Well, this mid-term election season is turning out to be another lukewarm exercise in democracy. The big money is on the pols that work for big money. Here in South Carolina, most of us don't even know who is running against Tim Scott. In fact, I just googled "Tim Scott opponent" and the first six hits were about the primary; number seven finally mentions Joyce Dickerson, but it is a summary of the upcoming primary, and only lists Dickerson with the other Democratic primary candidates.
Tim Scott was appointed by Nikki Haley, herself a proud cheerleader for the moneyed and powerful. Scott was sure to follow quietly in the footsteps of Jim DeMint, who presided in the Senate as the king of negative and stupid for eight years. Apparently DeMint couldn't handle the mockery and the limited financial reward of being a bought senator, so he bailed to the Heritage Institute, belying its identity as a "think tank." At Heritage, DeMint can hide behind his title, needs not speak to non-believers, and doesn't have to pretend not to be bought. No doubt, Scott would like to continue to follow the path of DeMint, and I will not be surprised when he resigns to be a wealthy right-wing figurehead with government connections.
With all the money flowing to Scott, it took a great deal of courage for someone to step up to oppose him, and Joyce Dickerson appears to have that courage. She has actually spoken out against anti-abortion legislation, stating unequivocally that the government does not have the right to step in to determine a woman's reproductive decisions. She will fight for veterans, unlike Scott, who never fails to send out flowery emails on military holidays and then votes against every bill that would improve the life of those veterans he claims to revere. She is not afraid to fight for immigrants or for the poor, in other words, those of us who will not make her rich but deserve a better life.
Joyce understands that big money has corrupted our system of government. The unfortunate irony is that that big money controls our elections, so that candidates like Dickerson have to fight to be heard, and are overshadowed by the millions of dollars going into keeping Tim Scott in Congress, where he will turn that investment into bigger bucks for his true constituent, big business.
It feels hopeless. But Joyce Dickerson has taken the challenge. So we need to do what we can to spread the word. We need to let people know that she is running against someone who has consistently voted against the people of South Carolina. Her web page includes Scott's voting record, which provides undeniable proof of who he is working for. Don't be afraid to ask friends and family if they know who is running against Scott, and then tell them a little about our -- the people's -- candidate.
Share information, her website, this blog, any other information you might have, on Facebook and Twitter, because that is the low-budget way to get out the word. And it does work. But it takes work.
Let's all do an experiment.
Tell us about your childhood. Were your parents around often enough? Too often? And when you were a teenager, did you have a lot of friends? Did you follow the rules? Were your mom and dad too strict? Now tell us about dating -- how many partners? How serious? Did you "fool around?" When you got married, whose idea was it? Who was in charge? Who paid the bills? Who made decisions about the kids?
Now part two of this experiment is to find a bunch of snoopy journalists with nothing better to do. They will take way too much time to contact everyone you knew way back when and compare notes. Then, when they find inaccuracies, for example, about how many partners you had, they will publish it. And then there will be lots of debate and accusations about whether you are a liar.
This is the boilerplate for women who run for office.
Wendy Davis, who has been unassailable in what she has accomplished as a state senator, now has to quibble about how often she saw her daughters when they were in Texas and she was at Harvard, and whether her husband paid for her education.
I could swear that when I moved away from my home state at age 26 I drove the eight hours to visit my parents every two months. But I'll bet someone out there can prove me wrong. And just ask my kids if I was around enough when they were growing up.
But this nonsense doesn't happen when it's a man running for office. Rand Paul, not a brilliant or motivated student, was a prankster who abducted a woman because he and his buddies thought it would be a riot. Yet last week he went after Hillary for Bill Clinton's misbehavior with women. He never had to mention Hillary, just had to say that a candidate who took money from Bill was against women. How twisted is that???
What is amazing is just how much play the debate over Wendy Davis' history has gotten. Really??? Do we really have nothing better to do than research how many weeks Davis lived in a trailer park? Or whether she herself earned the paycheck that paid the Harvard tuition versus was married and had joint funds that paid for her education while she -- imagine this -- commuted from her Texas family to Boston and did the work of getting a law degree from Harvard. Those of us who have also done this, and even those of us who have not, understand that all that time she was hanging out with friends in Boston was not spent planning pranks.
Wonder why we aren't hearing from the media about the issues? I for one am tired of women being subjected to family values critiques from the media, and from voters being quite happy ringing in on women candidates' personal decisions.
