The Soccer Mom Vote

How Are You Going to Vote?

No, I'm not asking WHO you are going to vote for at this point.

I'm more interested in HOW you are going to vote.

The difference?

The pollsters and the media are trying to convince us that we've already made up our minds.  Hillary is "ahead."  Barack is in "second-place."  Edwards and others are "trailing."

Doesn't all this sort of make you feel that the process is a fait accompli?  But it isn't.  Not one vote has been cast yet, and so many commentators and news analysts are already talking as if it's a foregone conclusion who the Democratic nominee is going to be. 

I actually heard Tim Russert say on the radio last week that the 2008 Presidential election was going to be over in two months!  The implication being that once Iowa and New Hampshire are done voting, there's no point in the rest of us showing up again until November!

So as you are considering WHO you are going to vote for (please promise me you'll vote), ask yourself HOW you're going to arrive at your decision.

Will you vote by concensus or by conscience?  Should we cast our ballots for the candidate who seems to have a better chance or has the lead or the one who resonates with our personal philosophies and views about what our country should be and could be?

I have one small glimmer of hope about this.

My husband is getting REALLY tired of hearing me say this, but as an old political science major, I can't help myself -- the polls we see on the news by CNN and ABC and NBC are national polls.  We don't have a national primary -- we have state primaries.  So unless we're going to take separate polls for Iowa and New Hampshire and every other state, there's only so much stock you can put in the national polls.  They're not necessarily showing us the real picture.

And don't be fooled by those polls.  Have you looked at the "margins of error?" One of my professors in college was adamant that unless the margin of error of a poll was plus/minus three percent or less, it wasn't any more than a guess with some numbers attached to make it look like it's not a guess.

The margin of error on some of the big news polls is as high as plus/minus seven percent!!

Some people may think that if Hillary Clinton is so far ahead at this point, why bother to take the time to show up on primary day?

Maybe I'm naive, but if we stopped listening to the polls and just showed up and voted for the candidate who each of us thought would do the best job, then maybe the best man or woman really would end up in the White House.

Should I Bother Voting?

I never thought I would hear myself utter these words or let them cross my mind -- should I even bother voting? 

After what's happened this week with the scheduled Michigan primary, I don't think the Democratic presidential candidates care very much whether I do or not.

You see, I don't live in Iowa or New Hampshire.  Living in a reliably blue state, I have resigned myself to the fact that Democratic candidates don't really spend a lot of time campaigning here.  I understand that they are going to have to spend more time in the bigger states with more electoral votes or in places that make a big first impression.  What I don't expect is to be totally ignored.

For the moment, that seems to be what's developing in Michigan. 

Democratic presidential candidates Clinton, Obama, Edwards and Biden have all pulled out of the Michigan primary that's currently scheduled to take place on January 15.  Apparently some of the Democratic power brokers have their panties all in a twist because some states, like Michigan, want to move their primaries ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire.  It seems that some of the states with more electoral votes have this crazy notion that maybe their primaries should carry a little more weight in determining who the Democratic nominee will be.

There is a growing, and I would say justifiable, political outcry over why Iowa and New Hampshire should, effectively, be the first and last word in Presidential politics every four years.

To further solidify the Iowa/New Hampshire one-two punch, the DNC wants to punish states who dare to challenge the status quo by either threatening to keep their delegates from the convention or through this scheme to get the candidates to withdraw -- then there is no front runner to vote for and not much weight goes to the outcome.

This way, the DNC gets to throw the perceived front runners a bone since Iowa and New Hampshire are the states where candidates have invested the bulk of their time and money.  The DNC already has rapped Florida's knuckles for wanting to do the same thing as Michigan, and have threatened to refuse to admit Florida delegates to the convention next year in Denver.

I'm a politico from the word 'go.' But this really disgusts me.  If we're going to have an electoral system where the national election process is managed by the states themselves, then neither the national political mucks nor the candidates should be able to game the system.  And that's exactly what's going on.

I hate to be critical of the Democratic presidential candidates, but maybe they should spend a little more time thinking how this is going to play with the voters.  You all might want to rethink this one.  Because if you're really more interested in the votes in New Hampshire and Iowa, maybe I'll just stay home next time around.  And I'll convince my blue state friends to do the same while we wait for a candidate who cares about everyone's vote.

