Current Affairs – Page 23 – Don't Gel Too Soon

TINA FEY, SARAH PALIN, HOME PERMANENTS, AND THE VICE-PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

When I was a kid there was a thing called a "home permanent*." It was a hair treatment that made your hair curly (horrifying to girls like me who ironed their hair and wrapped it around orange juice can sized rollers [or real orange juice cans] to keep it straight.) One of the most visible products was called Toni Home Permanents and its ad campaign was at least as popular as a great Saturday Night Live catch phrase.

Yup. It asked "Which twin has the Toni?" That’s a photo of the print version on the left. The idea was that one twin had a fancy salon permanent and one curled hers at home with Toni, but you couldn’t tell the difference. Of course, any kid who ever had a sleepover at the home of a friend who’d just done a "home permanent" knows that the chemical smell was gross (and if I remember correctly you couldn’t wash you hair for a couple of days) and their hair was often substantially more dry and brittle than the "salon permanent" girls’. In fact, there was a difference.

Every time I see Tina Fey being Sarah Palin I’m reminded of that. The McCain-Palin campaign is asking us to believe that when you spend upscale salon money it’s mostly for snob appeal, because all you need is a Toni and your bathroom sink, and you’re just as gorgeous. In this context though, the comparison is different — and ironic. If you saw Chevy Chase being Gerald Ford or Phil Hartman as Ronald Reagan or Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton, the impressions were great, but you always knew that the real guy was smarter, and more serious, than the comedian. No trouble knowing which "twin" was which. But with Tina and Sarah, it’s reversed. The brains, and the class, go to the comic, not the politician. The girlfriend of a young friend, asked if she was jealous about another woman in his circle, responded that she’d only worry "if he was hanging around with Tina Fey." Her intelligence, class and charm are that attractive. It’s pretty clear that she’s smarter and probably knows more about what’s going on in the world than The Candidate and, for many of us, appears better equipped to serve as Vice President. Many conservative pundits seem to agree. And many Alaskans. And liberals. Several posts, and tweets, from strong progressives, have described a "cringing" sense of discomfort when watching her stumble.

So what thoughts, and emotions, do we bring to this spectacle tonight? What do we, who support her opponents, consider as we watch alone, or with like-minded friends at debate-parties or with tweeters on #Debate08? From here, it’s complicated. Angry at her searing convention speech, but sad to see her stumble so pitifully in the Couric interview; fearful of what could happen if she and McCain win, furious that she’s trying to stall the Alaska report about her alleged abuses of power, and, in my case at least, completely detached from the fact that this woefully inadequate candidate happens to be female, we hope the battle is fought on competence and capacity, not gender and one-liners. Mostly, we’re aware that the copy is far superior to the original, and that the smart, attractive version of the candidate isn’t the one who’s going to be there tonight.

*I just looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently there still are things called home permanents but who uses them?? No clue.

OBAMA AND RACE: THE LESSONS OF DINKINS AND BRADLEY

I lived in Manhattan in 1989 when David Dinkins ran to become the first African-American mayor of New York, challenging an entrenched but increasingly unpopular Ed Koch in the primary, then defeating Rudy Giuliani in the general election. In that race, Dinkins was far ahead in the polls but didn’t win by much. Here’s how Adam Berinsky of The Monkey Cage describes it:

I
examined data from a 1989 New York City Mayoral election. There, the black
candidate David Dinkins held a fourteen- to eighteen-point advantage over his
white opponent Rudolph Giuliani in polls taken only days before the election,
but ended up winning the race by less than two percentage points. Correcting
the polls using statistical techniques that accounted for the “don’t know”
improved the predictive power of those polls. Clearly, some people who said
they didn’t know how they were going to vote in fact did know – they just
didn’t want to tell us.

The same thing happened earlier, in 1982, to one of LA’s most popular, and first black, mayors, Tom Bradley, when he ran for governor of California. The gap between the polls and the electoral results was so large that the phenomenon was named "the Bradley effect." Way ahead in polls right up to election day, Bradley lost decisively to George Deukmejian.

I’m so afraid that this presidential race may be tainted by some of the same behavior. Of course I’m not covering new ground, just aggregating some good thoughts. Listen to the work of the very wise Jill Miller Zimon at Writes Like She Talks, in which she quotes Tim Wise’s "This Is Your Nation on White Privilege." The fact that that post generated some very heated comments speaks to the currency of this issue, right now.

Continue reading OBAMA AND RACE: THE LESSONS OF DINKINS AND BRADLEY

C-SPAN HOSTS CAMPAIGN DEBATE, TWITTER/BLOG “TIME CAPSULE”

If you were watching C-SPAN at all during the conventions you probably remember the reports from Leslie Bradshaw, who was one of the senior editors of the "Convention Hub," which ran tons of blog posts and tweets and sorted wheat from chaff. It also let you pull video from C-SPAN archives to insert into blog posts. Now, Leslie tells me (full disclosure, she is my friend) that they are doing the same for each debate- four sites in all. They announced the plan on C-SPAN on Friday but I was unable to post about it until now.

