John McCain is a smart man. In choosing a woman who’s had several children, he’s chosen someone who understands about working through exhaustion, is creative and resourceful, can multi-task and think on her feet, profoundly grasps the simultaneous need for both boundaries and flexibility, can negotiate between raging, demanding people, and has a big heart that’s been beaten up by life. Those are the irreplaceable gifts of motherhood, which is the single most demanding, least gratifying 24/7/365 state of being.
According to the NY Times, of which I am skeptical because I know reporters, and in my idiosyncratic opinion they are smart but difficult people who are pissed because they don’t make more money and who cherish pretensions to more meticulous integrity than they actually practice, Palin rose in Alaska by “impressing voters more with gumption, warmth and charm than an established record in government.” I really like gumption, warmth and charm. It’s first rate stuff.
And I am in favor of lower taxes and economic stimuli for small businesses. My husband Sabin Howard runs a sculpture business as a business, and he provides employment for models, foundries, mold-makers, finishers, packers & shippers, so he is an integral part of a capitalist economy and should be rewarded with tax breaks and incentives. As an author, I am an entrepreneur, gambling on a good product: the books I write. The Democratic party isn’t going to help me out with this.So let’s call the Democratic party for what it is: the great punisher of rich people, small businesses, and entrepreneurs. Ayn Rand would have something to say about this, and she wouldn’t be all wrong.
BUT. Despite the great appeal of Sarah Palin, and of McCain himself, I will never vote Republican. It is unfortunate but true that the Republican party has been hijacked by the Christian right, who do not have the country’s best interests in mind. Sadly, fundamentalist Christians are no more enlightened than fundamentalist Muslims, and are equally prone to the misguided opinion that anyone who worships the divine differently than they do, is damned. Bigotry. The necessary end to an insistence on purity is terrorism. And the people who vote AGAINST abortion will never understand, because it is never spelled out to them, that they are also voting against a better standard of living provided by education. Republicans do not support education.
So I like Sarah Palin, but I will still vote for Obama.