Paying Attention to the Kids

While the news media has been spending time obsessing over Senator Larry Craig and his bathroom adventures and the sad tales of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, little coverage has been given to the ongoing debate over whether and how to continue funding the SCHIP program that provides health insurance coverage for poor children in this country whose families cannot afford health insurance.

It seems that at the moment, Congress can't decide what to do!  President Bush wants to cut back so that only the poorest of the poor are eligible for the state-run programs.  He's not concerned, because, after all, even if you don't have health insurance, you can always go to the emergency room!

But if you hunt around on the web, or dig into the newspapers, it turns out that the funding options for renewing the program at the moment are these -- cut Medicare funding or increase the cigarette tax.

No offense to you smokers out there, but this one seems like a classic no brainer to me -- if you increase the cigarette tax, not only do you get more money for families who can't afford to insure their children, but you'll probably also decrease the numbers of teens who'll be able to afford those cigarettes in the first place.  A two-fer!

But why has there been so little coverage of this debate?  I'm assuming because it's not "sexy" and it's too complicated.  It's not a ratings grabber.

It's not just a matter of a little bill getting through Congress -- you've got the states involved, and to explain how any family might be effected in any given state, a reporter would have to do some math!

And then there's probably the other reason -- because it's about children.  Kids don't contribute money to presidential campaigns and advertisers don't consider them an important demographic.  Just not much of a constituency there.

The SCHIP program is scheduled to expire on its own at the end of September if lawmakers can't get their acts together.  And even if they do, President Bush wants to veto it.  What we need is the god ol' bully pulpit, but for that the media actually have to pay attention to this story in the same way they've been covering the lead up to the Petraeus Report.

Any takers?

I Wish I'd Met Elizabeth Edwards

First, I want to apologize for my dry spell posting here at The Soccer Mom Vote.  I had some technical difficulties (read: I am not tech savvy) and then was away quite a bit.  But there has been plenty on my mind.  I know I'm scheduled as number "10" but thought I'd get going again now!

SoccerMom Elaine posted a while back about Jen Lemen's encounter with Elizabeth Edwards at the BlogHer conference.  I'm truly sad that I did not get to meet her there.  I was really impressed by her talk at the conference.  She then graciously agreed to hang out with the bloggers at the reception afterwards, even though it wasn't initially on her itinerary.

She strikes me as someone who has always been a woman to speak her mind and who gives her opinions exactly as they are.  I don't have the sense that you get a lot of sugar-coating from Elizabeth if you want her opinion, and I'm betting she's that way with her husband and his campaign, too.

But I also had the sense that her breast cancer has given her just a little more freedom to speak her mind AND to take on things she might have let slide before like, oh, let's say, Ann Coulter.

So, I was thinking, THAT's the kind of person I'd like to have running the country -- someone who will tell us what they really think about the issues, as well as taking on the B.S. and calling it that when it happens.

I know that's just a pipe dream.  Even as much as I like John Edwards as a candidate, I know I'd like Elizabeth even better in the White House, not as First Lady, but as the Commander-in-Chief, leader of the free world and truth-teller extraordinaire!

You Run, Girl!

I admit that my first-grade daughter's interest in politics is really limited to parroting back my critiques of the President and the war (fortunately, none of them came out of her mouth on a recent field trip to the White House) and asking, "When is George Bush's 'turn' going to be over?"

My mother has, however, commented about R. and her personality, "She will probably run for President one day!" 

I have no doubt R.'s got some qualities I'd like to see in a president -- she's honest, straightforward and tells it like it is, even if it's not going to make you happy.  But unless they change the Constitution for Governor Arnold, she won't ever be called POTUS since she was not physically born in this country.

But have faith -- women who want to be president, aside from Hillary, are on their way! 

The White House Project, a group that promotes the idea of electing a woman (or, even, women!) to the White House has announced the winners of its "Hello, My Name is Madame President" essay contest.

Not only will these girls and women who say they are running for president between 2012 and 2040 get training on how to organize a campaign and be a candidate, they will also be featured in an upcoming documentary called Project 2024 (by the creators of the movie Mad Hot Ballroom).

