Politics, they say, makes strange bed fellows. You can't get any stranger than Hillary Clinton Feminists spreading the word to ALL women: vote Palin/McCain...er...McCain/Palin.
"If you ever want to see another woman candidate in your life time," goes the meme.
They have a real point. It's not crazy or somehow treasonous to a political ideology to look for ways to win more women in a campaign. Women do make up over 50% of the population, over 50% of college students and, women are proportionately represented in the work place, too.
All the politicians try to break the demographics up by ideology, religion, education, ethnicity, marital status and gender. That last is usually "gender" based on one of the other demographics. Like Bush and the Soccer "security" moms. Few, if any, have ever been successful at appealing to women as their own separate demographic with any universal issue or issues that would drive them in any mass to support a candidate for election.
Even the Democrats who floated Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton tried to cut this demographic up into smaller pieces or being unable to appeal to the much greater demographic that included married, working women with children. While it is understandable to try to get pieces of a pie instead of a whole one, those secondary demographics were starting to dwindle in comparison to the current demographic: overwhelming numbers of successful, educated, working women who still have to put up with some real issues in making equal pay and getting equal opportunities.
This isn't just the "me" feminism of the 60's and 70's. This is "practical feminism". We live in a world that requires two salaries to support a family and get ahead. Women want to be able to contribute to that support and creating a better life for their children's future along with their husbands. It isn't the feminism that wants to tear down the "patriarchal society". It's the feminism that knows that family women, like family men, have no choice economically but to work and be a full partner in the care of the family. Particularly, as single parent households are more likely to be headed by a woman.
Family women, by far, outweigh the single women, but their goals are similar in that they want to be able to fulfill their ambitions. Those ambitions do not have any limits. Whether a CEO, an astronaut, a teacher, a singer, a doctor or even, yes, the President of the United States, women have been told that they can be anything they want to be. It only requires hard work.
Mothers are telling their daughters that right now. That is no "raging feminist" passing on the torch. That is the average "hockey mom" telling her daughter to work hard in school and she can do anything that she sets her mind to. The same thing mothers and fathers are telling their sons. That is what is great about America.
There are some great women in business today. McCain had several of them giving key speeches at the convention including Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina. The size of the demographics indicates that this isn't some passing phenomena. There are a few glass ceilings that continue to act as a barrier between the reality of the over all demographic and the overarching goals.
Those goals are neither to feminize the nation nor reverse roles with men. It is not to destroy the family, though some older feminists may have seen the family as the chain that held them down. It is to recognize that women are intelligent, capable people who can make viable choices about their lives, their family and their government. Not selfishly, but as partners.
Whether those choices include being a stay at home mom or a working mom, a nurse or a neurosurgeon, the idea is simply recognition that, indeed, women can and do make those choices. Everyday. As a whole, though they have not historically voted on this one issue, many women believe they should have more say on government policies, foreign and domestic, that effect their lives.
There are some that decry the idea of "identity politics" instead of politics of the ideas, but that is definitely disingenuous. Political parties have been developing strategies based on demographics since about the second American election. The difference is that there is more data to analyze and further break down the demographics. People elect other people to represent them largely based on whether they believe that person understands their own concerns and values. It may begin by appearances, but it ends with ideas. Whether that representative is a man or a woman, it comes down to whether the electors believe they will best represent them in government. That is democracy.
In today's world, women who share the hard work of raising a family or share in the hard work of making a business successful also, by and far, share the same basic values and ambitions of men. Is their family safe? Can they survive economically? Can they get ahead? Can they afford college? Will their jobs last? Can they, in the end, have a better life than their parents? Can they make a difference in the world today?
In the end, when 52% of those deciding who will be that next representative of their ideas are women and a majority of those are married , working, with a family, it is not unnatural for them to look for someone that looks, sounds and believes like they do. It is also not unusual for men to see the women they know in that selection: smart, capable partners.
The Democrats were certainly looking at the same demographic information. The selection of Barak Obama, well educated, married, working wife, two children they had after they began their careers and a house in the suburbs is by no accident. Not simply because the Democrat party selected Obama, but because the electorate in the primaries saw Obama as representing their ideas coming from the same place that they lived, worked and raised a family.
He also appeals to the young who are generally more activist than their older counter parts and to minorities who have been slowly but surely mainstreaming into the middle and upper economic class, but also believe that they have not had all of the opportunities that non-minorities have had. Obama represents their ideas about what they want to achieve and what they want their representative government to act and look like.
