DUMMERSTON, Vt. - I'll admit it. I'm still trying to get my bearings after seeing the Democrats prevail in last week's mid-term elections.
Sure, record numbers of people showed up to vote and it was a tremendous thing to see. We can only hope that the energy and desire for change that drove so many to vote last week doesn't fade now that the election is over.
The Democrats now have a solid majority in the U.S. House and a plurality in the U.S. Senate. But the victory is tempered by the reality that the Patriot Act - with all of its unconstitutional intrusions upon our privacy and its unprecedented shift of power from the courts and Congress to the executive branch - remains intact.
The recently passed Military Commissions Act - which effectively repealed habeas corpus and most of the Bill of Rights while giving the president the power to summarily arrest and indefinitely detain any American - remains intact.
There is not a veto-proof majority in either house and President Bush will continue to use his "signing statements" to disregard any law that Congress passes that Bush disagrees with.
In short, the Democrats are still up against a president that has near-dictatorial powers, including a little-noticed provision approved last month that give the president the power to declare martial law on his own, without consulting anyone.
There remains much to be done in Washington, and complacency is not an option. Last week's victories are merely the continuation of a long and hard struggle to retake our democracy and reclaim the rule of law.
But there is one welcome development worth noting - the great success of women running for elective office this year and perhaps the death of an old stereotype in American politics.
Republicans are supposed to be "the daddy party," strong on national security and fiscal responsibility. The Democrats are supposed to be the "mommies," squishy on national security but strong on health care and education.
The stereotype, however, no longer holds. Not after we've watched the Bush administration trying to be "strong" while making a mess of things in Iraq and running up the highest budget deficits in history.
There is no doubt that this was a great year for women in politics. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is about to become the first female speaker of the U.S. House. There will be 16 women in the U.S. Senate next year, a record number.
My adopted home state, Vermont, is no stranger to woman-power. It has among the highest percentage of elected female officials in the country, with 60 women in the House and Senate going into this year's elections.
Does it make a difference? In 2002, the Institute for Women's Policy Research looked at the link between the number of women in elected office and the legislation they enact. They found on the state level that the more women there are in elected office, the more woman-friendly legislation gets enacted. Vermont was ranked second behind Hawaii as the best in this area. The worst three? Tennessee, Mississippi and Idaho.
But it's not only so-called women's issues that helped a large number of female candidates win office this year. In an election where voters wanted change, women got support because they represented a departure from business as usual. The taint of corruption and incompetence did not hang over most of the women who ran for office this year.
Support for female candidates has increased dramatically over the past decade. Unfortunately, it is also true that in politics, as in almost any other endeavor, women are judged by a higher standard and have more unreasonable expectations placed upon them. There have been more than a few empty suits who have run for political office, but very few women get a chance to run unless they have solid credentials.
Republican Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, who ran for governor in Massachusetts, was a good example. She was smart and hard-working, but she had more money than accomplishment in her personal background. She was perceived as a lightweight by the voters, and she was trounced by Democratic candidate Deval Patrick.
Randolph T. Holhut has been a journalist in New England for more than 25 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade Books). He can be reached at randyholhut@yahoo.com.
I think that sometimes we kinda follow the very forces we despise: the media wallops about the women power, women-candidates, women commanders and women- in- charge and we follow that forgetting that it is the same media which will feed us anything and so far had fed a lot of lies. That is not to denigrate women in any way. I do think that women are exactly the same as men professionaly and that they deserve and should run for anything they want. I do believe actually that women- politicians should be most welcome everywhere. But ultimately we are seeking not a woman or a man but a statesperson, a winner, a committed individual who is a professional politician with Vision and Conscience. Neither Pelosi nor Hillary Clinton are like that. Not even close.
And to tell the truth the politician should not think what is good for women or men. He/she should think what is good for the people. One of the problems we have now is that we put women vs men again and again and again. While in reality there is no contradiction and that battle of the sexes is artificially inflamed. In reality there is a battle for the family, for the ties, for sustenance, for bread, for health, for clean water, for happiness, damn it, for all what is real. And that is what we want to hear from the politicians and we do not hear that, whether it is a woman or a man. That is so far.
by
Mark Sashine (50 articles, 19 quicklinks, 244 diaries, 3453 comments)
on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 3:04:23 PM
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