The emanation of all this backlash misogyny is not just a bi-coastal phenomenon, either. I think Margaret Mead was actually onto something rather large when she noted differences between people who grow up in large cities vs people who come from rural backgrounds. I mean no disrespect to people who come from urban backgrounds, but I have seen what she’s talking about in real life when it comes to the tendency of people who’ve grown up in large cities to basically go along to get along. It’s probably a matter of survival in large cities to not piss off the wrong people who happen to live cheek by jowl with you, and it comes to be a way of life. I think Mead’s major contention was that people who grow up in the country have the space and time to find out their true character, who they really are at a young age, precisely because they have more personal freedom to go about this journey. I think it was Patsy Mink who made the observation that one of the reasons why she was always going against the flow was because she had developed an independent spirit roaming around the Hawaiian countryside as a girl, and there was nothing and no one who could ever take that away from her. I see that same thing in Sarah Palin, I think she’s a born contrarian; it was perfect that she ran as a maverick, although I don’t believe McCain’s half the maverick she is. Contrast this with Obama, who would do just about anything to curry favor with anyone who could help his career along. I haven’t read his first autobiography, but the snippets I read from Audacity of Hope suggest someone who’s always looking to win over, by any means necessary, someone who is fundamentally opposed to him. Where I come from, there’s a term for this type of person – a bs artist.

Judging by who got the tingles from the hope and change roadshow, the people in fly-over country have very keen bs detectors, having remained almost entirely tingle-free. I may quibble with their definitions of socialism and forget my manners when they start talking about casting demons out of engine blocks and the such, but I’m sticking with my fellow fly-over country people when it comes to basic judgements about who’s full of it. I also notice, having grown up around women who literally have done and continue to do everything, many of the men in fly-over country don’t feel intimidated by women like Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin. It’s interesting, to say the least. The boys on the tv trash-talking all the female politicians probably didn’t get out of the house much when they were young, by the looks of them.

Why don’t you give me your e-mail address and I’ll contact you?

May I ask why we should take our discussion about Perry off blog? I’ve always thought that public debate is healthy and opens the door to new ideas and perceptions to be out there for consideration and thought.

And Kay is going to lose because of the lie people. She voted with Mr. Obama and she lied to Texas, and in this economy with the nonsense and evil going on in Washington, I am sorry but voters are not going to forget those two things. Unfortunately, I think she sealed her own fate.

Take any woman in Texas, show me she has common sense and is honest, and I would cast my vote for HER for gov in a heartbeat. I am a firm believer that most women do it better, but most does not mean all. There are plenty of women that are as bad or worse than most men and I am not voting for them just because they are women.

Call me the enemy, but I don’t think I am. I just want good people to be in charge.

I’ve watched with great interest, New Agenda’s efforts to get the 30% solution off the ground. It’s about the only thing that hasn’t been tried to get our very unbalanced world back into some semblance of balance, and therefore, good working order. Unfortunately, the maiden voyage was Coakley’s run in MA and we all know how that turned out, a very inauspicious beginning to say the least. There are some lessons to be learned there, one of which is that women who run as dems in the age of Obama have a serious handicap to overcome. The Send a Message crowd won out, but the real message has become muddled, as it always is, by the powers that be. The real message is that Obama and his policies are highly unpopular, left right and center, and anyone who is seen as going along with him will more than likely go down in flames. If that person is a dem woman, there are the extra obstacles afforded by sexism and being starved of the all-important campaign $ by the party if you try to run against the Obama millstone. This pains me as a long-time former dem-voting woman who wants to see progressive women voted into office. If I was in MA, I would’ve voted for Coakley in a flat second. I’m in NM and will hopefully be able to cast a vote for our first female governor, Diane Denish. I grew up in MO and will support, however I can, the candidacy of Robin Carnahan for Roy Blunt’s Senate seat. If I was in Texas, there’d be no doubt in my mind about voting for KBH, it’d be a done deal. In 2012, if Palin makes it past the GOP version of the good ol’ boys gauntlet, and the dems don’t have the sense to change horses, I’ll probably be casting my first vote for a woman for POTUS, unless there’s some insurgent third party running a better woman for president.

To a person mired down in the old partisan way of thinking, either of which is poisoned by the patriarchy, my votes and support probably seem to be all over the place, but they are decidedly not. They are all of piece, all anti-establishment, all pro-women, all solution-oriented instead of repeating the old insanity of voting for men, hoping against all well-established evidence that they can overcome their conditioning and represent all people, not just men. In 5000 years, men haven’t seen fit to recognize women as fellow people and represent their interests when they’ve had the chance, and I predict this year will be no different, no matter how many men women decide are the ‘better candidate’.

I’ve heard that 30% of the Senate seats are up for grabs this year, and plenty of women are running for them. If we could elect women running for all those seats and add them to the incumbent women in the Senate, we could see whether 30% is the tipping point by the end of this year, with our own eyes. People don’t want change they can believe in, they want change they can actually see. Seeing is believing, no? So let’s just see whether this 30% thing is real change or not. The catch is, though, that women have to stop being divided, conquered, and suckered into voting for men when there are perfectly good women running. We should know by now where the highway goes on that one, a place where the blogger boy for Guvnor Good Hair no doubt feels very comfortable.