"Republicratic" A Female Perspective

“Among pro-choice independent women, pro-choice Republican women, and liberal to moderate Republican women, the issue of abortion produces a larger advantage for Democrats than the economy, the war in Iraq, or health care," *Greenberg Quinlan Rosner/NARAL poll report.

BINGO! I am a fiscal conservative, or what I call a “Republicrat”, or "Coastal Republican" but I am a social liberal and now I will explain why I quoted the above statement and why I vote the way that I do.

I am grateful for shows like John & Ken and Bill O’Riley, I only wish that there was a female perspective on their philosophy. Heck, I wish I WAS the female perspective on that philosophy. They are conservatives, but not Kool-Aid drinkers and that makes their show fair and intelligent even when I disagree. Nothing over the past few days has been more laughable and disingenuous than listening to “Kool-aid conservatives” trying to justify the Sarah Palin selection with the “Well, Barack Obama...” opening statement, then proceeding to cite her executive experience of a tiny isolated state as enough experience for her to be president if something should happen to McCain.

So, here is the female perspective. I work very hard for a living and I have most definitely paid more in taxes that I have benefited from re-distribution of wealth. AND with the exception of one seriously mentally ill family member, that applies to most everyone I know. I earned six figures for years before I voluntarily cut back to focus on parenting so you have to have a whole new perspective to understand why I would vote for a liberal candidate. Why? Because I can ALWAYS make more money. What I can’t do, is give my daughter the right to chose if she has an unplanned pregnancy, or God forbid she is the victim rape.

Supreme court justices are appointed for life and they have the ability to take away choices that affect the amount of money I am free to make because make no mistake, a woman’s reproduction has a powerful impact on her income over her life. I can always make more money, but I cannot leave my daughter a world where she cannot marry and make a family with the person she chooses, man or woman. Those of you who have sons and think this doesn’t really apply to you are wrong because it is your sons income will be re-distributed to care for the unwanted children who are born and DON’T fool yourself into thinking that making pro-life laws will reduce pregnancies. Teen hormones have a lock on that and they always have. Being forced to continue an unplanned pregnancy is a much greater threat to both MY wealth and my daughter’s lifetime wealth than any tax.

Oddly enough, I frequently listen to Dr. Laura and appreciate her stance on protecting children even if I don’t always agree on how to best accomplish that. What I have learned, not from her, but my own experience is that many of the male/female roles are more hard wired than we, as a society, would like to admit and the bottom line is there are things that a mother does better for a child in most cases than a father. This, coming from me, a mother who was biologically unable to breast feed, was a startling discovery. That being said, I don’t think it has to be the only option and if the Palin’s have made things work for them as an untraditional family (albeit while trouncing around claiming traditional values), then I’m happy to take that issue off the table. I recently heard that Sir. Todd Palin is a homemaker dad, and if true, I accept that as my answer (and a good one) my basic questions about Sarah’s “Family Values”, and while I could argue on the social conservative side that her daughter wouldn’t be in the situation she is in if she had a mother more present in her life, that’s only an assumption based on a theory to which I don’t necessarily subscribe. I say their family is anything but “traditional” which is fine by me, but I wonder why it’s fine by the “Kool-aid conservatives”. Or is this just another “Well, Barack Obama....” moment. Let me try this one: “Well, Barack Obama has a traditional family”. Yep, sounds silly, but still ridiculously true in this context.

The bottom line is, what the O’Riley’s, the Kobalt’s, et. Al are missing, especially when it comes to issues like health care is that they’ve lost touch with the average American. The AVERAGE American doesn’t have union health and retiree benefits like they do, which are among the most secure. So when they tell you that you don’t need the government’s help with healthcare, they’re naive. It’s because they’ve lost touch with working for a private company who decides to cancel their group plan. Or a self employee, HARD working entrepreneur like my dad; Our family was DEVASTATED financially when a family member was diagnosed with a serious mental illness. We were above upper middle class, I’d say wealthy even, but we went from that to poor and never recovered.

It’s easy to SAY, well those are the exceptions, and sure the government should help those people, not the lazy ones, but again, it’s naive. The government cannot examine everyone requesting assistance with a magnifier to determine if they are “hard working” or free loaders, so the appropriate solution is not that would be like FEMA healthcare and it would be a failure.

So, I look at it like this, there are many things I don’t like my tax money spent on that WILL be regardless of my opinion. The “earmarks” need to be turned over to “faith based community”, and tax dollars need to be spent on health and safety of the American people and I DON’T mean protecting adults from themselves. That’s social liberalism and fiscal conservatism, that’s “Republicratic” and it’s the missing perspective.

Sarah Palin for President?

I don't like to blog predictions, if you're wrong you're immortalized "wrong", but the flip side is it gives you a widespread "I told you so" if you're right that extends beyond family, friends and co-workers. So, I'm predicting that Sarah Palin will withdraw her nomination for the McCain's running mate. I say withdraw her nomination, because I'm afraid if she resigns as VP AFTER the election, it will look too political. Either way, then McCain will be able to say, see what I did, or tried to do to bring change to Washington?

Over the past few days, conservatives have disappointed me in their ability to act like left wing liberals. By twisting facts and justifying Sarah Palin's nomination the way the far left normally does with their own affirmative action moves. Let's face it, being executive of tiny, isolated cities and states whose issues do not reflect that of most American cities does NOT make for presidential experience. This choice makes John McCain look presidential. It makes him look like a old man smitten by a smart, pretty woman. No doubt impressive, but not the pick for Vice President of the United States. I'd be saying the same thing if this was on the democratic side of the isle.

I'm not a sexist, I'm a realist and also a liberal, but as a mother, I know a sleep deprived, hormone imbalanced mother of a newborn baby should not be one heartbeat away from "the button". So here is Sarah Palin's out, "My family needs me". It will be graceful, and a reason embraced by the Republican base. If I were Bristol Palin, I'd probably be acting out right now. She must want and need her mother by her side during this frightening time, not to mention planning a wedding.

So that's my prediction, for better or worse it's out there. Now let's see what happens.