Started in the Bay Area. Been working in PR for 11 years -- enterprise and consumer tech -- and have lived in a rural town in Idaho since 1998. By day I live the scrambled and fast-paced life of a comms consultant with a firm in Silicon Valley. The rest of the time I'm just a flip flop-wearin' wife and mom to two kids in a town where you have to hunt down the rare wireless connection, the only highway is two lanes, and the post office workers know me by name.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Dear Rep Party: You see our lips moving, but do you hear what we're saying?


I’ve been stewing since Friday’s U.S. Republican VP candidate was announced. At first, emotionally, I was just infuriated because it felt like “Hey look, here’s a HRC replacement for you women out there” and Palin is no HRC. And now I’ve read all the rationales around why McCain opted to move forward with Palin, but I’m still stuck in place, processing my initial gut reactions.

Despite all the other reasons that may or not be obvious, three days later his choice still feels insulting – not because I believe the Republicans think women in general are “stupid” or that we’re blind enough to vote by chromosome only, as some have lamented. I get that the R party needed someone to woo back those on the far right and that there was a "marketing opportunity" to seize with HRC out of the '08 race.

What is so infuriating to me is the feeling that they are using Palin to reach out to HRC "fans" but obviously weren’t listening to WHAT women wanted and saw in HRC that inspired them. The Republican party just seemed to react to the fact that women were talking, and talking LOUD.

I’m still processing the information disseminating from both camps daily, but I already know that I won’t be voting for the McCain/Palin ticket. I knew that before Palin joined the camp, but now I am actually a bit frightened about what our family, and my daughter specifically, may face in the years to come if McCain is elected with Palin by his side. We're basically opposites when it comes to ideology.

Don’t get me wrong… as a woman, I respect what Palin has done in her career and obviously there's a number of people that support her in Alaska, but I don’t want the career she's built based on the foundation of her personal convictions affecting mine. And that's my choice.

However, to reiterate my main frustration at the Republican party again… they just don’t seem to get that “a woman” isn’t what women are looking for, especially not disaffected HRC supporters. Many of us are looking for an EXCEPTIONAL woman that believes in family and women’s rights – in the workplace and out.

1 comment:

Donna said...

Barack said last thursday night "..it isn't that John McCain doesn't care, it's that he doesn't get it." I think in this case, it's the opposite, "He doesn't care."