Rootz

rootz !

hi k!

pach!

There is a lot of information and research at this website…
Women Voices, Women Votes
http://www.wvwv.org/

according to the U.S. Census, 46% of all voting-age women are unmarried, and 55% of all women not registered to vote are unmarried. Fifteen million unmarried women were not registered to vote in 2004, and nearly 20 million unmarried women did not cast ballots on Election Day.

1. Register to vote
2. Get 5 women to register to vote
3. Take 5 friends to vote
4. Have your 5 friends get 5 friends to register to vote
5. Have your 5 friends take 5 friends to vote

Talk to your daycare worker, the grocery checker, the sales clerk and the drycleaners. Start a dialoge and engage them. Make them feel that voting is important and they can make a difference.

Excellent timing Pach, this subject was just taking off at the end of the other thread.

“Well, the biggest electoral strength of the Dems is single women.”

Repugs want the power to keep women “barefoot and pregnant” (at will), and therefore, subservient, and unequal. It’s as simple as that.

Think big, folks!

Think policy initiatives, not just GOTV.

1. Promote child care for working mothers
2. Emphasize that the Democrats believe gov’t should stay OUT of a woman’s personal reproductive decisions
3. Raise the minimum wage (I think this affects women as much as men)

Ghostman

What would the Carville of 1992–not the one who has been inhabiting the Beltway for the last decade and consuming countless cocktail weenies–say about this election?

It’s the war, stupid?

Maybe a Constitutional Amendment enshrining a right to privacy?

Single payer health care that includes coverage for birth control (including b/c pills and the morning after pill) and women’s wellness tests (age appropriate breast x-rays and yearly PAP/internal exams). Support for mandatory filling of legal prescriptions no matter what the pharmacist’s “moral values” are.

Many single women are also single moms. I’d like to see a program that encourages on-site daycare wherever possible.

PS - I’m a long-time lurker and have posted only a few times. Live in a very small town in the Willamette Valley in Oregon among lots of very conservative farmers.

National health care, at least for children?

Well, I suggested massive voter registration of women on the last post, but how to go about it? For poor women, maybe through social service agencies, but you’d have to be careful about not promoting a particular party. There needs to be a way to point out to them how much ground they’ve lost under the Republicans however. What about Head-Start for those with children? But if you can register to vote at a library, I don’t see why you couldn’t at a social service agency.

Perhaps look at the candidates we have running this year in our jurisdictions, look at their platforms, and figure out which parts would be most appealing to women. Raising the minimum wage is something every Democrat that I know about supports. Women like it, it appeals to the wealthy woman’s sense of fairness, and it sounds practical to low income women who would directly benefit.

I think this needs to be person to person

Communicating with Unmarried Women
Because they have fewer resources and belong to fewer social networks,
unmarried women tend to have less access to information about voting in general (e.g.,
how to register to vote) and to information about elections and candidates. They also
have fewer sources of information about government and politics. Only 19 percent of
unmarried women read a newspaper every day, compared to 29 percent of married
women, and only 29 percent of unmarried women watch national news on television
every day, compared to 32 percent of married women (NES).
Nearly half - 45 percent - of unmarried women say they spend no time on the
Internet in an average month, compared to 39 percent of the general public. Only fiftyeight
percent of unmarried women have access to the Internet, slightly lower than the
national average of 64 percent.

In the words of Jim Carville: “it’s the economy, stupid.” These are the days of wage stagnation, global outsourcing, and increased risks for indiviuals that was once absorbed by a larger community. The trade and fical deficit make the future look uncertain and scary. Bad econimies always affect single women more. They usually have fewer resources and are more likely to rely on safety net programs as they age.

I also think that global warming resonates with single women. I think they are turned off by the right’s commitment to ideology over facts.

Minimum wage affects more women than men, I’m guessing.

I’d suggest promoting policies that make it easier to get out of the struggling lower-middle class — i.e., help with college. If you’re a young woman out on your own and want to go back & finish that degree, you’ve got a real dilemma on your hands. If you’re working for just over minimum wage, you can’t afford tuition, but you’re still making too much to qualify for pell grants or stafford loans. And not many workplaces offer tuition assistance. You’re stuck in the pink-collar ghetto — if you could get that BA you’d have a little more mobility.

It makes me uncomfortable to say that women care about children, health, peace, libraries, arts. it’s very close to being sexist. But, women care about children, health, peace, libraries, arts.

And building on Alice Marshalls’ great comments about powerlessness in the previous thread, one of the things that contributes to that is the feeling that there is no one to listen.

