Posted by
Lady Logician on Friday, September 29, 2006 9:16:09 PM
I mentioned earlier today that yesterday was absolutely insane for me. The Junior Logician is on his schools soccer team and they had an away game yesterday afternoon and I had to follow that with a meeting with several local political activists who had gotten together to discuss the upcoming election. However, the really exciting part of the day was yesterday afternoon.
I got a call late Wednesday from a friend who invited me to attend a luncheon in downtown Minneapolis. The featured speaker was Mary Matalin - former advisor to Vice President Cheney. She was there to raise money for Congressman Mark Kennedy's campaign for Senate. She spoke about how important the Upper Midwest was for the Republican Party (which is why the RNC Convention was awarded to the Twin Cities) and how the pundits see Minnesota as the number 1 pick up opportunity for the GOP!
She talked about how "conventional wisdom" said that the 2006 mid-terms would be a veritable "tsunami" sweeping Democrats into power. She said that conventional wisdom was based on 3 items.
1) a surge of angry Democratic voters - you know the ones....the denizens of websites like the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post and on television shows like Countdown with Keith Olberman...the blind, purple rage that drives the Democratic base. However this rage is not a cathartic, usefull type of rage...it is a tantrum that does not produce answers - only more questions.
2) a surge of rage within the Conservative base. We heard the claims in the days leading up to the primary election in Minnesota...claims of how Sue Jeffers had so much support because "no one" wanted the stadium deal that Governor Pawlenty "foisted" on the people. Well, when push came to shove, that Conservative rage didn't appear. Ms. Jeffers garnered a paltry 12% of the vote.
3) running against President Bush. The problem with that is that President Bush is not on the ballot!
The good news (for Republicans) is that people are focusing on individual candidates and their positions. In that respect, but Congressman Kennedy and Amy Klobuchar have public records that voters can view. Congressman Kennedy's record is for allowing taxpayers to keep more of their hard earned money. Ms. Klobuchar's record - a 35% increase in crime in Minneapolis. Congressman Kennedy supports finishing the job in Iraq and has voted appropriately. Ms. Klobuchar advocates leaving by the end of 2007.
Ms. Matalin spoke about how 9/11 effected her. She talked about the panic that she felt not knowing where her children were when the planes hit the Pentagon (as they live near the Pentagon). She said that there is a lot of denial when it comes to the Global War on Terror - that the average American does not have the mindset or tools to understand the nature of the evil that uses children as suicide bombers or that blows up women and children...that we don't have the tools to understand a global caliphate...that this fight will be neither short, nor pretty, nor cheap. She said that the war (in Iraq) was not about stockpiles of weapons, but capability and intent - something we will need to deal with regarding Iran and North Korea. These are hard issues that we must deal with if we are to survive.
Women are, according to Ms. Matalin, are transforming the globe. They are a large portion of the fastest growing sector of the economy - small business. Small business builds the wealth in this country and those are the people that will get hit the hardest should the Democrats take control of Congress and repeal the Bush tax cuts. The "rich" that they say are the only ones that they will hit are the small business owners of America - 2/3 of whom are women! We need to ask ourselves, when we thing about "making a change" what are we changing to? For decisions we make today impact our kids and their kids. We need to go with the common sense, practical solution for the issues today.
Mary Matalin is another one of those wonderful logical ladies that are the focus of this blog. It was a great pleasure to spend the afternoon listening to her talk about the future and where we can take it. All in all it was time very well spent!