Now I don't know if Greg Abbott, Wendy's opponent for governor of Texas, is even married, what kind of husband or father he might be, because, after all, he is a man and nobody in the media has thought it relevant. We do know, however, that he is wheelchair bound. This happened when a tree fell on him as he was jogging some thirty years ago. Now this in itself is not a character or political issue. What is relevant however, is that, although Abbott has benefited from Americans with Disabilities Act laws that require ramps and other means of accessibility, he has as Texas attorney general, repeatedly blocked handicapped people from suing the state for violations of the ADA.
Wendy will no doubt bring this up, because it is an important aspect of Abbott's political philosophy and how he would implement his beliefs as governor. The question is, will the media pursue issues like this anywhere near as passionately and persistently as they have explored Wendy Davis' parenting decisions and ability?
It depends, in large part, on whether we citizens will continue to allow these distractions to occur. It is up to us to force the candidates to address the issues that will determine their paths in office, and force the media to report on those stances. Until we do, the messages of good women like Wendy Davis will be suppressed, and we will be stuck with yet another election cycle dominated by gossip and irrelevance.
I was pleasantly surprised when I learned about Gina Raimondo, who is running for Governor in my home state of Rhode Island. She's smart, innovative, and compassionate. She understands just how Rhode Island has been hit by this tough economy and as treasurer, she knew just what needed to be done to fix it. She has also served the community, on boards that work to fund homeless shelters for women and other non-profits.
So it comes as no surprise that she is popular. And also that her opponents are taking potshots at her.
Yesterday I learned of a smear campaign, both ridiculous and ugly, that had been making its way around You Tube, brought to you by your friends at the gun lobby, comparing Raimondo to Hitler because of her strong position for gun control.
And today the big buzz is about millionaires who live out of state and have contributed to Gina's campaign. Not just any out-of-stater, but an "ex-Enron trader."
What we have going on in the country is a situation where the Supreme Court has given the nod-and-a-wink to big money to speak in campaigns. The purpose of that big money is to keep the status quo -- the wealthy and powerful -- in power. When someone comes in who is not going to play that game, she's not supposed to get that big money. And when she does, those hypocrites swoop down for the attack.
Since we're talking Rhode Island and not South Carolina, it looks like the candidates are all willing to agree to limit the amount of out-of-state money. And since we're talking Rhode Island, there's a pretty good chance the people will have their say and Gina Raimondo will get elected.
But meanwhile, I'm just going to wait and see what they come up with next.
You may not be surprised to hear that the mud is already flying down in Texas, and being directed at Wendy Davis.
We can thank our media for being watchdogs of every little scrap of meat, stinking or otherwise, that campaigns toss at them. In fact, the stinkier the better. In this case, Politico ran a story about all the holes in Wendy Davis' biographical narrative, wherein the burning questions were whether she left her husband at 19 or 21 and that she got financial help getting through Harvard from her second husband.
Frankly, I expected better of Politico. You don't have to sniff too closely to learn that the article was actually written by conservative Rich Lowry of the National Review. Wendy's campaign fought back with the facts, and the critical assertion that trying to find dirt is what a campaign will do when it can't attack on the issues.
This nonsense reminds me of another campaign that fought successfully against the attempt to divert attention from issues to petty, irrelevant, and fallacious details. I'm thinking about Elizabeth Warren, and Scott Brown's silly insistence on spending time talking about whether Warren ever claimed to be American Indian.
In both cases, on one side, we have really smart and gutsy women who know the issues, and know what's wrong and what needs to be done. They are unafraid to stand up for what's right, and they know how to talk to the American people. It terrifies their opponents.
Mitch McConnell is a typical bully -- mean spirited and whiny. Last year his attacks on his presumed opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, came early and ugly. McConnell is finding out that Grimes is unafraid to stand up to his nonsense. He's also going to find out that the voters have had it with those games.
Just as Elizabeth Warren took the Senate seat from Scott Brown, Wendy Davis is going to win the governorship of Texas from her opponent, Greg Abbott, and Alison Lundergan Grimes will take on and beat McConnell.
As the season progresses, we voters need to look beneath the headlines, ask the right questions, confront the lies and keep returning to the real issues.
Myself, I'm looking forward to some smart tough women here in South Carolina to take on those bullies, the ones who won't spend a penny to provide health care to an infant but bleat about the need to control women in order to save a fetus. I know those women are out there.
You know who you are.