It isn’t enough to register voters - registering isn’t all that hard anymore - you can do it by mail.

It’s making the connection. It’s giving people the bond. I know this will sound stupid, but it’s a simple analogy: it’s always more fun to watch the Oscars and to root for a nominee if you actually saw the movie.

And it’s a lot easier to get someone to the polls who has met the candidate, or even seen the candidate in person. No, it’s not possible for a candidate to meet and greet all of his or her potential constituents, but with candidates running for office at all levels, it should be possible for all the Democratic candidates from all those levels to fan out across an area in an organized way to meet as many people as possible.

When Bill Clinton was running for president in 1992, I read that he would be appearing at a community college on the outskirts of DC. It was summer, as I recall, and I took the day off from work, and drove almost 40 miles with my kids - who were 9 and almost-6 - to see him speak. There is nothing that compares to seeing a candidate in person: they become real in a way that does not come across in debates, in TV ads or radio commercials.

It’s all about the connection.

I also think that global warming resonates with single women. I think they are turned off by the right’s commitment to ideology over facts.

I’ve been handing out campaign literature at the local theater showing Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. The people who see it are Democrats, at least by the time they come out, but they don’t necessarily know the local congressional candidate’s name.

Pach — I agree with the proposal of National Health care for children. Defined as anyone under the age of 18. Working moms, and definitely single working moms worry about kid’s health, and worry about how to pay for it when something goes wrong. Not to mention the hassle of filling out insurance forms and under-insured forms and not insured forms for state assistance. And then there is always the stress of grappling with insurance companies who deny coverage when they should pay, so the adult in charge has to go through the almost-stroke-inducing headaches of that!!

A National Health program for minors would take a lot of financial stress and passed along administrative stress off of working moms.

Good call, Pach! I am certainly with you! What about it FirePups???!!??

Ga 16 — that’s not sexist, it’s the truth.

In the last thread, Alice Marshall raised the practical problems — where do you go to enroll women, and how do you get them to the polls? Where is your outreach? I don’t know the economic breakdown but I’ll assume here for the sake of discussion that many of these women are middle to lower-income, and as Alice mentioned, feelings of powerlessness can be endemic and hard to overcome.

Thinking locally, like Oilfieldguy does — if you were in charge of a particular precinct, what would YOU do?

Single women that I know with children worry about getting sick and losing their income. They worry about college funds. Single women that I know without children are committed aDemocratic activists. How to reach a voter block w/o identifying them with some condescending phrase is also important. Do you know any woman who did not cringe at the term “soccer mom”?

My partner mentioned favorable lending terms or perhaps tax incentives to promote women owned business and entrepreneurship?

I see this has already been said, but I’ll second both notions:
Universal health care and the minimum wage. These also address a complaint I’ve been reading a lot of people had (bizarrely, IMHO) about Y-Kos and Progressives/Dems in a broader sense, that we’ve abandoned labor/working-class/working poor issues in favor of “social issues”. If health care isn’t a concern of the working people, from working poor up through upper-middle class, I don’t know what is. I know almost no one who at some point in their lives hasn’t made a major life decision (where to live, work, whether or not to have kids) based in some degree on health insurance, including soem pretty affluent friends.

Oh yeah! For issues, Ghostman’s excellent list plus a reasonable start on health care, with moving out of Iraq also as part of a funding scheme instead of merely for its own sake. While I’m sure many single women are really against this misadventure per se, putting it in terms of a needless sacrifice of these bread-and-butter issues should play very well to this group in overcoming any reluctance.

For tactics, how about katymine’s? Something salon-based, too. I had a wonderful, fast-paced conversation with my hairdresser a few weeks ago, and I’ll bet with the right approach she’d be glad to use her shop—slightly older crowd, but still lots of single and married working women, and people who know other people—to help network.

Well, obviously equality issues, but more importantly, medical and pharmaceutical. Get all BC’s covered by insurance. Stop radical pharmacists from dictating who and what they serve. Address preventative medicines such as cancer screenings and the recent hpv/cervical cancer vaccine along with all the BS caught up around Plan B. Women’s health issues is a biggie in my book. It’s important for my wife, my mother, my sister, etc. The whole dicatiting what women can, or rather cannot, have access needs to stop. Allow the options.

And I don’t mean to get caught up into an abortion debate. Although important, it’s not the focus in my hypothetical strategy, nor should it in a real strat. Women’s health doesn’t solely revolve around abortion.

Personally, major medical and insurance policy reform is paramount in my book, not just to women. But to reach single women, hit those ever so important women’s issues.

