Updates and stuff
Well, the elections are not going to turn out as I had once enthusiastically envisioned (yes I am getting around to at last editing this site again). I was feverishly working on Hillary's campaign with many other people from around the country. However, a slick all-style-and-no-substance media machine ultimately decided the outcome of the nominating process.
Still I am proud of the experiences which I had and the friends which were made. I was a disability outreach coordinator for my state campaign. And then, in a more general sense, I became the first co-chair for Democrats with Disabilities, an organization which is devoted to improving the inclusion and meaningful participation of people with disabilities in the Texas Democratic Party. I and the other co-chair realized that we cannot just feel sorry for ourselves, we have to change what we are not crazy about for things to actually get better in a society. And such a motto ironically takes me back to my own political conciousness raising with this party.
During 1992's "Year of the Woman", I was introduced to an impressive array of female candidates who were determined to ensure that my generation and afterword would have a more level playing field. It was no longer enough to have just only a few women per year running, or hope the current Congress would listen to women--understood to be on the outside of politics and thus real political influence. Such an electrifying enviroment was a great political baptism for this democrat-feminist.
Of course, women had been running for (and winning!) elective office prior to this time, but the combined impact of a threat to Roe and the Hill-Thomas Senate hearings galvanized many women into political action, also forcing the mainstream media to admit political equality had not yet been realized. It was both unerving and exhilirating to see women openly campaign on feminist-friendly issues, and the press refrain from name calling and writing it off as a one time event appealing to an elite group. For once, it seemed as if there really were no political limits and women would break the infamous glass ceiling.
Democrats with disabilities:
The Official Caucus for Texas Democrats with Disabilities and Our Allies
The Democrats with Disabilities BlogBR>
Poltical Shop resources
I know what you did last election
North By Northwest Democrats
The Bush files
No Bush for me
Travis County Democratic Party
Emily's List
Obama's decision to run around the South with anti-gay ministers is not a lack of inexperience. It shows that he thinks that certain parts of the country are intrisically prone to hate--and there are no GLBT/heterosexual allies here. A truly experienced and committed leader knows that every vote does count and no region of the country can be sacrificed to stereotypes.
Disagreeing with their previous feverent defense of Republicans and conservative politics, I never believed that workers in my former town should have to find out just how bankrupt the same policies are through a direct personal financial loss. Words could not accurately describe the plethora of emotions on their faces as they headed back home one final time after a day in their downtown energy offices, now facing critical questions about their family's survival. Suddenly they were understanding there was no 'welfare queen' and having an adequate public safety net was important for ensuring the country's well being. Having worked for Enron, those neighbors found out that Republican business policies ultimately harm the very people it openly claimed to help.
Why I am a Democrat
When I lived in suburbs, I got asked that question quite a lot. Although I respected the Republican controlled White House in my youth (it was the age of Reagan after all)I quickly began to form a more independent and educated oppinion as I grew older. I began to realize that Republicans were infact the same one organizing against reproductive rights, and my right to special education services. If I (courtesy of the very progressive Denver Public Schools) was learning my rights as a student with disabilities and that those rights were under siege, supporting the people who were standing in my way made no sense.
The 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston was the final turning point for myself---and apparently many other people in this same demographic. Because it was in my then backyard, the networks were providing lots of in-depth coverage of the proceedings and the messages eminating from the GOP demonstrated the GOP is only interested in leading America back to the 5th Century. All of the speakers were hypocritical in some way or another (Marilyn Quayle is a corporate lawyer, yet openly attacked women who worked outside the home for lacking traditional values!!)but the real piece de resistance came from Pat Buchannan.
As the Keynote Speaker, Buchannan promised a cultural war against anybody who did not look or think exactly like him. Ironically, it was that particular moment when I realized I was a Ted Kennedy-Liberal Democrat...and VERY proud of it. Kennedy is bashed by many Republicans because he has refused to rest in his own personal wealth, instead using his own personal experiences as a person with learning disabilities (pre special education!) to empathize with the social justice struggles of others, including women's rights. Finally, Kennedy (again leading by personal example) has encouraged other heterosexuals to actively wotk for GLBT rights so that the American Dream is not hollow. As long as other groups are oppressed we all have an obligation to act for a better society.
Of course Buchannan's statements discounted a large segment of the American population, but this did not seem to bother the GOP untill the second year of Clinton's first term when they realized they *might* have a problem with public imagery. How they chose to remedy this public relations disaster would make a fabulous commedy sketch. Instead of rethinking the decision to abandon the era and embrace sexism, the GOP just continued to yell that women needed to be back into the kitchen, and any woman (naturally excepting their own) was a traitor to the nation if she did not want to or even have the time to do that. It also ignored the growing number of male elected officials who know women's equality is not detrimental, or an 'extra' but a critical component to serious discussions of freedom and democracy.
Conservatives enjoyed success in the 1994 Congressional election not because a majority of the public had agreed with the goals, but because their spin doctors had understood that the public wants to be reassured everything will immediately be solved (however ultimately impractical) if they only just vote for a certain candidate with a certain issue position. It also explains why this margin consistently shrunk with subsequent elections as the same electorate realized those officials were "extreme" and were ironically themselves the type of politician only interested in telling people what they wanted to hear. Beneath a "customer-service" exterior were ties to some of the farthest right groups you can possibly imagine (including with the women) who were dead-set on returning the United States back to an oft-invoked time which never actually had existed. Once considered a rising star, Newt Gingrich is rarely trotted out on the talk-show circut because he has damaged both the country and the GOP that badly.
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