Then there is the packaging of Obama and his family. Obama's strategists have apparently taken their cue from the Nielson ratings and popularity of celebrities, packaging Obama as the American Idol version of the American presidential candidate and family. From interviews on Access Hollywood, to speeches in Berlin to faux Parthenon in a rented football field with a huge display of fire works, this was also certainly created in order to appeal to a certain demographic based on studies of the American population and its interests.
However, the Democrat ticket may have made a fatal error in selecting Sen. Biden as the vice president nominee. A mistake forced on them by the political and personal weaknesses of their candidate, the fear of the political liabilities of their only viable female candidate and their inability to move away from their out dated and, possibly, shallow views of the American Demographic.
Barak Obama needed someone who could be seen as statesman like with foreign policy credentials. He needed someone older to appeal to the aging population and to provide the appearance of wisdom gained from long years of service. Hillary Clinton had some of these qualities, but also had some personal and political baggage from the previous administration. Her personal family story with its many ups and downs did not reflect the image of the strong family that Obama hoped to present.
Finally, there may have been a question of whether Obama felt personally capable of dealing with a politically strong candidate with her own personal power base. He may have feared both the reality and the potential projected image of a vice president running the administration. A problem that came to plague the Bush administration. With a vice presidential candidate that made no bones about wanting to become the president and the potential drive for re-election in 2012, Obama obviously felt that this was too great a risk.
Unfortunately for Obama, this came across to many women as a man unable to work with or share power with a woman. Worse, a man who is, in the end, unwilling to provide an opening for their aspirations as a politically powerful demographic. Further, its not necessary to win over all of that demographic any more than its necessary to win over the entire male population. It only takes a few percentage points one way or the other to make or break an election.
Make no mistake: women are a political and economic force. They no longer need organizations like "NOW" to tell them when they belong to the Women's Small Business Association and other professional and personal interest organizations geared exclusively towards women.
Commercials and television programming are geared towards women overwhelmingly as the person in the household that controls most of the family money on food, clothing and house hold items. Although, many women believe that marketing falls short of really speaking to women, the tell is that, indeed, they are trying. They just haven't figured out yet that slapping pink on a cell phone or making all women tall, slim and looking like they never had a bad hair day or a child in their life is missing a very large part of the demographic.
Women in families decide what schools their children will attend. They often decide what church, if any, the family will attend. Even working mothers are more active in their communities and charitable organizations than men. Often between going to work, attending school themselves and taking care of the family. Not necessarily in that order. And they share that with a partner who also often must balance these needs.
The Republicans recognized that gap in the demographics and are diligently and effectively attempting to gain those votes by placing a married, middle class, intelligent, successful woman with children on the ballot who not only looks like and sounds like that demographic, but has similar aspirations for her family and the country.
The fact that John McCain is older and has intimated that this will be his first and last term as president is not seen as a detractor. In fact, it sets up the exact scenario and opportunity to meet those demographic aspirations. Sarah Palin is an intelligent and capable woman who will be groomed and receive the experiences necessary to potentially take over the job in 2012. This is the same scenario that has brought at least 1/3 of all vice presidents to the White House. It is also the long accepted way that men and women rise to the top of their own careers having sought out or been discovered by a capable mentor, man or woman, who provides the last necessary polish to an otherwise brilliant diamond.
Some may see that as a cynical selection, but, in fact, it is a strategic convergence. Small government, fiscal and social conservatives achieve their goals of being elected and having an opportunity to try, once again, to instill some discipline on the government. While a large and powerful electoral demographic, that has been waiting for over twenty years since Geraldine Ferraro to have their day in the sun, finally realizes their aspirations to shape American politics and policy, foreign and domestic, to their ideas.
This selection of Governor Palin is no more cynical than the selection of Barak Obama by acclimation at the Democrat National Convention when the top party Democrats circumvented the roll call in order to prevent any possibility of Hillary being voted for enough times that they would have to select her as vice president. It is no more cynical that selecting a minority male candidate with a higher education, a successful, working wife, two children and a house in the suburbs for the Democrat presidential candidate.
In the end, it is really about finding out who the electorate believes best represents them and, in the end, it is the over all American electorate, men and women of every race, creed, ethnicity, economic, education, martial background and age that will vote on November 4th. Thus, for all of the discussion about the make up and aspirations of particular demographics, it will come down to who can sell their message the best.
Democrats may try to tell women that they will work to provide some kind of government mandated equality while Republicans will try to be the party that shows women that they have the opportunity right in the palm of their hand via the voting lever.
