The Soccer Mom Vote

Smack a Label on Yourself

In my family, I'm thought of as the token liberal -- and since the town we live in is full of them, my in-laws like to refer to our fair city as the "People's Republic".  Yet another label.

When I was teaching English to junior high school students, we spent a fair amount of time discussing "connotation" and "denotation".   While denotation refers to the dictionary definition of words, the connotation refers to emotions or associations we have with those words.

Before I joined this site as a guest author, Nicole asked me to describe my political viewpoints and background.  I had a difficult time identifying how others would interpret my own labels.  For instance, if I tell people my voter registration card reads Republican, then would they imagine an evangelical patrolling the border?  If I mention I'm a Liberal with a capital L, what does that really mean?  I have loose morals and hate God, not to mention our troops? 

In my quest to find a way to express my political philosophy, I happened upon a fun website.  VoteMatch is a quiz willing to label me in less than two minutes.  It is only one opinion, but I found it interesting.  Taken a week apart, my quiz scores show I'm either a "Hard-Core Liberal or a "Populist Liberal".

Basically I fall into the liberal realm, the site claims, because I believe the government should not interfere in people's personal lifestyles, but it should be involved in people's lives economically. Conservatives feel the opposite, and Libertarians feel the government should have minimal intervention in BOTH.  Populists?  I'm not so sure, but from what I gather, Bill O'Reilly refers to himself as a Populist.  Which has all sorts of connotations.

Take the quiz for fun and -- as they recommend -- a grain of salt.

Balance of Power

While I suppose Pelosi's new role as Speaker of the House should make me feel elated because she's a woman, I have other reasons.  I'm happy any Democrat is in the position, but not because she's a member of the better party.  Because she's the voice of opposition, and she is ready to throw down.

I learned two main lessons from my social studies classes:

A) Cramming names and dates into one's brain does little more than exercise short-term memory.

B) Checks and balances are the cornerstone to our democracy.  Perhaps, more accurately, checks and balances are the KEYSTONE, holding the entire arch together. 

After the 2004 election, Bush declared his 51 percent of the popular vote was a mandate to advance his agenda.  In particular, he assumed the people were asking him to "stay the course" in his war on terror.

Personally, however, I have watched in dismay as he eroded the balance of power in subtle ways.  For one, his signing statements have been declared "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional  system of separation of powers" by the American Bar Association.  He has utilized these attachments to new laws as his way of interpreting the law to HIS discretion more than 750 times, yet has wielded his power of veto only one time (last I checked). 

From Schoolhouse Rock and Civics, we learned the role of the legislature is to create laws, with the president and judicial branch each staying on their side of the playground.  In contrast, Bush has taken it upon himself to edit the laws after the fact, something unprecedented at the scale we've seen in the past six years. 

Bush has also had the opportunity to shape the Supreme Court judges with a socially conservative agenda.  The Democrats' control of the House and Senate makes me feel hopeful there will be more dialogue about key issues. 

I've always been one who felt dissent was the most American of all activities.  Having a party dominating all three branches -- I assume dominance of the judicial branch because seven of the current justices were nominated by Republican presidents -- can not be a good thing for the country.  It means power remains unchecked...the dialogue gets controlled by one group alone.  Now, at least, the people will hear actual debates about issues.

The most damaging revolutions are not ones where someone storms the gates one Tuesday evening, but when the freedoms and protections promised us are slowly taken out -- piece by piece -- right under our noses.  I'd hate to have to explain to my children the reason our generation didn't notice the loss of our Constitution was because I was more interested in TomKat's wedding or the release of the latest iPod.

The mandate of the recent mid-term elections is interesting, saying a lot about our nature as a country.  Whether it's a response to corruption (sad for many to realize that Clinton's fallibility when it comes to moral lapses pales in comparison to attempting to seduce high school students or being seduced by the likes of Abramoff) or a dis-satisfaction for staying the course, we have spoken.

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful that there may be shifts in the status quo.  The mandate today? Staying the course only works well if the people behind the wheel know how to navigate rough waters.  And frankly, I want a captain who has a crew with the power to tell him when he's headed toward an iceberg.