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Friday, March 6, 2020

She's Gone

Elizabeth Warren wasn't my first choice.  She was shaping up to be my second choice after Pete left me high and dry.  Not that I thought she had the delegates to get to the end.  I was resigned to Joe Biden sweeping the field and offering a placid, safe, calm alternative to Bernie and Trump's hectoring.

But I thought that watching a woman ride a wave of pinkie swears and selfies and unbuttoned cardigans would assuage my soul.  I thought that having a woman in the mix might influence the debate.  I had hopes that our nation was capable of moving past old white men telling them what's best.

Apparently, I was wrong.

I heard the news on the radio.  On television, it was somehow less sad.  When all I had was her voice, the sorrow was palpable.

She's right.  The hardest part is the message it sends to little girls, who now have to wait 4 more years before they might see a woman in the White House.  That's a long time when you are 8 or 9 and your grandpa tells you that you'll grow up to be President of the United States of America.  Because when that happens you in 1960 you turn to him and say: That's impossible.  I'm poor, I'm Jewish, and I'm a woman.  

Pete was poor.  Bernie and Mike are Jewish. All the women are gone.

I'm not sure what the point is here.  I've been mulling it over all afternoon and I come up empty.  The facts are before me.  I don't know what to make of them.

And the more I think about it, I realize that I've been mulling over this issue for 60 years and I still don't have an answer.  There were so many good choices out there and yet here we are, back where we were.  I don't want to think that we're stuck there forever, but I don't know why I might imagine that things will change.

I think I'm a lot sadder about Senator Warren suspending her campaign than I realized I was.

12 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I was glad she pulled out. Despite disagreeing with him on issues, I was wanting Bernie to win the nomination; so we'd have a real discussion on issues that have been dividing this country. I think there is something wrong with Biden for all his gaffes, some major ones, and suspect you might get your wish for a female candidate (something I could care less about as I vote issues despite what i said about Bernie just now). So here's my conspiracy theory.

    The powers that be wanted it to be Biden and encouraged Pete and Amy to drop out to make that happen. They know though that Biden is in first stage dementia; and that before the convention, it will be obvious to all Democrats. So what do they do for a nominee? Hand wringing. For a while, they thought it could be Warren but she was disliked in her own state for her nastiness (that is not admired in all Democrats even though many cheer on 'nasty' women).

    Well, wait, to the rescue comes a white horse and who is the rider? None other than Hillary Clinton as after all, she won last time. So they nominate her for a replay of '16. Yeah, it's a conspiracy theory lol but Hillary is out there making herself very visible on every talk show that will have her... Voila, all the sad women have their woman again. Can she beat Trump? Will she go to Wisconsin this time? *s* Well, she'll have more energy than last go round since she didn't have to run in the primaries. Okay, I am a writer and do think of the other side for my books ;) Still, let's see how much Biden's inability to remember things shows up before the convention but after he's gotten rid of Sanders for the Washington power brokers (on both sides of the partisan divide).

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  3. I had a grammar error the first time I posted this and had to delete it as I couldn't stand reading it lol

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  4. Even though I have 3 comments here, I want to add one more. One of the shows I like on Fox is Tucker Carlson as he's not an always Trumper but does bring up a lot of cultural issues from a conservative perspective. I think of his show like Edward R. Murrow from years back. Anyway, he complimented Warren on a book she had written for the value to our culture and said he thought if she had stuck to her original message about jobs and the need for more fairness in the workplace, she'd have stayed a front runner. He blamed her failure on getting caught up in 'wokeness' and how she began to talk about issues like having a 9 year old transgender child have the last word on who got to be Secretary of Education. She also, I guess, began to see racism in everything and pushed it-- losing more voters. He felt her original message, populism, would have kept her as a viable candidate to more voters. I guess we won't know for sure the reason she faded from last fall but it's a possibility. I also don't think she helped herself when she attacked Sanders and Bloomberg-- even though she may have overall cost both of them supporters. Tucker also said she was the smartest of the candidates. I don't know if she will get another shot at running for the Presidency given her age. If she does, she might consider what message she began with when she was considered the front runner.

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    1. You can have as many comments as you care to type. I appreciate another point of view, presented without vitriol.

      She lost me when she couldn’t explain how to pay for her health care plan. She wowed me by her personality and her brain. When she tried to out-Bernie Bernie it just got worse. I have a post for Monday on it.
      a/b

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. I think my last comment was obnoxious, so I deleted it. Anyway....

    Frankly, I have given up on seeing a woman president in my lifetime. The media kept acting as if Warren did not exist. How do you fight against that? Polling data would exclude her. The patriarchy is not going down without a fight.

    I'm surprised people are saying Biden is showing signs of dementia. The man has been gaffe prone forever.

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    1. Dementia or stuttering??? The dementia meme feels like Russian trolling to me. He talks fast and makes mistakes. So do I.
      ab

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  7. I liked your post, but not so much the comments that follow it. I felt misogyny played a strong role in the demise of HRC, and so now I just take it for granted that a woman will not be elected as president in my lifetime. And it's not just the fault of men either. Women vote against women too. I can't really figure it out either, but it makes me sad.

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    1. HRC had baggage but despite that I voted for her as did many other women. She had more votes but didn't listen to the advice to travel to Wisconsin etc. She counted on movie star endorsements which helped with big cities but not rural areas so much. I think the right woman can win but when they carry with them baggage as Warren did with the lies and deceptions, it makes it tougher. Klobuchar had a lot of fans but not enough because she wasn't exciting enough, I guess. It might be the first woman to be president will be a GOPer. How would that work for the left?

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    2. If Condoleeza Rice had run for president, I might have thought hard about her. The chatter about Nikki Haley is interesting too, though I don't like her politics, I do think she's smart.

      I held my nose and voted for HRC, would have voted for Warren because she is smart and has a heart, and liked Klobuchar even though she is boring. But the media does not know how to deal with women.....

      Here's hoping FlapJilly finds this all charmingly antiquated when she's our age.
      ab

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