Apt. 11D

Kerry Goes a Courting

Kerry is trailing Bush on the women's vote. Today, he tried to woo the women.

And while some national polls, whose findings can often conflict in such a tight race, show that Mr. Kerry does not have as much support among women as did Al Gore when he ran against Mr. Bush in 2000, a New York Times poll last Sunday showed that the Kerry campaign had made some recent gains. A slightly later poll by The Washington Post, however, showed women narrowly favoring Mr. Bush.

In Wisconsin, the senator pressed his point that Mr. Bush's economic policies had hurt working women.

"Millions of women struggle to get by on the minimum wage. They have to pay rent, buy groceries, and clothes for their children," Mr. Kerry said. "But in terms of purchasing power, the minimum wage is the lowest it's been in nearly 50 years. And nearly two and a half million women have fallen into poverty in just the past four years.'

You're Kerry's campaign manager. Naomi Wolf is busy, so they've called you. Does it sound like Kerry is on the right track? What would you advise Kerry to say to bring in the women? Is it economics or terror or a nice green tie that hold the keys to a woman voter's heart?

The Family of the Candidate and Other Baggage

So, THK doesn't like the mommies? Who cares. Who died and put her on the ballot anyway?

But am I being a bad feminist for discounting her statements? And doesn't the First Lady have a great deal of influence over politics as Nancy Reagan and her astrologer can attest? And after viewing the weird connection between the Rodham brothers and the Cllinton's infamous pardons, perhaps we should take seriously the politics of the wife, the in-laws, and drunken step brothers.

Alienating the Mothers

Theresa Heinz Kerry hands the Republicans a nice little gift. Via Lileks.

Q: You'd be different from Laura Bush?

A: Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good. But I don't know that she's ever had a real job — I mean, since she's been grown up. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things. And I'm older, and my validation of what I do and what I believe and my experience is a little bit bigger — because I'm older, and I've had different experiences. And it's not a criticism of her. It's just, you know, what life is about.

Lileks responds: The big gaffe was the idea, standard to people of a certain age, that parenting is not a real job.

I heard a fascinating interview on the Medved show this week with a droning professor who lamented the failure of feminism to drive more women out of the house. She’d done a study of high-achieving women whose marriage notices were printed in the New York Times, and found that several years out, almost half had quit their jobs to stay home with the kids. Apparently they hadn’t internalized the New Truths, the Blazing Facts, the Glorious Realization that the highest calling in life is to sit in a veal pen on the 34th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper and type up depositions while Consuela teaches your children how to write their ABCs.

After a certain age, I think it’s fine to ship the tots off for the day. Me, I dread the day Gnat goes to school full time. But at least I had our years before first grade snagged her and pulled her into the machinery. My wife had six months when Gnat was born, and that made a great deal of difference; the time she had with Gnat when she was laid off was a boon, and she knew it. (She only went back to work because she knew I’d be home with Gnat; that was the decision we made a long time ago.) There is nothing – nothing in the workplace that matches the challenges and joys of the first five years. If you can’t make it work, well, then you can’t. But if you can, you should. Dare I say you ought to.

You might find yourself making Play-doh spaghetti one afternoon, and realize, to your astonishment, that you are happy. Why, you might even be validated.

Every woman (and parent) who is sitting in a playroom with dirty sweats reading "Goodnight Moon" for the 1,000th time understands this. And every woman who changed careers to help our her husband, because it isn't a competition but a team effort, understands this. This is why married women with kids start voting Republican. Because the Republicans aren't judging them.

It's this kind of nonsense that is going to sink Kerry.

UPDATE: The Post.

A New Swing State?

(Just a short post tonight. Had a long day that included being trapped in 6X12 pediatrician office for two hours with a two year old and five year old boy. Just because they're my own kids, doesn't lessen the torture. We passed the time by shoving tongue depressers under the door, playing games with the blood pressure monitors, and enduring witticism from the nurses, such as "Hey mom, aren't boys great?". Later, I went to parent observation day at my kid's school where I observed a captivating lesson on coloring in bears brown. For dinner, we drove into the city to have dinner with an old babysitter and picked up Steve in Times Square where we played chicken with pedestrians. 8:45 and finally at the computer.)

Yesterday, I spent a fair amount of time studying this breakdown of the election by state.

A quick question for my midwestern friends. When did Minnesota become a swing state? It hasn't voted for a Republican for president since a terrible mistake back in 1972. Why is Minnesota such a close state right now? Has it grown more conservative in recent years?

How Old Are You? And You Wear a Bow Tie?

I know, all the cool kids in the blogosphere have already linked to Jon Stewart on Crossfire. Well tough, you're going to get it again, because it's so damn funny.

From Media Matters:

CARLSON: You have a chance to interview the Democratic nominee. You asked him questions such as -- quote -- "How are you holding up? Is it hard not to take the attacks personally?"

STEWART: Yes.

CARLSON: "Have you ever flip-flopped?" et cetera, et cetera.

STEWART: Yes.

CARLSON: Didn't you feel like -- you got the chance to interview the guy. Why not ask him a real question, instead of just suck up to him?

STEWART: Yes. "How are you holding up?" is a real suck-up. And I actually giving him a hot stone massage as we were doing it. ....

CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you're accusing us of partisan hackery?

STEWART: Absolutely.

CARLSON: You've got to be kidding me. He comes on and you...

STEWART: You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you?

CARLSON: Well, I'm just saying, there's no reason for you -- when you have this marvelous opportunity not to be the guy's butt boy, to go ahead and be his butt boy. Come on. It's embarrassing.

STEWART: I was absolutely his butt boy. I was so far -- you would not believe what he ate two weeks ago.

Then Stewart lays into Carlson and Begala for being theater and spinmeisters. Read the whole thing. And watch the video of Stewart explaining why he called Carlson a dick on national TV.

UPDATE: The Times approves. According to the Post, What's more, Stewart stayed an hour and a half after taping ended to continue haranguing Carlson and co-host Paul Begala. Eventually, a CNN director said Stewart had to leave the set, which was to be used for a taping of "Anderson Cooper 360."

Out to Lunch

The Times has another article today on the closeness of this election. It is rather stunning that this race is so close, especially with Bush's popularity rating at an all time low of 44%. Why are people so unsure of Kerry? Is it his liberalism? Is his policy record and proposals?

I'm convinced that many people make a decision of who to vote for based on who would make the best dinner companion.

Sure people are uneasy about the war and question the intelligence of W., but he might be fun to go out with. He would make some cheesy jokes and goose the waitress. He would be quite happy at the local steak joint and wouldn't frown if you put ketchup on your prime rib. He would tell funny stories about getting drunk and driving around in his pickup truck.

A day with Kerry would take place at a restaurant with foreign words on the menu and far too many forks on the table. Kerry would go on and on about the ethanol tax and greenhouse gases. There would be some awkward pauses and everyone would just go home early.

I think Americans feel more comfortable voting for a world leader that licks their fingers after eating chicken wings and tosses some balls at a sports bar. Sure, they know that he might not be the sharpest tack in the box, but ultimately people want to vote for a peer. Clinton understood that as he chowed down on Big Macs and fries.

Does this bother me? In many ways, of course. Shouldn't we want the smartest guy in charge?

But I also think that voting for one's peer is a testament to our democratic culture. Americans don't want to worship their leaders or put them on a pedestal. Americans don't want IQ tests or breeding to determine who rises to the top. Americans don't want Mr. Perfect.

This principle of equality runs strongly in our culture. And though it might lead to disastrous ends, I admire it just the same.

Kerry and Bush on Education Policy

Education Week finds more similarities than differences between the two candidates on education policy.

No Partisan 'Ho Am I

With polls showing the candidates neck and neck, I'm fairly obsessed with the poll data right now. After taking account for the margin of error and likely voters, Bush might have a slight lead but not a huge one. For an incumbent president to win, he has to go into the election with a five percent lead. Carter and Reagan were also neck and neck at this point.

Dan writes that he is 80% likely to vote for Kerry. I'm about 95% likely to vote for Kerry, but am only 20% happy about it. I would never say that I'm 100% likely to vote for someone, because it is entirely possible that Kerry could do something ridiculous.

I'm not a partisan-ho. I refuse to take any asshole that my party serves me. I like weighing the two candidates until the last minute, keeping score during the debates, and monitoring spin. Each has to show me what they are going to do for me and how they reflect my values. Straight ticket voting strikes me as slightly antii-intellectual.

What makes me unhappy about Kerry? One thing that did irk me during the debate was his insistence on multilateral responses to global problems. I refuse to believe that France and Germany are more reasonable and have less selfish motives than the United States. Sometimes, if the cause is good, we just have to go it alone. More on Kerry's foreign policy from Dan.

Of course, I never thought Iraq was a good cause and feel that it has been handled terribly, so I'm not voting for Bush. But I do think that we can't cut our losses and pack up the troops now. We must finish off work there before we leave. Which brings me back to some worries about Kerry. I'm not sure he'll have an interest in rectifying mistakes and committing more troops to Iraq.

Never An Empty Seat

On Saturday, I met up with a couple of buddies in the city. We fought with the Brooklyn girls for tweed miniskirts at the GAP on the 34th Street. We braved the shoe department at Macy's. We purchased freshly ground curry spices in the East 20s. When our bundles became too heavy, we hunkered down in an old favorite tapas bar in the East Village for a pitcher of sangria and spicy potatoes. Great day.

