Where is Lloyd Bentsen when we need him? The distinguished Texas
Democratic Senator, who died two years ago, probably would be rolling
over in his grave to see what’s happening now.
Mary Lyon, From The Left -- World News Trust
Dan Quayle: I have far more experience than many others that sought the
office of vice president of this country. I have as much experience in
the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency. I will
be prepared to deal with the people in the Bush administration, if that
unfortunate event would ever occur.
Judy Woodruff: Senator [Bentsen].
Lloyd Bentsen: Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy: I knew Jack
Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack
Kennedy. --Vice Presidential Debate, October 5, 1988, Omaha Nebraska
Where is Lloyd Bentsen when we need him? The distinguished Texas
Democratic Senator, who died two years ago, probably would be rolling
over in his grave to see what’s happening now. More than actually
rolling over, I imagine he’d be trying to find a way to tunnel himself
out to settle another political-presumption score.
Someone needs to tell Alaska Governor Sarah Palin: we know Hillary
Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a friend of ours. And Governor, you’re no
Hillary Clinton.
John McCain and Sarah Palin both evidently feel that all it takes is
the mere possession of a vagina to win a woman’s vote. Maybe in a few
cases that’s true. But it’s also insulting. I’ve been doing a little
unscientific and highly unofficial polling of my own and finding that
the McCain running-mate strategy may not necessarily be a slam dunk. In
querying my women friends whether around my neighborhood or within my
own “sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits,” and throughout the
blogosphere -- both those whom I know and those I’m reading about whom
somebody else knows, this may not be “Signed, Sealed, and Delivered”
for the GOP.
A majority of the women weighing in with me have ramped up their
overall cynicism about John McCain because of this. They see the choice
of Palin as a bald-faced, even phony, ploy to tempt them by waving the
X chromosome around in front of their faces. Attention all passed-over
Hillar-ites! Candidate with skirt on Aisle One! One size fits all! If
it’s a woman you want, try our model! Yeah. That’s the ticket.
But it isn’t. Women aren’t a homogenous group who all march in
lockstep. And if McCain really thought he was trying to appeal to
Clinton supporters, why would he pick THIS woman – who stands staunchly
against almost everything Clinton has been working for throughout her
life as an activist. There is no blind gender loyalty. We aren’t wooed
just because the prospect wears lipstick and high heels and dangle
earrings and speaks with a voice in the upper registers. It doesn’t
matter what kind of mom she is – hockey, soccer, cookie-baker or not. A
Hillary Clinton voter wants a Hillary Clinton-style candidate with
Hillary Clinton-style priorities. Such a prospect would have to honor
and want to secure a woman’s fundamental right to have the last word
over what happens to her body – particularly in its most intimate
parts. Hillary’s agenda, like ours, features progressive issues like
universal health care, family leave, equal pay for equal work, a solid defense of our delicate ecosystem and all its endangered
creatures, and a determination to look beyond a simplistic knee-jerk
quick-fix like drilling, drilling, and more drilling to solve our
energy crisis. Sarah Palin offers none of this.
It speaks to an innate disrespect and lack of understanding of the
complexity of the sisterhood that John McCain would pick such a woman
as a running mate. It certainly betrays an audacity of conniving to
spring this before the embers of the fireworks at Denver’s Invesco
Field are completely cold. This wasn’t so much an attempt to make
history as to try a schoolyard one-up. It feels as though McCain is far
more concerned about merely stealing Obama’s spotlight and bigfooting
the news cycle than it is about making a genuine leap forward for, and
with, our country. This was sheer shameless pandering for the sake of
pandering itself.
The night before, Obama had tried to make one thing very clear -- that
this election and the momentous longing for change wasn’t about him.
He’d gazed across the stadium and declared that it was about US,
Democrats, Republicans, independents, Americans all. Two nights
previous, Hillary Clinton directly challenged her supporters to ask
themselves if they were in it just for her or for the causes and issues
about which she -- and they too -- care so deeply.
John McCain made it just as clear with his appointment of Sarah Palin
that it’s not about us at all. It’s about him. He’ll give us the female
candidate he wants us to have, not the one we prefer and with whom
we’ve struggled shoulder-to-shoulder. He’ll offer us the unknown novice
with spotty credentials and beauty pageant experience when what really
won our hearts was the woman with years of laboring in many progressive
and liberal vineyards and whose track record of credibility,
authenticity and leadership on these issues has been forged in the
trenches over decades of struggle. Our views and our wishes have
nothing to do with it. He might as well have trotted out Dan Quayle in
a dress. Sarah Palin may presume to climb the ladder that Hillary
Clinton and Geraldine Ferarro built, but she’s not ready to carry their
banner. In many respects, Palin hardly even speaks their language. And
after having the number of encounters with McCain that you can count on the fingers of one hand, it’s questionable whether Palin
speaks McCain’s language fluently, either. Does HE even know what he’s
getting into?
As I study this Republican ticket fully revealed, I can see painfully
well what we women, and we as Americans, will be getting into if the
GOP prevails in November. The John McCain/Sarah Palin world isn’t a
world in which there’s room for someone who thinks and feels as I do. I
don’t care how girlie she is or how many children she’s had or how much
multi-tasking she can do. She might as well be Rudy Giuliani -- or even
George W. Bush -- in drag for all the common ground she shares with a
voter like me, or with the women I know whose loyalty Hillary Clinton
won the hard way. Palin is NO Clinton by even the most generous and
elastic of definitions. If this is John McCain’s version of change, or
a way to underscore the now trite and nearly meaningless label of
“maverick,” it still amounts to little more than meeting the new boss
who’s the same as the old boss. The only difference is -- the new one’s
wearing a skirt.
***
Mary Lyon
is a veteran broadcaster and five-time Golden Mike Award winner, who
has anchored, reported, and written for the Associated Press Radio
Network, NBC Radio "The Source," and many Los Angeles-area stations
including KRTH-FM/AM, KLOS-FM, KFWB-AM, and KTLA-TV, and occasional
media analyst for ABC Radio News. She began her career as a liberal
activist with the Student Coalition for Humphrey/Muskie in 1968, and
helped spearhead a regional campaign, The Power 18," to win the right
to vote for 18-year-olds. She remains an advocate for liberal causes,
responsibility and accountability in media, environmental education and
support of the arts for children, and green living. In addition to
World News Trust, Mary writes for Huffington Post, OpEdNews, Democrats.us, WeDemocrats.org's "We! The People" webzine. Mary is also a parenting
expert, having written and llustrated the book "The Frazzled Working
Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood.