Thursday, October 02, 2008

I'm with Gigglechick - an undecided voter

The one blog I read on a regular basis, http://www.gigglechick.com/erin/blog/index.htm, is a personal blog of a woman my age who lives in NJ. She lives with/takes care of her chronically ill mother while also trying to work at home, doing web design for comedians (hence the "giggle" part of her blog's name). She has a pretty interesting and social life, and every day struggles that she is brave enough to post out there for all to see. So maybe I am nosy, bored, or I'm just trying to live vicariously through her single life, I don't know.

Anyway, as I fell asleep last night I thought I had mostly made up my mind about who to vote for. But there are definitely limitations on each of the candidates and what they will actually be able to accomplish in Washington, and I'm not sure I agree on their stands on several issues. (I guess that is how most of the Presidential elections have gone the past few years -- vote the lesser of the two evils and hope for the best.)

So I thought I would check in with the Giggle blog today and see where she stood on this. She's been a pretty fervent Hillary supporter, and I decided a while back that I would just agree to disagree with her politics... up to this point. Surprisingly, today Giggle says this on her blog, and I am in complete agreement:

"I hope that Palin does well tonight, not because I am rooting for her, but, because if she looks like a complete moron and gets devoured by Biden tonight, it just sets women back. I am a woman without a party at the moment."

Palin seems to me, and has from her introduction to the election campaign, a loose cannon. She doesn't know what she doesn't know and that is a dangerous place to be in for a second-in-command political candidate. She can prep all she wants for this debate tonight, but until I hear her respond to a question with a straight answer, and I can tell it's coming from her and not some talking point she memorized, I just can't be impressed. I saw a few minutes of one of her interviews with Katie Couric last night. When Katie asked her to give some examples of Supreme Court decisions besides Roe v. Wade that she disagreed with, her eyes literally GLAZED OVER and you could tell she had no idea what to say. Then her response was some non-answer about how not all the decisions of the Supreme Court are going to be popular with everyone... no shit.

I just hope tonight that she uses her charm and wit and smile as a backdrop for a showcase of some real knowledge and analysis of issues; in other words, I hope she speaks intelligently. Not that that alone would convince me to vote for her ticket. I'd also have to hear some concrete plans on how her administration could get our domestic problems taken care of, and not just in the short-term. I want her to do well tonight because I don't want our gender to be embarrassed. We have finally made some headway as professional women in this country and I hope she doesn't send us back 30 years by talking like a moron in front of 70 million people.

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