However, I was gypped out of the quiet hour on the bus into the city. I was looking forward to the finishing off the double issue of the New Yorker and some quality time looking at the skyline over the Meadowlands. But it was not to be. Because crazy people love me.

I'm a magnet for racists, wackos, drunks, and needy foreigners. They seek me out. If there is an empty seat next to me on a bus or an airplane, they'll make a beeline for it even if every other seat is empty.

The racists like to tell me about their noxious views preferably loud enough for the entire bus to hear. The paranoid-schizophrenics quietly hand me notes before darting out the sidedoor of the M4. The notes offer evidence of a master plan for world domination by aliens and the CIA between the lines of a brochure for Radio Shack.

On the trip into the city, I got the needy foreigner. A Fabio look alike sat next to me and quickly asked for information about the return bus. One question became another and soon I could see that he was going to request the guidance of a tour guide. I dealt with it the only know way I know how. I pretended to fall asleep. Narcolepsy can be your friend.

While waiting for the return bus in the Port Authority, a conservative Jewish woman in her forties asked me about the destination of our bus. Then she asked me about my views of New York hospitals.

See, I wasn't prepared. I've never encountered a wacko in a cheap wig before. Before I knew it, she was squeezed next to me in a nearly empty bus, telling me about the network of social workers and doctors and lawyers and insurance companies, all conspiring to write "histrionic" on your records when, clearly, the blackouts and lumps on your head all pointed to cancer. It's a network, I tell you. And then I'm considering the consequences of getting the driver to let me off right there in the middle of the Lincoln Tunnel. The falling asleep trick wasn't working with this woman because she kept smacking me in the arm.

Why am I a magnet for crazy people? Why am I singled out to hear about the networks and the CIA plots? Do I have a very understanding face? Do they think that I am one of them? Slightly worrisome.

Welcome to Kiddieland

I still haven't decided if the suburbs make me happy or not. I can drink coffee on my front porch. But there are no people walking by. Dirty dishes and socks no longer oppress me. But it takes longer to vacuum the house. There are seventeen other children on our block. But the mothers never leave their houses.

Some good. Some bad.

For the kids, though, moving to the suburbs was an unqualified success.

Jonah loves school. When the bus drops him off at 3:30, we walk down the block together and chat about the day. I force the boys into the kitchen for snack time. Their bikes will still be there when we're done.

While the kids munch on apples that we picked at Davies farm on Monday, I open up Jonah's blue folder. His teacher has stuffed it with his work from the day. He matched the lower case n with the upper case N. He drew a picture of us picking apples. He circled the big squares and xed the small ones. Easy stuff, but Jonah likes getting everything all right.

In the city, soccer class required a forty minute subway ride to central park and a bucket of cash. On Saturday morning, Steve walks Jonah to his soccer practice at the middle school field. Jonah is the star of his team. He scored a goal last week, and the coach told Steve that Jonah was very talented. Of course, Steve also over heard the coach describe Jonah as a lunatic because he was fearlessly charging boys twice his size. My boy, the lunatic. We're so proud.

After hours of work dealing with the state bureaucracy (a post in the future), Ian has been set up with speech therapy. The therapist came to our house last week and showed him some new tricks. She sternly told me to throw away his sippy cups because they have been linked to speech delay.

I also made a dozen calls to find a nursery school program for Ian. He's ready for a little finger painting and circle time. In the city, we had only two options for nursery school. One was $8,000 for part time; $15,000 for full time. The other was $5,000 for a mediocre program. The teachers were mean, the space was small, and there were 18 kids in the classroom. We had to send Jonah to the bad place.

Here, there are a dozen nursery school options. I observed a great program for two years olds this morning with 9 kids and parental involvement. We're signing up immediately. Next year, there's a Montessori part time program that only costs $3,000. All have large spaces and young teachers.

And then there's our block - 17 kids and most of them are under 6. There are quadruplets and two sets of twins. When the bus driver unloads them with a sigh of relief, the kids tear down the block over everyone's lawns shouting Let's meet after snack time. When it's time for dinner, I just yell out the window for Jonah to get back in, while Ian chases the cat.

Sure it's crazy. The quadruplets have already knocked down our fence, and Ian likes to ring the neighbor's bell. But if they're happy, I'm happy. Jonah's bad nursery school drove me to distraction. After I finish filling out this paperwork for Ian's schools, I can stop worrying about the boys and concentrate on myself. When he's at nursery school, maybe I can finish those articles. Maybe the suburbs are going to work out for me, too.