And, are there differences in the needs/desires of single black women vs. single white women vs. single mexican women?

Ghostman

Jane at 19, yes, I should have labeled it, irony. However, all the men i know, thank the gods, are women, as they care about children, health, peace, libraries, and arts.
and animals. and trees.
and rivers. we floated the river today on big innertubes. bliss.

Ghostman brings up a point, are there differences in the needs/desires of single women of different racial/ethnic groups. Are there? I think the basic set is the same, just emphases are different. Everyone wants their neighborhood to be safe, their job to be secure and have some opportunity for advancement, their kids to have a shot at a decent education, and reason to hope for the future. It’s just that for women in some groups, some issues are more front of mind. Make sense?

Universal health care is big with women both single and married.

As one who would love an increased woman’s voter turnout. I would love more women in office. Absentee voting will be very helpful, especially for the busy mothers and shy voters imo. I only tried absentee voting once via walk in the registrars office a couple of weeks prior to the election . What a breeze. In terms of absentee ballots at home, how about self addressed stamped envelopes for both a request of a ballot as well as the actual ballot envelope. This eliminates the need for childcare or gasoline. Also as a former employer I always allowed for time and coverage for everyone to go vote on election day. Isn’t that the law in most places? If not those who have pull or ownership should start working on their employers for that now. If you help in gotv, please stop your candidates from using auto calling.

This PDF document has a lot of information on the issues and aspects of single women.
http://www.wvwv.org/docs/wvwv0.....search.pdf

Democrats need to champion workers’ rights and benefits, that’s how they reach and motivate the single women and those working low wage jobs. How many women work at Wal-Mart? Why aren’t Democrats giving them reasons to vote for them? The GOP certainly has no interest in helping the working class.

Democratic candidates are too concerned with impressing the media analysts and cocktail weenies in DC. They need to add back the populism, the way Jon Tester and Ned Lamont have been.

strawhat: my question up there truly is a question. I have no idea if there’s any difference in issues. Probably…..many issues cross racial/ethnic lines…I think…I guess.

Ghostman

Pach — I agree with the proposal of National Health care for children. Defined as anyone under the age of 18. Working moms, and definitely single working moms worry about kid’s health, and worry about how to pay for it when something goes wrong. Not to mention the hassle of filling out insurance forms and under-insured forms and not insured forms for state assistance. And then there is always the stress of grappling with insurance companies who deny coverage when they should pay, so the adult in charge has to go through the almost-stroke-inducing headaches of that!!

A National Health program for minors would take a lot of financial stress and passed along administrative stress off of working moms.

Good call, Pach! I am certainly with you! What about it FirePups???!!??

the practical problems - where do you go to enroll women, and how do you get them to the polls? Where is your outreach?

I have never done this kind of thing before (IHNDTKOTB), but seems to me that that’s where the early networking and talking things up among people who know people could help. Eventually, some resources get shaken loose. At the early stages, all that would be needed would be something to solve just one or a few people’s problems with finding out about registration or getting an hour and some transportation for a neighborhood meeting, or finding a venue to have that meeting. That’s what would keep those five-to-the-kth-power contact pyramids from dying out at the beginning, while those who know what they’re doing hopefully figure out how to build co-ordinating organizations.

As to specific demographic groups of women, this is part of the beauty of the salon strategy, n’est-ce pas?

Offer a “Motherhood Bill of Rights” entailing paying women a living wage to stay home and raise the family, or give women tax credits to put toward day care. The idea of a Motherhood Bill of Rights was suggested by Shellenberger and Nordhaus in their new book, “The Death of Environmentalism and the Birth of a New Aspirational Politics.” They were interviewed in In These Times by Adam Werbach.

I’d have to agree that health care and privacy (or more properly, abortion rights) are two big issues. A national health care initiative that has a chance of working would be a big winner, and not just with single women. There are something like 80 million uninsured or under-insured people out there.

You know….I’m always reading in the newspaper about these mothers with the Daddy that vamoosed…maybe some sort of national….hmmmm..national something…a free locater service to help the moms locate the dead-beat dads?

Ghostman

All mothers want the same things for their children: health, education and opportunity.

And those things benefit society as a whole, not just those with children.

It is important to address these issues from a global perspective - highlighting the benefit to society - otherwise you risk losing that segment of voters who are tired of “handouts” and that segment that hears “higher taxes” whenever the word “National” or “Universal” precedes any policy initiative.

Affordable college and vocational education should be a priority, and the criteria for determining eligibility for aid need to be re-examined. Anyone who has ever filled out a FAFSA form can tell you that when you are told the size of your “Expected Family Contribution,” your first reaction is “If I could contribute that much, I wouldn’t be looking for financial aid!”