Who will win is anybody's guess, but politics do, indeed, make strange bedfellows.
"If you ever want to see another woman candidate in your life time," goes the meme.
They have a real point. It's not crazy or somehow treasonous to a political ideology to look for ways to win more women in a campaign. Women do make up over 50% of the population, over 50% of college students and, women are proportionately represented in the work place, too.
All the politicians try to break the demographics up by ideology, religion, education, ethnicity, marital status and gender. That last is usually "gender" based on one of the other demographics. Like Bush and the Soccer "security" moms. Few, if any, have ever been successful at appealing to women as their own separate demographic with any universal issue or issues that would drive them in any mass to support a candidate for election.
Even the Democrats who floated Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton tried to cut this demographic up into smaller pieces or being unable to appeal to the much greater demographic that included married, working women with children. While it is understandable to try to get pieces of a pie instead of a whole one, those secondary demographics were starting to dwindle in comparison to the current demographic: overwhelming numbers of successful, educated, working women who still have to put up with some real issues in making equal pay and getting equal opportunities.
This isn't just the "me" feminism of the 60's and 70's. This is "practical feminism". We live in a world that requires two salaries to support a family and get ahead. Women want to be able to contribute to that support and creating a better life for their children's future along with their husbands. It isn't the feminism that wants to tear down the "patriarchal society". It's the feminism that knows that family women, like family men, have no choice economically but to work and be a full partner in the care of the family. Particularly, as single parent households are more likely to be headed by a woman.
Family women, by far, outweigh the single women, but their goals are similar in that they want to be able to fulfill their ambitions. Those ambitions do not have any limits. Whether a CEO, an astronaut, a teacher, a singer, a doctor or even, yes, the President of the United States, women have been told that they can be anything they want to be. It only requires hard work.
Mothers are telling their daughters that right now. That is no "raging feminist" passing on the torch. That is the average "hockey mom" telling her daughter to work hard in school and she can do anything that she sets her mind to. The same thing mothers and fathers are telling their sons. That is what is great about America.
There are some great women in business today. McCain had several of them giving key speeches at the convention including Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina. The size of the demographics indicates that this isn't some passing phenomena. There are a few glass ceilings that continue to act as a barrier between the reality of the over all demographic and the overarching goals.
Those goals are neither to feminize the nation nor reverse roles with men. It is not to destroy the family, though some older feminists may have seen the family as the chain that held them down. It is to recognize that women are intelligent, capable people who can make viable choices about their lives, their family and their government. Not selfishly, but as partners.
Whether those choices include being a stay at home mom or a working mom, a nurse or a neurosurgeon, the idea is simply recognition that, indeed, women can and do make those choices. Everyday. As a whole, though they have not historically voted on this one issue, many women believe they should have more say on government policies, foreign and domestic, that effect their lives.
There are some that decry the idea of "identity politics" instead of politics of the ideas, but that is definitely disingenuous. Political parties have been developing strategies based on demographics since about the second American election. The difference is that there is more data to analyze and further break down the demographics. People elect other people to represent them largely based on whether they believe that person understands their own concerns and values. It may begin by appearances, but it ends with ideas. Whether that representative is a man or a woman, it comes down to whether the electors believe they will best represent them in government. That is democracy.
In today's world, women who share the hard work of raising a family or share in the hard work of making a business successful also, by and far, share the same basic values and ambitions of men. Is their family safe? Can they survive economically? Can they get ahead? Can they afford college? Will their jobs last? Can they, in the end, have a better life than their parents? Can they make a difference in the world today?
In the end, when 52% of those deciding who will be that next representative of their ideas are women and a majority of those are married , working, with a family, it is not unnatural for them to look for someone that looks, sounds and believes like they do. It is also not unusual for men to see the women they know in that selection: smart, capable partners.
The Democrats were certainly looking at the same demographic information. The selection of Barak Obama, well educated, married, working wife, two children they had after they began their careers and a house in the suburbs is by no accident. Not simply because the Democrat party selected Obama, but because the electorate in the primaries saw Obama as representing their ideas coming from the same place that they lived, worked and raised a family.
He also appeals to the young who are generally more activist than their older counter parts and to minorities who have been slowly but surely mainstreaming into the middle and upper economic class, but also believe that they have not had all of the opportunities that non-minorities have had. Obama represents their ideas about what they want to achieve and what they want their representative government to act and look like.
