Post-Super Tuesday Notes

I confess to being a recovered Republican. I was in a mixed-race family: one Democrat and one Republican. That made every race interesting. But that was back in the days when Republicans were compassionate and not just in word but also in deed. It was actually possible to be a fiscal conservative and a social moderate. My Republican step-father cried when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assasinated and it broke my step-father's heart to see the rioters burn themselves out of their own homes. He was my example of a kind, but cautious Republican.

However, the first Bush and the first Gulf War rehabilitated me. Somewhere, I had been told that Democrats start wars and Republicans end them; I am a pacifist through and through and I believed that lie. Now, I know better and I have been a Democrat ever since.

When Obama first announced his intention to run for president, I was excited for my own state's senator. I was happy with his anti-war rhetoric. The rhetoric continued but without much substance. He said he was the voice of change but the rhetoric hadn't changed. It was still more style than substance. So, I got over being angry at Hillary for appearing to support Bush the Sprout.

I also remembered my roots. I didn't mention that I managed to balance my Republican-leaning with my strong feminist principles. It didn't make sense to me that women could become automonous individuals while still depending on Big Brother in Washington to take care of them. (I'm now older and realize that we all need some help; sometimes we needs lots of help.)

So, yesterday, even though I knew that most other Democrats in my state would be voting for Obama, I proudly went to the polls and voted for Hillary. Once I was alone in my car, I started to cry. I thought about being in high school in the 1960's when the length of a girl's dress was deemed acceptable or not by the male coaches. After lunch, we all went to the gym. If the length of a girl's dress was suspect, the male coach would have the girl get on her knees on the gym floor. If the dress didn't touch the floor, he made the decision to send her home to change to a longer length. That might sound trivial but I haven't forgotten how demeaning it was just to watch that happen to another girl.

It was also during that era that a man could beat his wife without interference from the police as long as it happened behind the doors of the man's "castle". If an employer asked for sexual favors from a female employee, she had better agree to it if her income was needed at home, which it almost always was.

I am proud, so I cry. Hell, I am thrillled to have voted for Hillary. I understand why she gets the votes of women over 45 years old while Obama gets the votes of the younger women.

We remember. So does Hillary. The girls in the class of '68 thank you, Hillary!