Truthful Politics

I wanted to give my actual thoughts about Sarah Palin and why I feel the Republican party lost this year. Even though this site is a non-partisan site and we try our best to keep our views out of the postings, once in a while we have to show you that we are actual people and we are human.

I was born in 1960, raised in NY (LI for the most part) by Republican parents. When I was 15 my parents moved upstate near Woodstock NY. They still maintained their Republican roots and passed on their values to me and my three siblings; out of the four of us only one was a registered Democratic.

Even though most people considered me a hippy, I was more aligned with my "greaser" friends. Doo-Wop music was our music, as we listened to Frankie Avalon and the Four Seasons, Leslie Gore, Chubby Checkers, Fats Dominio, The Everly Brothers and The Drifters, to name a few. The Beatles and Stones were listened to but very rarely. It wasn't until the late 70's when Peter Frampton, Janis Joplin, the Stones and the Beatles made our lists. We hung out at bowling alley's and diners, went to football games and keggers on Saturday nights. Drugs did not come into our scene until the mid-70's and then it was mostly marijuana and my "greaser" friends were very against it. 

Growing up I believed the Republicans when they used their rhetoric to make me, my family and friends believe that the "others" were going to ruin our economy, raise our taxes, and demoralize our youth. The "hippies" were going to take over and the world was going to go to hell, as we will all be smoking pot, stoned out of our gourd and just laying around doing nothing. Yes, even though in the mid to late 70's I was beginning to embrace the 'hippie' culture of pot, music and love everyone, I still held on to the threads of my Republican upbringing.

My Mother also instilled in me a sense of feminism - even though I would consider my Mother a fringe feminist and not Gloria Steinem by a long shot. My parents never pushed me in my education, but they also never pushed me towards marriage and the life of a housewife. I never had aspirations of going to college but I did plan on marrying and having children. I worked off and on during my marriage and the early years of my boys growing up. I knew I was not going to be sub-servient to my man but I would stand "behind" him.

I then had this need to go to college, as a non-traditional student (I was 31) enrolled in State University of New York Delhi and received my liberal arts degree. While at SUNY the presidential election of 1992 in which George H. Bush ran against Bill Clinton started to be the main topic on campus. I took a class with Professor Nadar and one of our readings was a book by Robert Reich, and what he said started making sense to me. However; I was still wrapped up in listening to the political commercials of the Republicans and believing them. Bill Clinton will; increase our debt as his state Arkansas had doubled in debt, double government spending, raise taxes, and crime will increase, as Arkansas' had the biggest increase in crime rate. Clicking on the links will take you to some of the 1992 commercials. I liked some of the things that Bill Clinton stood for, yet those Republican commercials kept me in fear of learning more.

Then we got through the Clinton years - we survived - there was no major fallout from those years. The only thing that came about was trying to impeach him, Whitewater and what loomed the strongest was his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Boy did us Republicans jump on that, to the extent of it trickling down to Hillary Clinton. I did not give her a chance because I immediately went on the defensive; why in hell didn't she kick her husband out? why didn't she leave him? Then I grew up... No really, I realized through the love of my husband and my love for him that people can get through anything as long as the love is there. We did not have any cheating scenario in our household, but I started thinking, if it did happen what would I do. My love for him is so very strong that I could not give up on him that easily, so I now believe that is how Hillary looked at it. 

Then came the Bush years, by now I have earned my B.A. degree. I received it in 1996 and I believe this was the beginning of my eyes opening. At first slits, then a little further as my husband lost his hard earned pension from a company he worked with for 15 years, even wider yet when Katrina made landfall in 2005, interest rates started increasing, gas prices increased and our economy went into a downward spiral. Eyes now wide open.

My foray into politics and truthfulness all began when I started receiving emails about Target, Wal-Mart, and Microsoft, to name a few. I would go to Snopes and check on the information, or do a search to only discover a lot of the information coming through my email accounts were false; based on rumors. This led to the beginning of my research endeavors, as things came through I would research the information. Then I started receiving emails against Barack Obama and again I would go out and research the information. The more I researched, the more I discovered these emails were laden with falsity. The more I discovered, the more I realized how the Republicans focused on scare tactics and how they would use your fears to keep you listening to them and stay aligned to their thinking. I began to understand Michael Moore's movie Bowling for Columbine and
his premise of news and how the way of life in America is based on the fear
factor. The more I researched, the more I discovered, the more I realized.