I always thought that a guaranteed program of basic health care covering all children in the country would be almost impossible to oppose in the end. Then you go from there.

Um, didn’t the Repubs put a veterinarian in charge of women’s health issues at one point? Things like that should be repeated over and over and over.

Democrats need to make television commercials asking women what kind of world they want to live in. Do they want to live in a world where the government can tell them what they can and can’t do with their bodies? Point to Republican anti-rights initiatives on birth control and abortions. (BTW, I think the pro-choice movement should change its name to the pro-rights movement. That’s just my $.02.)

Do they want to live in a world where they can drink the water from the tap and trust that the food we buy is safe? (Point to mercury levels in tuna. And the Repugs think global warming is a theory.)

And what kind of a world do women want for their children? Do they want a world where people are taught to hate and divide themselves into groups? What if their child grows up to be gay? Do they want that baby to live in a world where people hate them before they even know them? Do they want their children to have a chance at a decent education? Health care? (And point to all the Republican roll backs in education and social programs.)

Vote for a future. For yourself. For your family.

Vote Democrat. It’s for all of us.

Health.

Education.

Security.

Well the Zyrtec is kicking in, and I am almost comatose. The cats are safely inside away from being coyote dinner and it is time to say goodnight.

Will be reading and catching up tomorrow. Bless you all.

I was sorely disappointed in Obama and could never support him now. Court the Evangelicals? The Dark Ages are threatening to descend once again. Who in their right mind would want the support of Evangelicals? Please, if you never read another book, read The End of Faith by Sam Harris. Religion is toxic to rational thought and behavior and even in its milder forms serves to give credibility to religious fanatics. There is a good reason why religion is the only remaining subject that is taboo. It cannot survive rational discourse.

I think we need to contemplate a whole radically different way to advertise these issues to voters (or in this case, to disillusioned women non-voters).

I’d like to see a series of commercials that work as brief, remedial civics lessons, on a variety of issues, some “women-centric” (e.g., abortion, universal healthcare, daycare, peace), others not-so-gender-focused (e.g., arbitrary detention without trial, freedom of the press, disclosure of undercover CIA operatives). I think these could be done very dramatically, with a strong emotional appeal (particularly as they should be told in the second person — “you” are the innocent prisoner, scared teen contemplating abortion, etc.).

The GOP does this routinely — most of their most effective ads go for the heart and/or the genitals — as liberals, we’ll have the added advantage of a message that appeals to the brain, as well.

prostratedragon says
July 1st, 2006 at 10:06 pm
I always thought that a guaranteed program of basic health care covering all children in the country would be almost impossible to oppose in the end. Then you go from there.
———————————————————-
You’d be surprised. Pediatric care isn’t cheap. Vaccines are expensive. And they’re always trying to get kids off of Medicaid. There are already arguments about “birthright citizenship”, and I think that that ties in to the whole health care problem. I get into fights with people about that sort of thing here (Houston) when they talk about “illegal immigrant babies” in our hospital nurseries. I remind people that, per the United States Constitution, they are American citizens.

Frank Probst @ #40 - Is that really true? If so, we should all just sing humm that until the year 2040.

cordelia @ 10:09 pm (#44) - It’s hard to believe anyone who is a successful politician would even countenance the idea. As someone mentioned in comments, it’s almost against their religion to vote Democratic. The things they’d have to do to seriously court those people on a religious basis are the things their base won’t let them do, and rightly so. Some of them will vote their pocketbooks if they see a reason to, and some will vote for other worldly reasons, but trying to out-holy the other side to those people is absurd.

I was suddenly a single mother with a 2-year-old, working, in a professional career, desperate every day for decent child care, and health care that I could afford and that made sense. That was the mid-eighties. There has been no progress, so far as I can see. I thought then that the next generation would have an easier journey, but I was wrong. There are a lot of us who are no longer on the frontlines in the sense that it is our child we are discussing, but we live in communities where younger women in the house across the street are fighting the same battles. Where is all that concern about children that politicians profess to have? Children don’t vote. Maybe they should.

TRex at 42, I am your fan. i like pro-rights. Perhaps it seems larger. yet choice is also such a positive, powerful word. so-called right to life is misogyny. we must demand life of rights. if only anti-abortionists were called upon to show their credentials: such as what have they done for children in need, or how much are they pledging to give to these fetuses once they pass the gate from ideology to person.

*** now, a big key on all these health care initiatives is cost. That’s where the R team will fight back. And they’ll bloviate about how this is “pie in the sky” policies that will raise our taxes and cause massive layoffs.

