05 February, 2008

SuperDooperPooperFat Tuesday 

Up until the moment I sat down in the polling cubicle, I had not decided which of the candidates would get my vote. I momentarily considered getting a Republican ballot just to fux with them, but I took the NP Democrat one instead because this election year IS THAT IMPORTANT. My candidate, up until last week, was John Edwards: I nearly filled in the line next to his name, just on principal.

In the end, I tossed my Mardi Gras beads to Hillary Clinton. It was NOT a vote against Barack Obama: Come November, I will vote for either one of them. It came down to Clinton's experience, as a statesman and as a working woman. She has had every misogynistic epithet thrown at her, she has (as most women do) worked twice has hard--or more--to get the same recognition as her male counterparts. She has been ripped apart and her every action second-guessed and scrutinized in ways that her male counterparts could never imagine. People find reasons to hate her, no matter what she does. She's too cold. She's too emotional. Blah Blah Blahbitty-freakin' Blah. And it's not bad enough that she's faced this from the Right Wing; she's had to face it from people who call themselves Liberals for whom it's not enough to disagree with her policies, they have to disagree in the most disparaging, deeply misogynistic way. I'm deeply ashamed to admit I've participated in that myself, up until I listened to the words I was saying and didn't like what I heard. (The Left Coaster has taken on the disheartening task of listing the ways that institutionalized misogyny is alive in well, not just in the mainstream media but in much of the progressive blogosphere as well. h/t to quixote at Shakesville) Don't get me wrong, the Clinton campaign has let loose some amazingly cringe-worthy racist comments. But Barack Obama hasn't been picked apart simply for being black in the way that Hillary Clinton has simply because she's a woman. And after all of that, Hillary Clinton is still standing. John Kerry couldn't even survive the Attack of the Swift Boaters. That says a lot.

Anyway, I'm really not here to rant. The thing is, I could just as easily have voted for Barack Obama tonight and I'm very happy for my friends who did vote for him. He is an incredibly dynamic man and his candidacy, along with Clinton's, has breathed life into a Democratic Party that has largely been DOA. This is history being made, people! We have the first woman candidate for president competing with the first African American candidate for president! It's amazing and it's exciting and it's wonderful and, at last, I can look toward November with a feeling of hope instead of a feeling of dread.

edit to add: Oh, man, this sucks. LA County is huge. Too huge to not have their shit together on this so that poll workers and voters are properly informed on voting procedure. As a Decline to State voter, I had no problem at all tonight at my polling place.

'nuther edit: Yes, I know that the GOP, in their paranoid state, made it so that you must be registered GOP to vote on the Republican ballot. Honestly? The idea of getting a Republican ballot to fux with them was a fleeting gleefully evil thought. To be sure, I'd set fire to my ballot before I'd waste it voting for one of those candidates.

Labels: politics, Why it is

   ~~ victoria on 8:27 PM ~~    1 comments

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