-- I guess these women have been able to stomach the thought of an indepedent woman with brains and money speaking her mind. My girlfriends who live in Capitol Hill condos and Wallingford apartments certainly don't think Laura Bush speaks for them... when she is allowed to speak at all.
I can, to be fair, see how some people might not like Teresa Heinz Kerry. There's no accounting for taste (which explains why some people think of the Bush twins as classy.) But there is a gigantic leap from that, to deciding one's presidential vote on that basis. And and even bigger leap to declare by fiat, as Will recently did, that one should choose the candidate whose wife is more like your mom. Was that a joke?
I don't mean to be rude or mean about it... but this whole line of discussion strikes me as the kind of noodleheadedness encouraged by the news media's prolonged prattle about who is going to get voted off the island next. This isn't "Survivor," friends. We are electing the next leader of the free world--liking his wife is purely extra credit. Even someone as strong as Hillary has pretty limited impact on actual policy--and if you doubt that just think about the bad joke that is our current health care "system."
Until we get around to actually nominating a woman for president, the First-Ladies-in-Waiting will be merely a sideshow. From the Bush crowd, the effort to make them center stage is just another shell game to distract us from the issues that matter--issues about which cold reality should give any voter pause about staying the course.
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