Sunday 14 September 2008

The sophisticated sisterhood

Hillary Clinton fans who are now planning to vote for McCain are proudly sporting t-shirts with the logo "Another Democrat for McCain". Not sure they have so much to be proud about. Voting for a party just because they have a candidate of the same sex as you is surely a very poor reason to vote. Women voters of America, it's time to get a little bit more real. One blowing-in-the-wind voter said when McCain announced Palin "I went crazy". Well, indeed. So you were a Democrat, but you have swung to another party based on just this - a woman on the ticket. Don't policies count for anything? Surely you have been a Democrat because you wanted certain things to happen in your country? Let's consider some of Palin's beliefs: she doesn't think climate change is a man-made phenomema; she believes in creationism and doesn't believe women should be allowed an abortion under any circumstances - even after a rape. Hello, people who were Hillary Clinton supporters -- do you want policies like this? Combine this with McCain's idea that the United Nations needs a competiting organisation to spice it up a bit, because it is not quite US dominated enough (see John Bolton for more), and the combination of new policies that might arrive on the doorsteps of Americans post-November 4 is breath-taking. This is a long tradition in America of people voting by clan - Cuban Americans voting Repulican or Italian Americans voting Democrat, for instance. But guys - voting for people on the basis that they look a little bit like you is not sophisticated enough for the 21st century. You have more access to information than ever before at your fingertips. Use it. Just because she has kids, and lives in a town that looks a bit like yours, doesn't mean she wants to make your life better.

In the same way I would hope that if there was to be a Labour leadership contest in the near future, women of Britain would not just vote for a woman candidate just because she was a woman, but on what she offered the country. Her policies. What she could offer.

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