Click on over and read about these winners and learn some more about how this group is trying to get us more actively involved in the election process.  Who knows, maybe soon one of "The Soccer Moms" here will have her own White House campaign!

What Would Elizabeth Do?

Elizabeth Edwards and the return of her breast cancer have gotten more than their fair share of media coverage.

But the piece that really struck me was the interview of Edwards conducted by Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, who has also battled cancer.

Many who have no right to have an opinion on the matter have been critical of Elizabeth Edwards' decision to remain in the campaign and encourage her husband to continue his quest for the White House, even as she battles her cancer.  After reading Alter's interview with her, I have come to the conclusion that it is Elizabeth Edwards who, under other circumstances, ought to be running for president.

Cancer doesn't just change one's health, it changes outlooks and makes people more honest and frank than they ever have been in their lives up until that moment.  I saw it in my mother-in-law as she fought her ovarian cancer.  I saw it in my best friend Marjorie as she battled her breast cancer.  Alter's interview lets that aspect of Edwards shine through:

Alter: Are you clear to say pretty much what you want--

Edwards: Because of the cancer?

Alter: Yeah.

Edwards: .... I am completely free to say whatever I want.

She's determined not to have any regrets when it comes time to say goodbye to her family.  So she's saying what she wants and what she means.  Why is it that we wait until a severe illness strikes to feel free to take such an honest and liberating approach to expressing our true convictions?

Can you imagine if we had presidential candidates who would do that?  I'm not suggesting we need only those who have been diagnosed with cancer to run for higher office, but imagine what our country and society would look like if people peeled away the faux obligations, the political calculations and the donor expectations, and ran honestly and talked openly about what we all could do to make this country a better place not just for us but for our children and their children decades from now?

Instead, we have a group of people running (with a few exceptions) who are afraid to say what they truly feel and think for fear of alienating a big contributor or talking a dive in the next poll, candidates who are afraid that if they make one misstep a year and a half from Election Day 2008, they will lose votes.  People who try to build a portrait of themselves that is false, but politically expedient.  If those candidacies are built on such houses of cards, should we even be considering them?

If John Edwards really wants to be president, he will take a page from the book of Elizabeth Edwards and ask himself, "W.W.E.D?"  She is the breath of fresh air I think our system has been needing for a long time. 

I just hope and pray she will be with us long enough to let us see more of it so we can all benefit from it and maybe even demand more from those presidential hopefuls who are more worried about "truthiness" than what's really important to voters or the real truth of what needs to be done for this country.

The Pushed Out Revolution?

With Women’s History Month (March) and International Women’s Day (March 8), it’s a logical time to ask, have we really come a long way baby?

The shelves are full of books that focus on women struggling to make the choices right for them – work full-time and juggle career and child-rearing obligations, “opt” out of the workplace or try to find something in between?

A prime example of those feelings is reflected in one recent comment at my personal blog:

“[The] point about elite women staying [or leaving] the work force does resonate for me to the extent that the more women who make it to the top so to speak -- who really gut it out -- the more they can struggle to change the structure to positively influence all working mothers, college educated and pink collar, and service workers. I am a former litigator who has been home for the last 2 years with my 3 kids after having struggled to gut it out and work in law for 6 years after the birth of my first child. BUT I do feel that I have let down young female lawyers a bit. So there is a sense that I should get back in there and help change the status quo.”

But sometimes the anecdotal isn’t an accurate reflection of the factual.  Author E.J. Graff says in a recent Columbia Journalism Review article that statistics reflect a different reality -- that over the last 50 years, the number of women working outside the home has slowly and steadily increased, not decreased, yet the media seems more intent on reporting on a relatively small handful of professional women who don’t make their way back to careers after becoming mothers.

According to Graff:

“The moms-go-home story keeps coming back, in part, because it’s based on some kernels of truth. Women do feel forced to choose between work and family. Women do face a sharp conflict between cultural expectations and economic realities. The workplace is demonstrably more hostile to mothers than to fathers. Faced with the ‘choice’ of feeling that they’ve failed to be either good mothers or good workers, many women wish they could – or worry that they should – abandon the struggle and stay at home with the kids.”