Given the live-blogging madness that has overtaken all of us during big speeches, and the high interest the debates are certain to generate – this seems to me a good thing. So I’m passing the word to you. Here are the main points (Oh and that’s Leslie next to Susan Swain on C-Span during the conventions):

1. The four sites will launch later this week.
2. Each website will be a "time capsule" complete with blog posts, tweets, transcripts and video from each debate.
3. They will also tracking twitter posts with: #debate08, Palin, McCain, Biden and Obama
4. C-SPAN is also very active, and very popular, on Twitter.

I got majorly addicted to these hubs during the conventions and you’ll love them. You can also submit your own posts, and they will read them and often include them in the crawl. So, later this week, check it out for yourself.

Palin, Folkies, Boomer Activism and Marriage: This Week’s Blogging Boomers #86

Once again the Boomers have plenty to talk about; this week the carnival has made its home at This Marriage Thing. Come by to read about graying folkies (true or false), the need for boomer activism, prostate cancer, love, marriage and more.

MOTHERS WITH CANCER: SOME OF THE BRAVEST WOMEN ON THE PLANET

This is the logo from a blog called Mothers with Cancer. (We are twenty (or so) moms
fighting cancer. Some of us have been in remission for years; others
are newly diagnosed, or battling a new recurrence. All of us have
something to say.) I’ve spent much of the past week reading personal and group cancer blogs for a project and I’ve been near tears for most of that time. The sadness, the courage, the resilience in the face of multiple recurrences, the joy in small moments – there’s only so much of it you can read before you start to crumble. Then you tell yourself that they’re living what you’re reading, and, out of respect, you force yourself to go on.

In 1998 there was a big cancer March on Washington. I was around DC for much of it; because of my husband’s long-time work on prostate cancer advocacy I’ve been around cancer advocates and survivors for years. But none of that, and none of them – brought truth to the words "you’ve got cancer" the way these bloggers do, as their realities become ours. I’ve come to believe that we owe them our attention – that, as Willie Loman‘s wife Linda said: "Attention must be paid." And so it must

You’ll find many of a legion of cancer bloggers on Mothers with Cancer and many more on their individual blog rolls. I urge you to visit their sites and leave a message. They may not know us, but through their honesty — and their pain — we know them. And we can’t leave them sitting out here alone. Listen:

The truth is, I am scared. I am trying to reassure myself with the fact
that I have been feeling pretty good, that I have been biking and
running But I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was feeling the
healthiest and most fit that I had in years. And I was diagnosed with
liver mets three weeks after I returned to work, at a time when I was
feeling strong, energetic and (so I thought) on the road to reclaiming
my life from cancer. Not Just About Cancer

Continue reading MOTHERS WITH CANCER: SOME OF THE BRAVEST WOMEN ON THE PLANET

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE WOMAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN: SARAH PALIN IS THIS ELECTION’S WIZARD OF OZ

This is an argument for a change of focus. As I began to write it all I could think about was the Wizard of Oz, the fake behind the curtain who had everyone believing he could save them all. When he finally presented gifts to all but Dorothy, it sounded horrifyingly like the tactics of the current "wizard," nominee Palin, and her boss. I am as angry and uneasy as anyone over the nomination of Sarah
Palin but I think it’s time to stop now.

This morning I heard Paul
Begala say on MSNBC that every day McCain isn’t talking about the
economy, he wins. That he can’t win ON the economy so if he keeps
distracting the voters and the press he will be better off – a premise
supported by the current poll numbers. Begala also kept comparing
Palin to the "shiny object in the water" on a fishing line that makes a
fish take the bait. I think he’s right.

The issues of this
election are, as we all know, so enormous and scary that it may be
easier to keep focusing on the governor, but that will not win the
election. We need to help remind people of the real issues – the
devastating effects of the sub-prime crisis and it’s sequel, investment bank failure so evident in the past few
days, the state of the economy generally, our sinking competitiveness
in education and the tragic decline of many of our schools, the
attempts by the Right to place (with hat tip to Auntie Mame)"braces on
our brains" and of course, Iraq, Afghanistan, healthcare, energy and
infrastructure.

We’re in a mess. It wasn’t caused by pigs or
lipstick or tanning beds or even community organizers — it was caused
by the people currently in office who want four more years and are
Orwell-ing us into giving it to them. This community has enormous
impact and knows how to raise a ruckus (If you don’t think so, mosey on
over to the League of Maternal Justice!) Let’s get some message
discipline here, leave Sarah to others and push the issues. We’re
going to kick ourselves if we don’t.

