It took a while to write back because I actually did something fun tonight (for a change) I went to an event where people stand on stage and give ten minute lectures about things that they are not experts in. I made my boyfriend go with me, and I was relieved that it was actually funny. The last guy stood up and talked about the similarities between UFO's (he had seen one and according to his research many people have) and voter disenfranchisement (our elections could not be certified by the Carter Institute that works in third world nations)....he said that making a fuss about either issue makes people think you're kookoo. He's right. (about the voter disenfranchisement at least).

I think everything you write is interesting. I saved this:

"Think carefully here. Is it because she is a woman who fights and you don't know what to think about a woman who fights? You often engage with me. I fight! You are polite. Now pretend that everything you have worked for is at stake? What do you do?"

This is interesting because when I was growing up I liked to argue. I still do. I love it. I find it fun, my parents thought I would become a lawyer. As for being polite--and fighting.

But every good fight has certain rules. Take sports--they have rules, even in cage fighting there is a rule. To survive. I come from a religious family where my father had some issues with rules/authoritarianism. He thought his will was rule (he still might think this...I sort of avoid him.) He actually went to jail once for a night because of his willingness to break rules. I feel like I've seen similar tactics from the G.O.P. and Bush (maybe these two are also conflated for me because my father supported Bush).

So what do I do if everything I've worked for is at stake? I fight--but I also follow the rules, because I want to win. To really win. And if I break the rules in order to win I will win by virtue of my power and my personal authority, rather than because I have earned it. Those who win this way don't really win. Staying in power like this there is a sword of Damocles over one's head. One must always be ready to slay another enemy. Maybe it is the only way to political power....and yet, it goes against our founding fathers' somewhat polite dream of political power.

The founding fathers were really smart in setting up a balance of powers. I'm not trying to draw a comparison between Clinton's tactics and Bush's....I acknowledge that her rule breaking, where it seems to be occurring, is minute in comparison with his squandering of public goodwill for personal gain. You might not think that wanting to seat Florida and Michigan at the convention is rule breaking, but I find it hard not to see it that way.

You ask me, to paraphrase, if I am judging her more harshly because she is a woman fighting? I love that she is a woman fighting...but where she seems to want to win by virtue of her power, rather than because she's played the game well...that worries me. And the fact that she is a woman doesn't alleviate that worry.

Being a woman for Clinton has been a double edged sword, because her campaign has somehow not engaged the women who like me, who want a leader with feminine qualities as much as we want a woman. Obama has been made fun of for his feminine qualities, yet I like these qualities. I don't believe that Clinton lacks these feminine qualities, by the way, but that her campaign has been designed to conceal them. I blame strategists like Mark Penn who apparently carelessly said that he didn't think they should bother to highlight her sense of compassion, because that was obvious, so they should focus on her "ready for Day One" toughness. Yet this toughness has been exactly what has pushed me away. Day one isn't enough. What about day two? Compassion should have been the bedrock of Clinton's campaign. Of any politician who is coming on the heels of merciless King Bush.

I'm waiting to see what happens though. I hope that neither of them wishes only to destroy. I hope that their grander ambition is to create. Both have personal ambition. But their commitment should also be to the causes they are representing. If these causes (healthcare, an end to the war...) lose so that either one of them can hold onto personal power, then a pox on both their houses. Unfortunately, a pox on all our house. Because I believe that a Republican presidency would be a devastating blow to an already bloody and foundering nation.

Of course, given voter disenfranchisement, and the prevalence of UFO's--who knows what will happen. I am watching. I am waiting. Okay, I'm laughing a little as I write this: I'm hoping. A fight is all about knowing who the enemy is. I don't see you as the enemy AKA. I don't even see Clinton as the enemy. But if this fight becomes about the politics of personal destruction, we will all suffer the consequences. That won't be fun.