The dilemma is continually framed as a Faustian bargain that women freely choose to make, when in reality it is a false choice – if women are asked about why they leave their jobs, it is often because they feel they were forced out as a result of a failure of the workplace to evolve to fit the ways families look today, not the way they looked 50 years ago.

Graff points to a university study entitled, “Opt Out or Pushed Out?"  This study points out that often it’s not the pull of motherhood alone leading women to trade their pumps and pantyhose for sweats and sneakers.  Many women feel they are ultimately pushed out of their jobs because once they become mothers, prime assignments dry up, mentorships fade and the flexibility they had hoped would exist isn’t a reality.

So why isn’t this the story that’s getting the mileage in newspapers and on cable news shows?  If there was more sunshine on this angle, maybe employers would feel more pressure to change inflexible work hours and find ways to create workplaces where long-ingrained stereotypes about the “commitment” of women once they are mothers, could change.

Interviewing a handful of mothers about why they’ve left the workplace might be a good place to start in discussing why that’s happened, but that’s only the easy first part of the story. Reporters need to dig deeper into the ‘pushed out’ story to make employers more accountable for the things they are doing, and not doing, in the workplace, so that women who really want to stay in their jobs, can find a way to do that without being professionally penalized or labeled as not committed to their careers.

It's About Cancer, Not Sex

By the time I was a 28-year-old, third-year law student, I had been dutifully getting my yearly Pap tests and GYN exams like a good girl for well over a decade.

And every year, the Pap results came back negative.  I annually congratulated myself for getting to the doctor's office for the exam, even though I would rather have been doing my least favorite thing -- reviewing my Federal Income Tax outline -- than facing the stirrups.

Sitting at my groovy, second-hand formica kitchen table in my tiny law student apartment, I was opening my mail when I came across the letter from the doctor's office.  Assuming it was good news, as usual, I causally opened it and read its contents.

I couldn't focus.  I started to hyperventilate.  I had to read it more than once to fathom the news -- Stage 2 irregularities.  Come in right away for additional testing.

Possible cervical cancer?  At 28?  When there had only been one person I had been with for the past four years?

Fortunately, there was no cancer, just "suspicious" cells that were dispatched as quickly as possible, hopefully never to return.  But I have been reliving those terrifying moments a lot in the last few weeks, as there has been a major uproar by some over whether girls should be required to get a new vaccine that can prevent cervical cancer. 

Thar's right. PREVENT. CANCER. 

For me, after that horrible scare that led to treatment and, I believe, issues that treatment may have caused with my fertility, I can't believe there is anyone who would make a political cause out of trying to prohibit girls from receiving a vaccine that could spare them the scare of cancer.

But there are.

Certain vocal politicos want to make this an issue not about health and protecting lives, but about supposed morals and premarital sex, and oppose the use of the vaccine.  Opponents claim that if we let young girls have a vaccine that would prevent the majority of cervical cancers, that will lead to increased teen promiscuity.   As a result of this flawed logic, the Governor of Texas, and others, are coming under fire for ordering, or even considering, that all girls of a certain age receive the vaccine as a health issue.

The vaccine is recommended for girls ages 9 through 12 in order to give their immune systems a chance to develop the highest levels of antibodies needed before adulthood to fight off the virus that causes cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women -- second only to breast cancer.

So here is my question -- if this vaccine prevented breast cancer, would there be any opposition? 

It's hard for someone who survived a bad scare many years ago, and who still must be vigilant just in case they didn't get all those "abnormal" cells, to fathom how anyone could want to make an anti-cancer vaccine a political issue and not one about health and saving lives.

If there was a vaccine that was available today to prevent breast cancer or lung cancer or even  prostate cancer, would there be the conservative outcry we're hearing about a cervical cancer vaccine?

I think not.

I believe it's safe to say there would be no opposition -- everyone would be on board and there would be huge celebrations across the planet about such a miraculous medical breakthrough.  But a handful of people are trying to make us believe that by protecting our daughters from most kinds of cervical cancer, which is caused by a sexually transmitted virus, that we are handing them a Get Out of Jail Free card in terms of their sexuality.  That, in essence, parental approval of the vaccine equals telling our daughters it's OK to be sexually active in your teens because you won't have to worry about getting HPV. 

I don't know about you, but that sounds like a stretch to me.