A version of this post appears on Blogher.com.

CANVASSING FOR OBAMA: ARE YOU STRONG OR LEANING? THE OBAMA-MCCAIN RACE FROM THE GROUND FLOOR

That’s my four year old friend, his dad and our friend Lea at the door of a home in Virginia. We spent Sunday afternoon canvassing for Obama and the down ticket races in this housing development whose residents had names from Gomez to Kim to Ilbibi to Hussein to Brady.* These were town homes with small back gardens, beautifully kept and facing out onto mini-wooded areas that made it feel peaceful and apart. Not fancy, just well-designed and executed. Plastic bikes and push toys sat out in the open; we even saw some skateboards left leaning against a tree. Not too much worry about theft, apparently.

As we walked, I realized that this – these homes occupied by families of so many backgrounds, were part of what we were campaigning for: the opportunity of all Americans
building their lives to find a place – a home — a life. And that the battle, underneath the craziness, is about the best way to guarantee those rights — and possiblities – to more of us.

The past week or two have been painful for Obama supporters. Polls are down, Sarah Palin seems to have hijacked much of the campaign, the McCainies are attacking and the attacks, however vicious or frivolous they may be, (and the are) seem to be sticking. That’s what drove me to Virginia Sunday. In all my years around politics I’ve never done field work; for most campaigns I’ve been a reporter and during those years I was scrupulously careful to remain neutral and apart. Now though, I’m out of the news business and I can campaign. And so Sunday I was walking around Virginia with three friends, a water bottle and a clipboard. Our assignment: talk to the folks on our list, find out if they’ve decided for whom they will vote and check the right boxes. We check Strong, Lean, Undecided. If they support our guy, we make sure they’re registered and ask if they want to volunteer.

We didn’t really meet anyone we could try to convert and in our 57 stops we hit lots of "not home" — it was Sunday afternoon after all, and the rest were either for Obama or "We’re for the other guy — you’ve come to the wrong house." The lack of conversion candidates didn’t matter though because we were mostly building a registration and GOTV (Get Out the Vote) list that will be accurate and useful on election day. The coolest moment: meeting an 18-year-old first-time voter– I suspect a first-generation American and clearly excited to be voting for Barack Obama.

*I’m using names of the same ethnicity but not the real ones; that feels too intrusive.

Continue reading CANVASSING FOR OBAMA: ARE YOU STRONG OR LEANING? THE OBAMA-MCCAIN RACE FROM THE GROUND FLOOR

SARAH PALIN II: IS ANYBODY ELSE READY TO THROW UP THAT WE’RE DOING ALL THIS MOMMY TALKING?

I worked at the TODAY SHOW from 1980 to 1989. During that time I probably produced, conservatively, two pieces a month on "working mothers", as we were called then. It was rough slogging. No matter how many times we looked at it (always from both sides) it just wouldn’t die. Of course early in that same period we had trouble getting cameramen who would shoot a story including an AIDS victim, so there were tougher issues for sure.

In any case, in that period we talked to T. Berry Brazelton (often), Lois Hoffman, Ellen Galinsky, Dr. Edward Zigler, Phyllis Schlafly, Sylvia Hewlett, activists from Catalyst, NOW, Eagle Forum, David Elkind, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and literally hundreds of others. We debated every aspect of child development, nature/nurture – you name it, we covered it. By the time I left at the end of 1989 the issue had mostly been settled – by demographics if nothing else. Mothers were working. Many needed to be. More were on their own, abandoned by or never having had a partner in raising their kids. What was left of the battle was scraps, remnants and [very important] policy issues dealing with childcare, equal pay and family leave etc. Working moms were an American reality.

That was twenty years ago! Twenty years! And now, artificially or not, the issue has emerged again. And many of those allegedly "defending" working moms (or at least one named Sarah) are those who, for much of my working mother life, so vehemently opposed the idea of women going out of the home to work. Sorry. I know the conversation has passed this issue in many ways but as I read posts and newsletters today, it made me mad all over again. With all these conservatives defending working mothers, after what I remember, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. They’re all working now too so some of it is probably genuine but there’s also such an element of strategic hollering. Anyone else feel like they fell down the rabbit hole?

JUST READ THIS – SARAH PALIN BY MOM-101 ON MOMOCRATS

I really want to quote this (not long at all) post by the wonderful Liz of MOM-101 but it would spoil the surprise. You have to read it yourself. You’ll know what I’m talking about when get to it. She’s always great, but this is… well…. does off the charts cover it?

Blogging Boomer Carnival #84

Well the Blogging Boomers have returned after a Labor Day respite and we are loaded with remarkable new content. It’s all housed over at John Agno’s So Baby Boomer. There are plenty of political links, but also some interesting perspectives on retirements and aging, spiritual retreats,religious belief, marriage and the 5-th birthday of AARP. So don’t miss it.