Then there is the packaging of Obama and his family. Obama's strategists have apparently taken their cue from the Nielson ratings and popularity of celebrities, packaging Obama as the American Idol version of the American presidential candidate and family. From interviews on Access Hollywood, to speeches in Berlin to faux Parthenon in a rented football field with a huge display of fire works, this was also certainly created in order to appeal to a certain demographic based on studies of the American population and its interests.
However, the Democrat ticket may have made a fatal error in selecting Sen. Biden as the vice president nominee. A mistake forced on them by the political and personal weaknesses of their candidate, the fear of the political liabilities of their only viable female candidate and their inability to move away from their out dated and, possibly, shallow views of the American Demographic.
Barak Obama needed someone who could be seen as statesman like with foreign policy credentials. He needed someone older to appeal to the aging population and to provide the appearance of wisdom gained from long years of service. Hillary Clinton had some of these qualities, but also had some personal and political baggage from the previous administration. Her personal family story with its many ups and downs did not reflect the image of the strong family that Obama hoped to present.
Finally, there may have been a question of whether Obama felt personally capable of dealing with a politically strong candidate with her own personal power base. He may have feared both the reality and the potential projected image of a vice president running the administration. A problem that came to plague the Bush administration. With a vice presidential candidate that made no bones about wanting to become the president and the potential drive for re-election in 2012, Obama obviously felt that this was too great a risk.
Unfortunately for Obama, this came across to many women as a man unable to work with or share power with a woman. Worse, a man who is, in the end, unwilling to provide an opening for their aspirations as a politically powerful demographic. Further, its not necessary to win over all of that demographic any more than its necessary to win over the entire male population. It only takes a few percentage points one way or the other to make or break an election.
Make no mistake: women are a political and economic force. They no longer need organizations like "NOW" to tell them when they belong to the Women's Small Business Association and other professional and personal interest organizations geared exclusively towards women.
Commercials and television programming are geared towards women overwhelmingly as the person in the household that controls most of the family money on food, clothing and house hold items. Although, many women believe that marketing falls short of really speaking to women, the tell is that, indeed, they are trying. They just haven't figured out yet that slapping pink on a cell phone or making all women tall, slim and looking like they never had a bad hair day or a child in their life is missing a very large part of the demographic.
Women in families decide what schools their children will attend. They often decide what church, if any, the family will attend. Even working mothers are more active in their communities and charitable organizations than men. Often between going to work, attending school themselves and taking care of the family. Not necessarily in that order. And they share that with a partner who also often must balance these needs.
The Republicans recognized that gap in the demographics and are diligently and effectively attempting to gain those votes by placing a married, middle class, intelligent, successful woman with children on the ballot who not only looks like and sounds like that demographic, but has similar aspirations for her family and the country.
The fact that John McCain is older and has intimated that this will be his first and last term as president is not seen as a detractor. In fact, it sets up the exact scenario and opportunity to meet those demographic aspirations. Sarah Palin is an intelligent and capable woman who will be groomed and receive the experiences necessary to potentially take over the job in 2012. This is the same scenario that has brought at least 1/3 of all vice presidents to the White House. It is also the long accepted way that men and women rise to the top of their own careers having sought out or been discovered by a capable mentor, man or woman, who provides the last necessary polish to an otherwise brilliant diamond.
Some may see that as a cynical selection, but, in fact, it is a strategic convergence. Small government, fiscal and social conservatives achieve their goals of being elected and having an opportunity to try, once again, to instill some discipline on the government. While a large and powerful electoral demographic, that has been waiting for over twenty years since Geraldine Ferraro to have their day in the sun, finally realizes their aspirations to shape American politics and policy, foreign and domestic, to their ideas.
This selection of Governor Palin is no more cynical than the selection of Barak Obama by acclimation at the Democrat National Convention when the top party Democrats circumvented the roll call in order to prevent any possibility of Hillary being voted for enough times that they would have to select her as vice president. It is no more cynical that selecting a minority male candidate with a higher education, a successful, working wife, two children and a house in the suburbs for the Democrat presidential candidate.
In the end, it is really about finding out who the electorate believes best represents them and, in the end, it is the over all American electorate, men and women of every race, creed, ethnicity, economic, education, martial background and age that will vote on November 4th. Thus, for all of the discussion about the make up and aspirations of particular demographics, it will come down to who can sell their message the best.
Democrats may try to tell women that they will work to provide some kind of government mandated equality while Republicans will try to be the party that shows women that they have the opportunity right in the palm of their hand via the voting lever.
Who will win is anybody's guess, but politics do, indeed, make strange bedfellows.
Cheers
Anyway - if you want to read RawDawg's post - click here.