I THINK, the D team better study up on the details of the Mass. plan. This plan apparently is workable. The D team needs to be up to speed on its details. Admittedly, I’m not.

Ghostman

Health Care is a winning issue with the majority of the population- and dems own it- as they own education and social security. The problem has been that the elections are turning on national security- not a traditional dem issue- and people have been afraid up to now to change horses in mid stream. We are beginning to learn that we’re riding a horse that’s deaf, blind, lame- and DUMB- but dems are having trouble turning that into votes. Dems have to at least nuetralize the “terrorism” issue in order to change the focus to their issues of strength.

Frank Probst says:

Um, didn’t the Repubs put a veterinarian in charge of women’s health issues at one point? Things like that should be repeated over and over and over.

They certainly did, the schmoes. And you are right, it should be brought up both in season and out.

References:

Washington Post: One week ago, the Office of Women’s Health of the Food and Drug Administration sent an e-mail notice to women’s groups and others announcing the appointment of Norris Alderson as its new acting director.

An FDA veteran trained in animal husbandry who spent much of his career in the agency’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, Alderson quickly became the subject of active and largely negative comment on the Internet and elsewhere.

The Office of Women’s Health serves as a liaison with women’s health groups and as an advocate on women’s issues; critics said that a man with a primarily veterinary background could not properly fill the role.

The last director, Susan Wood, resigned last month to protest the agency’s unwillingness to make a decision on whether to make emergency contraception more easily available.

Planned Parenthood Federation: In a curious move today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) named two acting directors to the office of women’s health. This morning FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford appointed a man who has spent the majority of his career in the office of veterinary medicine to the position of acting director of the Office of Women’s Health. By this afternoon, Dr. Norris Alderson had been replaced with a Ms. Teresa Toigo. Ms. Toigo will replace Dr. Susan Wood, a key women’s health expert, who resigned on August 31 in protest of the FDA’s handling of the application to make Plan B emergency contraception (EC) available over the counter.

Greetings from another lurker.

This is something I have been thinking about.

I just moved to a new neighborhood. I have a number of neighbors who are single women. It seems these women have a sense of acting on what they know but they seem to doubt what they know.

This is one way Rove and his evil minions have been successful. They have been able to convince people they can’t trust themselves to know, to act on what they know and vote.

I have to admit this is the thing I hate about South Park too. It’s the celebration of stupid and makes fun of people who care or have an opinion.

Actually, children’s health care is not very expensive. Kids are, by and large, pretty healthy.

Personally, I think this ad would succeed in reaching many women:

“Hello. I’m Valerie Plame, and…”

Good night, folks. I’ll check in again in the morning. Keep it up! Great creativity going on.

http://apoeticjustice.blogspot.....kness.html

SCREECHING DAMNED DARKNESS!

http://apoeticjustice.blogspot.....iurge.html

DEMIURGE!

cordelia says
July 1st, 2006 at 10:09 pm
I was sorely disappointed in Obama and could never support him now. Court the Evangelicals? The Dark Ages are threatening to descend once again. Who in their right mind would want the support of Evangelicals? Please, if you never read another book, read The End of Faith by Sam Harris. Religion is toxic to rational thought and behavior and even in its milder forms serves to give credibility to religious fanatics. There is a good reason why religion is the only remaining subject that is taboo. It cannot survive rational discourse.
———————————————————-
I’m an athiest, but I tend to disagree. Religion can be (and often is) used to achieve some amazingly good things. The civil rights movement here in the US is a good example. Contrary to what you’d think from watching our born-again President, the Bible does NOT say, “Fuck the poor!” Jesus Christ would not be out eating cake and playing the guitar while thousands of his people were being flooded out of their homes. I think people should constantly point this out, especially to Evangelicals.

I think “pro-rights” is inarguable. It’s one of those things. Who wants to stand in the way of rights? We’ve got a Bill of ‘em! It’s part of our national vernacular as a Sacred Thing. We need to claim it, just like the GOP staked out “freedom”.

I think I need to read that Lakoff book.

jcricket, I’m for that, but here there are so many women with no front teeth because if they do get a Medical card, there’s not one dentist in town who will accept it. And that is a damn shame in the United States, that mothers who work hard have to lose their teeth.
So I’m for Universal Health Care. ALL of us.
Who dies early because of poor health? Poor people with less access to preventative health care. That has to stop. Al Qaeda doesn’t scare me as much as a clot.

TRex, you are the embodiment of what Lakoff says we need.

