We are the ones who wind up dealing with health care for our children and elder care for our parents. We are the ones fighting for sexual-harassment safeguards and workplace standards. Those are not issues on which John McCain has been passionate, and gender equity is not something with which he's ever been associated. This is an opportunity for you, not just an obligation.
Don't get comfy because older women are moving your way in new polls. And don't think you can coast on the fact that the Republicans are going to show their true colors by attacking your wife, thereby driving into the Democratic camp every woman enraged by the hands-folded, mouth-shut standard of female behavior. You've insisted you're running not to govern a demographic but to inspire a nation of individuals. Prove it. The real reason you have to reach out to women like us is that it will signal that you really mean to stand for a different America, a nation in which a black man can take up the concerns of white women for the sake of the greatest good.
Sometimes being an older woman at this moment in time can be a bit like one of those dreams in which you're running hard and yet not moving. On the one hand, we've come so far. On the other, there's always that fear of being dragged back to the bad old ways, in which the crust on our casseroles and the size of our breasts were how we were measured.
Most candidates who want the women's vote try to get it without ever really talking honestly about what it's like to be female in America. Instead there are cutesy labels: soccer moms, security moms, minimizing names for political Polly Pockets. Talk instead about equal pay, universal child care, reproductive rights, the women warriors in Iraq, the empty purses of the working class. This is a moment when you and yours will be tempted to run a race just like any other, slicing and dicing the country and then cherry-picking parts. Don't give in to the omnipresent fear of engaging in complexities. A man who can speak eloquently about all the ways in which women carry this country in their arms and all the ways government can help them do so would represent real change. For many American women, Hillary was their surrogate. You have a chance to be their champion. Don't blow it.
© 2008
Don't hold your breath waiting for Obama to be the white middle aged women's advocate! This over the hill self-centered Woodstock generation shows what happens to a society when women are not much better than the men! And don't worry, I'm sure that "sweetie" is the last thing to come into the mind of Obama when he surveys the Hillary set, more like wicked witch of the west!
The Last Word Anna Quindlen Attention Must Be Paid Newsweek June 23, 2008
Anna Quindlen is very funny! And so desperate to tutor Obama in ways to win the election that she openly describes herself as an older woman complete with crow???s feet and grey hair! Now there???s a sacrifice! Could we have a larger picture with the next column?
But no price is too high to pay in order to underscore the importance of her finger-wagging rant. After all, she is speaking for millions of straw women who must fold their arms and keep their collective mouths shut to please millions of powerful, faceless men. Many of these men are younger, which seemingly adds to their crimes of success in Anna???s self-admitted older mind. The RASCALS!
Anna makes a case for the women of America, however. It is they who ???carry America in their arms??? and apparently, they are pretty sick of it! They want some help from the government, and Obama better secure it, or at least promise it, if he wants the vote of Anna???s annoyed army of underpaid malcontents!
They want ???reproductive rights???; gee, I wonder what that means? Is it the freedom to be responsible to raise their own children from conception on? That would take care of their next demand (universal child care), so it must mean something else since they (supposedly) desperately want the government to be monetarily involved in their lives. Anna shrills that women also want equal pay but then describes the purses of the working class in America as ???empty???. Aside from the potential oxymoron aspect of these statements, I see no problem in delivering such equal pay.
Anna implies that ???what it???s like to be female in America??? is an unspoken horror. She can hardly be speaking as a victim. Grey hair, crow???s feet and liberal crotchetiness are not the best qualifications for determining the state of America???s women. Perhaps Obama will at least be wise enough to pull his grandmother from under the bus and get her opinion. She has all of Anna???s supposed physical advantages as well as some recent experiences that should prove helpful in winning Obama???s ear on behalf of repressed women. in America.
KOOL-AID??????..From the kitchen of the obama sheeple!! take one heaping spoonful of an inexperienced elitist white male seeking self validation through exploitation of his african-american genetics. Combine two parts black liberation theology clerics spewing intolerance! With two parts of unrepentant intellectuals committed to the destruction of America. Stir in one cup of militant black wife harboring the overwhelming desire to stick it to whitey and one spoonful of typical white person grandmother mix well. Pour a gallon of anti-patriotism into tall glasses and sprinkle with naïve foreign policy ideations. Serve on a platter of meaningless oratorical hyperbole with a generous dollop of wealth re-distribution. Sprinkle liberally with zest of white guilt flip it and flop it till it tastes right. Serve large portions to the undiscerning and spellbound masses convinced that the Second Coming is upon America and now you have a complete recipe for disaster!
MEDIA Just a year after buying The Wall Street Journal, the press rapscallion has revitalized the fusty paper.
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