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The Parental is Political

Thoughts on Elizabeth Edwards at BlogHer 2007

By Julie Marsh

Julie - Great article. Although I am a liberal, I also noticed some left leaning tendencies throughout the entire conference, not just Ms. Edwards' talk. There seemed to be an assumption that all the bloggers at BlogHer were liberals. Maybe I notice it because my husband is a conservative. I tend to review, not only my thoughts, but also what my husband would say in response to an argument or comment.

I didn't, however, take Elizabeth Edwards' comment that she believed most of the women there thought the same things as an insistence that we were all homogeneous in our viewpoints. I believe at the time she was talking about HRC and women's issues. EE made the statement to the effect that she believed women should support women's issues and I thought *that* was what she was referring to with her comment about all of the attendees probably thinking the same thing.

I haven't reviewed the video though, so I may be remembering it incorrectly.

Posted by: LawyerMama | Jul 31, 2007 14:19

While I think to some degree part of what sounded like campaigning, and too much John Edwards, not enough Elizabeth, was driven by the fact that she has to differentiate her opinions from his, you are getting at what I think is the fundamental political issue we face -- that increasing polarization of politics (call it red/blue if you must) is making it next to impossible to focus on the actual issues.

I think we have to accept that there are some issues that are not negotiable, whether for profound personal or religious reasons, and people are highly unlikely to change their minds. But why is this preventing us collectively as a nation from coming together and discussing those important issues where we might be able to find common ground?

Instead we have sound bites and cult of personality and ad hominem attacks. Not discourse.

This, more than anything else, is what scares me about the future of our country.

Posted by: Susan Getgood | Jul 31, 2007 15:02

Thanks for your comments.

Lawyer Mama, that's exactly the context of the quote from my personal site - I described the context there too, lest it appear that I took it out of context.

Specifically, she was speaking to how her position (and JE's) on DOMA differ slightly from HRC's, but that generally speaking, she and HRC "believe all the same things". Then she went on to make the statement I quoted. While I would hope that her intent was as you describe (and as other commenters on my site have said as well), I still think it could have been framed in a more inclusive manner - that is, not as a follow-on statement to how she and HRC are similar.

Susan, I honestly didn't mind hearing how EE's views differ from JE's views. In fact, that added to her appeal in my mind - she is an individual in her own right, and I was pleased to hear her thoughts. What I didn't care for was how she differentiated between the Democratic candidates views on more than one occasion. At BlogHer, I don't want to know why JE's stances are preferable to those of the other Dems - I want to know what EE thinks about issues that concern women, whether or not we may agree in our views.

And as I said on my site, I don't think we're nearly as boxed in to the red/blue definitions as candidates would have us believe. I didn't speak to this in either post, but I also was somewhat puzzled by the "team" analogy that EE used. If I'm not a Dem, am I not on her "team"? Are we automatically opponents? I don't see it that way.

But I certainly agree with your standpoint on sound bites - makes it difficult for anyone, politician or otherwise, to speak plainly. I do hope that none of what I've said here is perceived as an attack - I'm merely questioning the views EE expressed and her motivations for doing so.

Posted by: Julie | Aug 01, 2007 10:03

Great article. Thanks for being honest and upfront about your politics and pointing out that as parents we have so much more in common than not.

Posted by: Angela | Aug 01, 2007 10:57

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