You guys just do not understand this politics stuff at all.
You are thinking waaaay tooo much to win an election.
Rove has captured everyones attention, like it or not, with fear.
Sad…of course. But really an effective tool.
Not an ideal. Not something warm and fuzzy.
A tool. That works. Everytime.
Until Dems get off their moral high horse and get nasty, they won’t win anything.
We don’t need talking points here guys.
We need brute, nasty force.
Wake up and smell the competition.

Development of a Virgin Voter pamphlet to assist new or infrequent voters. Step by step instructions on how to register, verify the polling place, obtaining a mail in ballot and technical instructions about voting in person.

If it was state specific, it could have voter registration form, websites and other information.

TRex, you are the embodiment of what Lakoff says we need.

How do you mean? I only have the most general idea of his theories. He is one of those writers I have been meaning to read forever, but I’m not sure where to start, and I’m already reading, like, six books.

That was less than one year ago. Ladies less than two weeks after Katrina Republicans appointed a veterinarian to oversee your special health needs. wwkdwt what would karl do with this?

interesting ideas …

1- I’d first off go for universal health care for custodial parents and all children - with current welfare policies, women are forced back onto work rolls at poverty wages but lose their medicare coverage for their kids all the same (when I was laid off several years ago, my only worry was not “how do we eat or pay the rent?” it was how do I fill my daughter’s at the time essential prescriptions and that panicked me to a degree that I cannot convey)

2- minimum wage increase to living wage - again, at least mandate this for single parents raising children as an investment in the next generation (we kick single moms off welfare but make them take jobs at $6 an hour instead of the living wage - when I was in NH, there was a study which showed that a mom with one kid needed a min. of $13 per hour to support herself and her kid, yet the average wage was under $8 and I at one point was ecstatic to get $8.75 for a temp job with 2 kids)

3- it would be awesome to provide some form of support to women so they could stay home or take part time work while their kids were say under 3 - again, an investment in the next generation and the single biggest issue for young mothers of all classes that I know

4- end the war - and end the involuntary overseas deployment of single moms (there are so many of them, they are often sent on long deployments since their office work, etc is seen as less stressful, and it is heartrending)

5- support for cohousing/affordable housing for single parents - there is still intense housing discrimination against single moms with kids (even though illegal) and so often singe moms end up in unsafe or marginal housing with their kids - enforcement of housing laws and tax rebates, etc for affordable housing aimed at single parents (ideally with child care on site and after-school programs, tutoring, etc avail on site - and maybe subsidized nutritious meals)

6- do something about schools - not sure what but I do not know a single public school parent who is happy with the education their child is getting - tax rebates and student loan forgiveness for high achieving teachers, etc.

beyond the issues, candidates who talk to single moms and single women rather than suburban soccer moms would be amazing - esp if they talked real like John Laesch did today.

Oft times I think the simplest approach is the most effective. And, I think TSF just hit a home run. Can you just imagine Ms. Plame saying, i.e. “Ladies, I know how hard it is to raise kids when the gov’t keeps getting in the way”….it speaks volumes on multiple levels. “Ladies, I know how child care costs are so high and you’re worried if you’ll keep your job thru no fault of your own”….oh, I could go on and on. Classic.

Ghostman

During the run up to the election in Cali with all of Arnold’s initiatives in which Arnold was handed his butt, the most effective ads were done by nurses and teachers - women. Not the usual heavy-handed crap we’ve come to expect.

So who would be most effective at reaching single women in a televised GOTV campaign? Oh I don’t know, how about single women? Just talking about health care, a living wage, and how voting Democratic is the best way to achieve those goals?

Al Qaeda doesn’t scare me as much as a clot.

That is beautiful…

DaveL & Ghostman—how about three women…The Dixie Chicks?

We don’t need no celebrities, just real people talkin’.

Frank Probst: they’re always trying to get kids off of Medicaid.

I don’t doubt you for a minute there, but really, who knew? If you don’t follow that type of news closely, and without either professional interest or vulnerable children perhaps you don’t, that’s the kind of news that you might not even hear, especially as I’m sure these efforts tend to be camouflaged as amendments to Trade-with-Vanuatu acts and the like.

What I have in mind, though, is a) an effort too loud to be missed by most people and b) not a program for “poor” children, but one for all children. I think, perhaps foolishly, that with careful framing of this idea it can be made to happen, and perhaps sooner than any other health care idea. You do bring up probably the biggest obstacle regarding children of paperless immigrants. Somehow side issues like that have to be incorporated into a strategy.