I then started noticing how the Republicans were all about the negative and yet every time I heard Barack Obama give a talk he was about the positive and using talk to uplift us - showing us that the positive can definitely be a big part of our life. During this time I was still a die hard Republican and planning on voting for my man John McCain, however; I was beginning to lean Obama. I looked into his campaign, I started listening to what the Democrats had to say, I started agreeing with the views of the Obama campaign. Then it happened... John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, a woman, yet something deep inside said he picked her to sway over the Hillary Clinton voters. I watched the interaction between John McCain and Sarah Palin on the stage that day he announced his running mate, I noticed there was no spark, no connectiveness, but I said I will give them a chance, maybe it was due to not really knowing each other and once they started hitting the campaign trail that would change. It never did.

My brother (another die hard Republican) called me on the phone just after she was picked and asked me what I thought of Sarah Palin. I told him I couldn't answer him yet as I don't know a thing about her and would have to research her first before I formed an opinion. The other end got dead silent, I thought we got disconnected, but no, my brother was in stunned silence. I am sure he expected me to jump on the bandwagon wholeheartedly because she is a Republican and a woman. 

The more I discovered, the more I began to be insulted at John McCain's pick. I knew more about politics than she did; I feel strongly that the people running for President and Vice President need to know at least as much as I do, and I really prefer they know more. Then I started looking at what she stood for and it was against everything I did. I really felt she was a step backwards for women.

Then she started doing her interviews - and I was embarrassed to be affiliated with the party. Then came the strong negative campaigns, then came the lies, the harder I researched the more I discovered, the more I became embarrassed, the more I started volunteering for Obama. I then joined Republicans for Obama, then came my biggest move ever. I changed my political party. Yes that is right I became a Democrat, then I joined the Democratic Women Organization, but I stayed true to Obama and increased my volunteer efforts. The more Sarah Palin went out and spread the lies the more I volunteered. Now please don't get me wrong, I know Obama and Biden did stretch the truth at times and yes I did research what they had to say but the biggest offenders were the Republicans.

What truly amazed me was the more I volunteered the more I met other Republicans, like me, tired of the negative campaign, very insulted at McCain's pick, and extremely humiliated at having our intelligence insulted. As Obama volunteers we were told 'when you are talking to someone and if it turned into negative remarks about Obama, McCain or their issues turn it around to the positive, do not go the negative route.'

I then started to get word out to other Republicans about how Obama truly viewed things, how his issues were really this or that and not what McCain said Obama was going to do. When asked where I got my information I told them I researched it. I went out to Thomas.gov, I went out to the Illinois site, the Arizona site, our government sites, and other sites to gather the information I needed. I was not believed. I was told "uh huh sure, yup okay if that is what you say." Even my own Father on Election Night when I told him that we are actually informed voters and look up the issues and go out to the appropriate sites I heard, "Okay Cathy we have to end this conversation now! I can no longer talk to you at this moment." In other words he was extremely mad and did not believe me and could not believe that I actually thought/believed what I said. They would not listen, they would only spew things that they heard McCain's campaign say. Reminds of a Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel song Sounds of Silence. If John McCain or the Republican party said it, it was true. It did not matter how much research you did - whatever you found was false.

It made me sad, it made me mad and it really started getting to me. I don't know if it was because I am female or because I was saying something alien to them. But how in the world could you go on spewing the lies without actually listening to the other side?

Every time I listened to McCain I truly wanted to hear about his issues, what was he going to do, yet all I heard was what Obama was going to do. If I wanted to know what Obama was going to do I would listen to Barack Obama not John McCain. I wanted to know what John McCain and Sarah Palin stood for and what they were going to do for us. I tried I really did. On the McCain side I would read the literature, and when they sent me a column view on the issues between McCain and Obama with only Yes and No answers and then I went to Obama's site and looked at a similar piece of literature and Obama's gave actual explanations, I felt as if I was being talked to not at. I felt I was treated as a smart person and not as someone who is to stupid to understand the talk so we will dumb it down for you. I was truly insulted by the Republicans. This was the same feeling I got when I emailed or talked to fellow Republicans.

That was when I knew, I knew no matter what I said or wrote I would just be treated as a stupid person who knew not of what she spoke or wrote. I knew I would never, ever get through to the Republican screaming at me, whose face was red with anger. I knew that as a woman saying these things it meant less then if another man would say it. I knew a new time was coming and I had to work hard to see it come about. I knew that no matter what John McCain did it would never be what was truly need. I knew no matter what Sarah Palin said or did she would never ever break the glass ceiling that so many women before her had cracked. As I am sure many other men and women also knew and that is why we now have Senator Barack Obama as our new President elect.

-Cathy von Hassel-Davies