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I don't want a woman claiming to represent me but really representing Wall Street, the Banksters and the War Profiteers, as the first woman president. It would be so demoralizing.
I remember the vice presidential debate between Bush I and Geraldine Ferraro, back in the day. She was trying to prove what a "big boy" she was and traded quips with that evil fatcat about whose personal stockbroker was better. It couldn't have been more clear that she did NOT represent me; she represented a new class of up and coming women professionals who wanted to become as rich as Bush I, and wanted to be accepted by the billionaire class, and was tone deaf to the needs of most people.
I remember being so excited to view that debate, and had to go out of my way to see it. (I didn't have TV at the time.) First woman to run for VP! An historic moment! I left the motel where I'd rented a room to see that debate feeling disgusted. I felt that nobody represents me. If this is what privileged women were going to do with their power--suck up to people like Bush I--I could understand it, in a way, but it left me, and most women, and most Americans, out.
I voted for her, of course, and for our presidential candidate, Walter Mondale (running against Reagan-Bush in 1984). Lifelong Democrat here. FIFTY YEARS as a Democratic Party voter. Mondale-Ferraro, and the Dem Party platform, were still miles above Reagan-Bush and the Puke platform, as to fairness, justice, equality, civil rights, workers' rights and other vital issues. But I felt it was a turning point within the Democratic Party toward Reaganism (the rich get richer, the poor get screwed) and that the social justice of women being able to run for, and get elected to, high office, was in some way being TRADED for economic justice for the majority.
GOD KNOWS Mondale-Ferraro would have been far better than Reagan-Bush. For one thing, Mondale was a true liberal populist (much like Hubert Humphrey). And the devastation that was inflicted on our democracy and on the poor majority during the Reagan junta was enormous and is still with us, and has only gotten worse.
But our first woman VP candidate trading quips about who has the best stockbroker was an alert--a little alarm going off as to deeper problems developing within the Democratic Party leadership.
The newly empowered Reagan Media (end of the "Fairness Doctrine"
sank Ferraro's career (and that ticket) allegedly partly because of financial shenanigans of Ferraro and her husband (petty shit compared to today). (Ring any bells?) (And the media is much worse today.)
It's not that that new class of woman professionals don't need, and have a right to, representation in the halls of power, as well as a right as citizens to participate in our national political life--and also, have a NEED to BE professional--to be smart, to be well educated, to look professional, to have some financial security--in order to function in those "corridors." I know damn well that they do. It is not easy, even now, being a woman who achieves and exercises power. I've given Hillary Clinton every benefit of the doubt because of this--because of the personal stories I know, among family and friends, of how difficult it is for women to succeed in this way, even now.
But I DON'T WANT another "Geraldine Ferraro" to be our first woman president--a woman who sacrifices the poor majority, and the basic principle of the Democratic Party, in order to "play with the big boys."
I'll wait for Elizabeth Warren! And it may not be such a long wait, if Sanders chooses her, and she agrees to be, his VP partner (she will surely succeed him), OR (and you heard it here first) in the event that the Democratic Convention gets deadlocked and a "brokered convention" needs a compromise candidate, to keep the Sanders vs. Clinton split from destroying the Party. What a brilliant compromise candidate Elizabeth Warren would be!
Meanwhile, FEEL THE BERNE! First serious, viable candidate in many decades who speaks for me and my fellow and sister 99%! 30+ years of strenuous efforts on our behalf, including strenuous advocacy on all feminist issues. So incredibly inspiring. So incredibly strong. So incredibly clear. He is absolutely the best candidate for most women, and for most Americans. He is the "new FDR" that we have been hoping and praying for! And he is calling on US--imagine!--calling on us to make it happen. Let's make it happen!