Still, in all seriousness and considering the venom that health care plans have tended to attract, does anyone have a better idea for a starting point in this area? Would guaranteed catastrophic care work better? Because I do think the [non-]voters we are talking about are very much interested in health care, and often have their lives badly affected by inability to get it.

Ghostman 52, you ever seen a child or anyone who has been on a vent for months? ICU care? Medicaid patient? That’s expensive, and we’re already paying for it. What we don’t pay for is preventative care for most people. If we did, we’d catch more diabetes and so on before it got to the kidney failure/blindness/etc. stage.
And I so wish we would. It is a tearing experience to take care of someone at the end of life who could have been OK (for lots longer) if only they’d had a diagnosis way earlier, and a glucometer, and enough test strips.

Okay, if I was Karl Rove and I wanted to get this message across to women, I would make a commercial with a woman lying peacefully in bed when a bunch of police kick the front door in. They roust her out of bed.

“Katherine Bleeker? Are you Katherine Bleeker?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You’re under arrest for the abortion of a viable embryo on December 16th of 2012. You have the right to remain silent…”

Another officer emerges from the bathroom, zipping birth control pills into a plastic evidence bag, “I’ve found contraceptives.”

“That’ll add another six years to your sentence. Unmarried woman in possession of birth control pills? You’re in a lot of trouble, Miss Bleeker…”

Is this the country you want? Vote Democrat. Our freedom is at stake.

Serious attention to the public school system. It’s an enormous failure of Democrats that we haven’t done better on this.

Fighting the credit card companies is probably good politics.

Tax-advantaged savings accounts, for college, retirement etc? I don’t know a damn thing about that kind of stuff.

Others have mentioned the health care, wage, and labor stuff.

I think we should get very very serious about fixing public education. What’s our answer to No Child Left Behind?

TRex, Meaning that you have the gift for framing, for the metaphor. (Never mind Lakoff’s simplistic psychology of the strict (rethugs) and nuturing (Dems) parents.) You seize the language, and that, i agree with Lakoff, is what we need. it’s the metaphor, stupid.

What’s our answer to No Child Left Behind?

We call it No Child Left Alive.

Well, be they ads by Plame, the Dixie Chicks, or just regular souls….it all works for me.

And TRex fully understands the Rovian mind. Another classic.

The Ghostman retireth. Nite.

Ghostman

fyi - I have a comment in moderation at 68 with my list - and I am very grateful to Frank P for the mention of medicaid and kids - been there and it is the worst experience ever.

Trex - I love your ad and think it would be effective with some groups but …

from what I see with young women (and my dtr is 20 and loves voting btw) is that abortion does not connect with them as an issue - while we talk about it all the time and it is essential to protect the right to … young single women who are not activist oriented don’t seem to think about it a lot as “an issue” - they’ve always had the right and cannot imagine it being gone - and even with all the uproar over it, it hasn’t gone away yet. I don’t think it will get them to the polls. Not saying I think that is wise, just reflecting what I hear.

I do think the HPV vaccine is a great potential issue - with so many women dealing with it at some point in their lives, the attempt to block the vaccine is a perfect example of the Rs blocking something good for women that they are likely to have experienced or know someone who has.

“Katherine Bleeker? Are you Katherine Bleeker?”

MTV, VH1, … , radio version …

breaking up my comment to see if I can bypass mods:

1- I’d first off go for universal health care for custodial parents and all children - with current welfare policies, women are forced back onto work rolls at poverty wages but lose their medicare coverage for their kids all the same (when I was laid off several years ago, my only worry was not “how do we eat or pay the rent?” it was how do I fill my daughter’s at the time essential prescriptions and that panicked me to a degree that I cannot convey)

2- minimum wage increase to living wage - again, at least mandate this for single parents raising children as an investment in the next generation (we kick single moms off welfare but make them take jobs at $6 an hour instead of the living wage - when I was in NH, there was a study which showed that a mom with one kid needed a min. of $13 per hour to support herself and her kid, yet the average wage was under $8 and I at one point was ecstatic to get $8.75 for a temp job with 2 kids)

3- it would be awesome to provide some form of support to women so they could stay home or take part time work while their kids were say under 3 - again, an investment in the next generation and the single biggest issue for young mothers of all classes that I know

part 2 -

4- end the war - and end the involuntary overseas deployment of single moms (there are so many of them, they are often sent on long deployments since their office work, etc is seen as less stressful, and it is heartrending)

5- support for cohousing/affordable housing for single parents - there is still intense housing discrimination against single moms with kids (even though illegal) and so often singe moms end up in unsafe or marginal housing with their kids - enforcement of housing laws and tax rebates, etc for affordable housing aimed at single parents (ideally with child care on site and after-school programs, tutoring, etc avail on site - and maybe subsidized nutritious meals)

6- do something about schools - not sure what but I do not know a single public school parent who is happy with the education their child is getting - tax rebates and student loan forgiveness for high achieving teachers, etc.

beyond the issues, candidates who talk to single moms and single women rather than suburban soccer moms would be amazing - esp if they talked real like John Laesch did today.

