Just a Regular Old Hockey Mom: running for vice prezI’m trying to make sense of the Republican convention.  I’m also trying to rise above the righteousness I see on both sides and put myself in someone else’s shoes, but I sort of feel like Cinderella’s step sister.

Two nights ago, I had dinner with some family friends and we started discussing the election.  Barry, a 60-something, Jewish, Republican, lawyer man said to the entire group, which included four Democratic women around my age of 40, “I bet you all are happy McCain chose a woman.”

My sister-in-law, Lisa, who is also a lawyer, mouthed, “You gotta be f**king kidding,” and I thought he was.  But he wasn’t.  He loves Sarah Palin.  Thinks she’s feisty and thought she showed the world how much she knows about oil.

Lisa said, “How can you agree with off-shore drilling?”

Barry said, “She’s from Alaska, she knows her oil,” and it became clear to me why McCain picked this unknown, right-wing, woman Senator from Alaska.  Because people are so afraid of the rising cost of gas and they think she knows her oil.  

Barry didn’t respond to Lisa’s question.  He went off on Obama, calling him Obuma, I think as a way of saying he’s a bum, but it’s hard to say because his logic was impossible for me to follow.  It wasn’t a conversation, not even a back and forth.  Barry kept cutting us off and spewing his own version of the facts, which seemed so different from ours.  

Lisa said, “Why aren’t you listening to a thing we’re saying?”  

He didn’t answer.  He wasn’t listening.  

I tried to think about what was going on for Barry.  Maybe he felt out numbered?  Maybe he felt insecure about his political ideas?  Or maybe he was just a pit-bull without the lipstick?

This has been my experience of the current political debate: It’s like half the country speaks Red and the other half Blue and even if they’re in the same room talking to each other, neither side can understand the other.

I’m trying, but I don’t speak Red.  

I watched the Republican Convention.  The commentators on Fox News told us before Sarah Palin began that she was going to win us over with her "every-woman" charm and grace.

I thought Palin was a bitch.  I’m sorry to use that sexist term, but she was snarky and condescending and to be fair to our sex, so was Rudy Giuliani.  Palin said, “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.”  And then she smirked and the Republicans in the audience laughed.

I felt sick when I saw that.  In my opinion, community organizing should elicit more respect than serving the nation as a soldier at war.  Community organizing is serving the nation peacefully and directly.  Our soldier, Obama, served in the South Side of Chicago, where people had lost their jobs.  He could have joined a corporate law firm and made tons of money for himself, but he didn’t.  

How can Palin mock Obama for serving his country and come off as charming? And how can she put herself out there as a hockey mom?  I don’t think you can be a hockey mom AND run for Vice President when you have a 4-month old baby.  

I said this to Victoria and she said, “Are you saying women with small children can’t have big jobs?”

I said, “I think women can and should do what they want.  As men do.  But I don’t think you can say you’re a hockey mom and pretend to uphold family values, and at the same time neglect your four-month old baby.”

But somehow in the Red language, Sarah Palin is the model mother, even if one of her teen-age daughters is pregnant.  Ooops.  

I can’t understand that.

Andrea Askowitz, author of My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy, guest blogged for Jewcy over the past week.  This is her last post.