Viva la Feminista

One of my favorite scenes from "The West Wing" is from the episode "Angel Maintenance." In it Matt McCoy plays a moderate Republican Congressman who is working with Josh on a bill. He goes off on Josh and I believe Toby (no, I'm not digging out the DVDs on this one) about how offended he is that the Democrats are targeting him in the upcoming election. He outlines in a very Yoda way that by pushing him, a moderate, out of office only opens the door for a far more conservative candidate to replace him or for him to have to go hard right to keep his seat. It is a favorite because it was one of many moments that really stuck with me and made me consider how I view moderates. Not only that, but to consider the physics of politics. What happens those of us on the left push for others to be just as left? Some of them join us. Others run hard right. As friends & long time readers know, I'm not a good Democrat. I don't send money to the party, DCCC, DSCC...

In the end, the sight of the snow storm from the hotel windows scared my posse & me enough to hit the road early - way early. We left at 3 pm. I'll go over the individual sessions in separate posts, but overall it was worth it to travel to Wisconsin for a day to learn why women are needed in politics. At the beginning of November Tucker Carlon told Eleanor Smeal that women are too smart to be in politics . Well I met some brilliant women this weekend who are in politics this weekend. What Mr. Bow-tie is reallly worried about is the idea that if we do get enough women in politics the game changes. Panel after panel, women elected to offices that ranged from local to state-wide showed that in very little time, they were changing the way that the game was being played. Being a Chicagoan I know that politics is much more than just passing laws to make this world a better, safer place. There are friends to help out, our cousin's best friend's company to gift a sweetheart con...

wow...I can't get over how many fabu women are in this room. We just finished up a session on building your community for change. I admit that I am horrible at being strategic about life and this session was all about planning. More on this later. Technorati tags: White House Project , politics , Marie Wilson

Good morning! Weather report - It looks cold out there, but so far no snow or rain, but everyone is warning that it will be bad later today. Hopefully it'll all happen while we're in the hotel. So last night...it was great! The woman, er, young woman who runs the trainings is only 26. Ok, so that didn't do too much for my ego, but hey, she's doing an awesome job. She told us a little bit about who is here and we range in age from 17 to 66 years old. Seventeen!? OK, now I really feel like a slacker. But gotta say, if this had existed when I was 17, I'd be here too. We have teachers, students (my roomie is a freshman at Alverno ), engineers, homemakers, crossing guards, lawyers, and activists. 25% of us don't affiliate with any major party. We have one sister-sister team and one mother-daughter team (I met them in the elevator and was wistful. My mom was PTA president...sigh). The White Project is in Wisconsin thanks to some grants they received to work in Wiscons...