Sexism, Protest Voting & The Election

A few days ago Larry King was doing a show on the efforts of Hillary Clinton to get her voters, particularly women, enthusiastic about Barack Obama. He had several women panelists, all but one of which thought that Hillary's female base would follow her lead to Barack, as both he and Hillary have basically the same positions on the issues.

However, one woman, the leader of a woman's group dedicated to combat sexism, who claims to represent a couple million women, said they she was going to vote for John McCain because "the Democrats should not be rewarded" for not speaking up against the sexism which the media and Obama surrogates had injected into the campaign. At the same time she professed to be pro-abortion rights, anti-war, pro universal health care, but she was hell-bent on punishing the Democratic Party.

Her attitude really drove me nuts! Every other woman on the panel agreed with her on pervasive sexism in the campaign, but none of them expressed agreement with her that the presence of that sexism was a legitimate reason for women to abandon the Democratic Party. Certainly Barack Obama is not a sexist. He is married to a professional person as accomplished and as intelligent as himself. Strangely, this same woman dismissed the abortion issue by saying that women should not tie their votes to this one issue, yet she is voting for McCain based on one issue and is abandoning her party's candidate who is clearly not a sexist! She doesn't seem to understand that the only reason that there was no sexism in the Republican Primary is that no woman was running. Now she sees logic in penalizing the party the produced a female candidate who came within a hair of winning and who was supported by millions of men!

I have no problem with women or men who vote for McCain because they agree with his political philosophy and value his leadership. That is the basis upon which one should support a candidate. Protest votes leave me cold. It was the protest vote for Ralph Nader that killed Al Gore. If Nader had not received 95,000 votes in Florida, Gore would have been elected. We would not be In Iraq. 4000 fine patriotic young Americans would still be alive and thousands more would still have their limbs. It is even conceivable that 9/11 would not have happened! Certainly Roberts and Alioto would not be on the Supreme Court and we would not be the world's leading debtor nation!

Correction

I'm so embarrassed!! My first article contained a significant historical error. The 55 mph national speed limit was enacted in the Nixon Administration in 1974, not the Carter Administration. It continued through the Carter, Ford, and most of the Reagan Administrations until it was increased to 65 mph, first to interstate highways in 1987, and then to most state highways in 1988. A national speed limit was abandoned by Congress in 1995.

The Gasoline Price Crises

Gasoline here in Northern California is over $4.50 per gallon! There is no end in sight and not a lot that we can do about it in the short term. While everybody wants to blame the oil companies and the speculators (and they are both partly to blame), the truth of the matter is that China and India with their expanding economies are now competing with us for supply and they have vastly more people than the U.S. to fuel that demand. Both McCain and Obama are proposing long term solutions and we can certainly debate their conflicting remedies. However, what bugs me is that neither are suggesting a short term action that would immediately reduce every citizens' gasoline costs and would also lead to at least a modest decrease in prices.

That is to LOWER THE SPEED LIMIT TO 55 M.P.H.!! If it was appropriate in the 70's to deal with gasoline scarcity, why not now, to deal with the high cost of gasoline? It would cut gasoline consumption by at least 10%, which would in effect drop half a buck off of the price of a gallon of gas immediately. It would also decrease demand, which would eventually bring the price down even more.

I am against simply encouraging Americans to drive slower because it is unsafe to have half of the drivers traveling at 55 and the rest at 70.

So, why is it it that neither presidential candidate is suggesting this. The answer is sad, but simple. They are afraid of catching Jimmy Carteritis. You see, Jimmy was not re-elected, so anything that reminds us of him is something these guys want to avoid.

It is very disappointing to me that the "straight talk express" and the guy who has pledged to us that he will be a "new" politician who will tells us "what we need to hear, not what we would like to hear" are not ready to ask us to make even a small sacrifice to deal with this crises. They would rather talk about the things like off shore drilling, a gas tax holiday, a second stimulus check from the IRS, or an excess profits tax. These all may be measures worth considering, but how about first having the American people make a little sacrifice?

I think that the American people are hungry for a leader who will talk straight and ask them to make sacrifices for the common good. Both of these guys talk a good game in generalities, but will either of them step up to the plate.

Just one more thing on this subject. I have heard from two different sources, the last being Senator Joe Biden on last Sunday's "Meet The Press" that our oil companies currently own 4000 oil leases on land that has been demonstrated to have oil, including off shore leases, that they are not drilling. Don't you think that Congress should be asking the oil companies to explain themselves? There might be a good explanation for this, but it a pertinent question to be answered under the current circumstances.

Well, that's a lot of writing for a first attempt. I don't know how regularly I will be logging in, but it will be at least once a week, and hopefully more, especially if you folks will dialogue with me.

Hello

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