Queen of Spain Blog

Gustav is bearing down on the Gulf Coast as Republicans travel to Minnesota.

There is talk of postponing the convention. Talk of turning events into a day of service to help victims. Talk of Senator John McCain delivering his acceptance speech from a disaster zone.

My emotions are rising.

Want to be let in on the talk I hear?

People are remembering Katrina.

People are remembering the inaction of an administration.

People are reminded of their loss

People are reminded of the scene.

The chaos.

The racism.

The Bush Administration.

The government.

The failure.

I can think of nothing more powerful to get millions of undecided voters angrily and passionately to the polls in November- government, a hurricane, the gulf coast.

From Mother Jones:

But McCain’s record on Hurricane Katrina suggests that he was part of the problem, not the solution. McCain was on Face the Nation on August 28, 2005, as Katrina gathered in the Gulf Coast. He said nothing about it. One day later, when Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, McCain was on a tarmac at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, greeting President Bush with a cake in celebration of McCain’s 69th birthday. Three days later, with the levees already breached and New Orleans filling with water, McCain’s office released a three-sentence statement urging Americans to support the victims of the hurricane.

Though McCain issued a statement the next week calling on Congress to make sacrifices in order to fund recovery efforts, he was quoted in The New Leader on September 1 cautioning against over-spending in support of Katrina’s victims. “We also have to be concerned about future generations of Americans,” he said. “We’re going to end up with the highest deficit, probably, in the history of this country.”

That attitude was borne out in McCain’s actions and votes. Forty Senators and 100 members of Congress visited New Orleans before he did; he finally got there in March 2006. He voted against establishing a Congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local responses to Katrina in med-September 2005. He repeated that vote in 2006. He voted against allowing up to 52 weeks of unemployment benefits to people affected by the hurricane, and in 2006 voted against appropriating $109 billion in supplemental emergency funding, including $28 billion for hurricane relief.

Shortly after the disaster in New Orleans, McCain did introduce a bill that sought to improve communications mechanisms for first-responders and authorities. The bill failed to go anywhere, and McCain later voted against other bills that had similar provisions.

McCain may talk sympathetically about New Orleans’ recovery this week, but the record shows that when it mattered most, McCain failed to act. His passion for fiscal conservatism blinded him to a city and a region in need, and his Time for Action is simply too late.

Yeah, go ahead and give your speech from a hurricane ravaged area or have our favorite GOP Congressmembers filling sand bags.

It will serve as one hell of a reminder of an abomination I want never repeated in this country, and of my still raw emotions. A reminder on why, among many other reasons, I’ll be voting Obama.

May everyone on the Gulf Coast and those affected by this storm be safe and well.

I want to see more women in office. I want to see more women running for office.

I also want them to be Democrats.

If John McCain is counting on half of the country’s population to vote based on gender, he obviously missed the Democratic primary.

One of my favorite reactions to the Palin pick came from Alaska’s Lyda Green,

State Senate President Lyda Green said she thought it was a joke when someone called her at 6 a.m. to give her the news.
“She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?” said Green, a Republican from Palin’s hometown of Wasilla. “Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?”

I can’t wait for a classic McCain misspeak or failed joke that involves Palin. You know it’s coming. And I’m COUNTING on my feminist friends to step up and speak out.

I’m still laughing at this VP pick. LAUGHING.

If you want the woman vote so bad…you might want to talk issues, policy, and address our concerns- Not offer us a gun-toting, anti-choice, under indictment investigation Governor.

Although maybe once the evangelicals catch wind of her balancing work and family, and people become outraged that she is a woman running for office…maybe then we can have a real discussion in her party’s base about those “family values” they like to push. Maybe then it will be “ok” since she isn’t a baby-killing lesbian hippie.

So thanks John McCain, thanks for picking a woman as your running mate so America can (once again) have these discussions. Let’s talk about equal pay, maternity leave, and affordable child care. Let’s talk about misogyny and the old boys club and the names you call your wife.

Let’s talk about your rape jokes and your offering up your wife for a topless contest and your belief I need more education and training.

I can’t wait. Welcome McCain-Palin and the discussion you will bring to American kitchen tables.