My dog came home with a limping back leg. i cannot locate anything out of place or in the paw when i examine her. She’s sweet, alert, but uncomfortable. she just wants constant attention. what should i do until she can see the vet in the morning? Sorry, everyone, but you’re all so warm and good, i think you’d help her if you could.

Michelle Bachelet is on CSpan - Chilean President
The first woman President in their history.

She told a story about the wearing sashs as part of the campaign, it became a hot selling item. Thousands of women showed up at her swearing in, they were asked why and told a reporter, we are now involved in our government. That is the out reach we need to do.

She made a promise that 1/2 of her administration will be women. She was the Chilean Secretary of Defense commanding troops!

I also thought it would be better now for women. I figured there would already be a platform for moms to have affordable health care for their children and access to affordable child care as well as the recognition that women’s health needs are different than a man’s needs. I would tie universal health care in with education, that as long as that “child” is a full time student, even in college, the child still have health care.

Moms want to not have to worry about paying for medicine or paying for food. I think it should tie in with Teddy’s “had enough”, asking the infamous question Are you better off now? Or perhaps, are your children better off?

Ga, I have seen a dog or two get a sprain. Keep an eye on it for swelling. It could be a bee-sting or a type of bite that hasn’t begun to swell. What kind of dog? How old?

Unless she is in urgent distress, then I should think that a vet visit will wait until in the morning. Emergency late night vet visits can be ruinously expensive.

My take is that we need to focus on access as much as, or more than, policy generation - lord knows the Dems can espouse ’til the cows march home as far as policy, yet I see the party faithful consistently pitching to constrained class demographics: upper-whatever, mostly. That’s some of America, but not much.

Find like minds in the workplace, as many commenters suggest - minimum wage is the issue. Likewise, find them at their or their children’s doctors offices - universal healthcare.

Access: Go outside the DSCC-approved haunts, to Women’s Resource Centers, locally, and similar social service agencies. In the rural US, county goverment is often the distributing body for state and federal aid in this regard.

More pointedly, people in need are people with demands, rightful and righteous ones, and they exist from one coast to the other; they are hungry for change, and empowerment is part of the process and quite literally built into such organizations.

Okay, preaching now. Mea culpa. It is, though, so close to home - mine, and yours.

I like your ad, TRex. It could be the Willie Horton of 2006.

siun—can you see your comment at 68?

Ga - what kind of dog? what size, age, etc?

(a great source of on the fly vet info and advice is the Pets discussion forum on Craigs list (not the local Pets sections which are dreadful) - they are tricky and very opinionated but some hyper knowledgeable dog folks there)

Our pup did the same and it was a … damn, can’t remember the name - but like a cartilege pull. Vet had us keep him as quiet as possible - crate if possible is good - and see what happened. Luckily he was ok but some do need surgery and its pricey.

Anyone know if any painkillers are safe for pups? I know ibuprofen is potentially deadly to them but not sure if you can use tylenol or aspirin (but folks on Craigs list would know!)

http://forums.chicago.craigslist.org/?forumID=26

I have given children’s tylenol to kitties, but I don’t know if it’s safe for dogs.

Thanks, TRex. The dog is young (2), a reddish, shepardish, fox-faceish beauty rescued from a crowded humane society. A neighbor claims she’s a dingo, but she has never eaten a baby. Everyone who meets her, exclaims she’s so beautiful, what is she?
Love your Futuristic scenario, by the way.

yep RGB … all better now!

and how are you?

Ga - shiba inu perhaps? they are such fox-like critters! very smart too

g’nite all, it’s been a fun day (mostly spent with you!)

siun, please report to us the London Sunday Times’ reply about YKos after you smack them.

(watching the Tours de France on background - I always forget how much I giggle at OLN’s commentator who consistently says smart stuff but calls it the Tour Day France.)

Ga 84, that happened to my dog. I took her to the vet because she refused to drink or eat the next day. He took her temp, it was high, and he gave her antibiotics.
She escaped out the front door and came limping home finally, and I thought she’d gotten hit by a car. Vet said probably so, but she also had an infection. Watch your dog for not eating/drinking.