Friday, October 17, 2008

Palin Rocks Fort Wayne

The Palin rally tonight was worth the wait. I left most of the kids home with Dad and brought DD#1. Despite the cold and really long wait we had a great time. Nosebleed seats on the concrete next to the actual seats behind the stage our actual "seats" could not have been worse but her speech reached us just the same.

The theme hammered home was lowering taxes because citizens know best what to do with their own money as well as defending "Joe the Plumber" for just asking a simple question to which he responded to Obama's answer truthfully. "To spread the weatlth around" really does sound like socialism.

As a mom of a special needs daughter she further cemented my support by her hopeful and proactive words in support of special needs children, her desire to challenge Americans to accept and further integrate these children into our society.

My greatest wish now is that these children are not forgotten as our health insurance system is overhauled. I don't want these children who already have too many labels attached to them being tacked on with pre-existing condition and as a result be denied the coverage they so desperately need.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

election mess

Today somebody asked me what would happen if we all just decided not to vote in this election? As a practical answer I answered quickly and incorrectly that the presidency would then fall to Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. Later in the day I rehashed the conversation with my husband and realized that duh, it would be Dick Cheney. Either direction is scary. The question itself is what' s really sad. How many others feel that way?

As eloquent a speaker as Obama is I can't come to grips with his abortion stance. It just seems so disconnected from humanity to cast a vote in what appears to be a case of letting a string of faulty logic play itself out to conclude that an aborted baby that somehow lives should not be saved. Just wrong headed and it makes me question how else he would let things play out here and abroad just because in his mind a+b must = c. A leader's logic must be tempered by his faith and with Obama I just don't see that.

McCain pulling Palin onboard is also an odd one. If she was picked for her faith and conservative policies as a governor the campaign should really just leave it at that and let Palin speak to what she knows. What on earth inspired her to claim knowledge of Russia just because of a precarious view of it from her office or home or wherever in Alaska? I could hear sea lions from my bedroom in San Francisco but that does't make me an oceanographer! The blind insistance of politicians of being all things to all people chips away at them until we no longer know who they are.

What speaks to me thankfully are not her words but her actions. She and her husband chose life for their littlest one. Fear didn't determine her choice but rather faith. I can only assume that the same faith led her to accept McCain's offer of the VP spot. Faith doesn't preclude misteps, I am a living testimony to that and so is Sarah Palin. We all are learning on the job no matter what we call our work. Her tasks for the weeks ahead are to convince voters that she is a quick learner and stop pretending to be what she isn't. Be proud, be pollyanna!