Republicans For Kaine!!!

Apparently, you believe you know me well. However, I am afraid you don't know anything you purport to know about me.

First of all, I would like to address the fact that the only real beef you have with this blog is that we have savvy intellectuals contributing.  People who are abreast of the issues and have valid claims and observations to make. The truth offends folks like you immensely because, frankly, you can't refute it.

The fact that we like to have a little fun by adding satire and comical observations does not diminish that truth, it lightens up a subject that jades so many people our ages. We are from a class of voters - young people - that makes up 20% of the population but only about 6% of the vote. That's pathetic, so anything we can do to make politics interesting to people our age is definitely a contribution to society.

And I wasn't "talking about them" being adopted, we were musing about differences in looks. And Terry and Jerry are public officials; they couldn't even sue Jay Leno if they didn't like what he said in satire, so I'm not all that worried about that!

Secondly, how refreshing it is to be personally attacked! And that is no satire my dear friend. Let me explain...

When I married John, I was still an active Republican. In fact, I stopped going to meetings the month he was filing out of respect for his opposition because I felt it was a conflict of interest during the campaign. Yes, I supported my husband's campaign.  I managed it.  I did not agree with many things the incumbent had done;  she had personally, along with a few others, caused rifts in our local Republican party. For many reasons I was beginning to feel separated from this party, but more on that later.

Some Republicans were horrible to me during that time. They never thought that maybe I wasn't a Democrat, and they just assumed I was sleeping with the enemy so I was the enemy. On Election Day, Terry and Jerry Kilgore came to our precinct for awhile to personally campaign against John. They never even bothered to say hello to me, never mind that I had worked on Terry's campaigns and Jerry's (and mind you I always did the hard foot work, not the pansy ass campaign staff work you get paid for). Instead, they chose to make fun of John, myself, our children, our farm vehicle, and our campaign. Unbeknown to them, the person they thought shared their mirth and derision, another public official who had supported John privately due to their position being non-political, was abhorred and aghast.

The incumbent, who wasn't worth shit anyway, was defeated by a 2:1 margin. My husband is a damn good Supervisor. He was appointed Chairman immediately, and he balanced the budget for the first time in eons. We actually have true economic development occurring for the first time in a long time, a board that can work together across party lines, and our county isn't mismanaged. Turns out the voters agreed with John, not Terry and Jerry and their cronies, and I am VERY proud of him for always doing the right thing.

So, these people, to whom I gave so much in every election year, who belittled me and made fun of me because I married someone, these are the people you want to chastise me for making fun of? Hah, good one (April Fools, right?).

Let me tell you another story. I grew up poor. I had a single mother who I helped get her GED when I was in third grade. We were a happy family, but I grew up wanting things to be different. I wanted to become a college graduate (no one had ever done this before in my family).  I wanted to be in politics to change the world, because no one who was ever born with a silver spoon in their mouth knows  what it is like (any Kilgores listening?). Despite having all the odds stacked against me, I did everything right. I went to William and Mary on a full scholarship with stipends to pay my expenses. I was even running distance there. Then one night I made a tiny slip.

Granted, my son coming into my life was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. But having a baby your freshman year of college isn't exactly something they list in Who's Who. Anyway, so I'm a pro-life Republican.  Of course it never crossed my mind which choice I would make. So, my son was born, and I was an optimistic mother who thought I still had no barriers.

But what do you do when you are a full time student working two jobs and raising a child? Not much else, that's for sure, except grow up fast. I of course couldn't afford insurance, and my son had a skin condition. So, mustering all the pride I had left, I went to my local social services and applied for Medicaid. George Allen was Governor at the time.  He was "reforming" Medicaid, so I thought surely I'd be taken care of between working two jobs and going to school full time. You know what,  the case worker actually told me to quit my jobs because then I would be better off? Making $6 an hour part time, I didn't qualify for the help I needed. Well, my husband and I could barely pay rent as it was. I will never forget feeling left out in the cold like that.

I won't even tell you stories of other times I felt left out in the cold by the party I was supporting, but I will ask you this: how can a party that says, "don't have abortions," refuse to help people who make honest mistakes but try desperately to overcome them? How can a party offer no support to people who try desperately to make their own lives better? How can a party that says it is the party of the open door slam that door in the face of its hardest workers who support them? I don't know, but when I met John I felt like I had lost my political self identity.

I voted for Bush the first time, hell I fliered whole neighborhoods, put up signs, and held a fundraiser eight months pregnant that year. But I don't make the same mistakes, and nobody ever said that being a Republican means you have to vote for the same idiot twice in support of the party. And why would I even think that a Republican party who puts up liberals like  Schwarzenegger and Giuliani at their convention be the party I have supported anyway?

The Kilgores don't have principles. They do whatever and say whatever they think will win an election. They don't do anything to help anybody but themselves. I know this for a fact, I have observed it first hand.

This year, the Democrats are offering  a sensible, conservative, passionate candidate in Tim Kaine. He is the antithesis of everything I personally have come to know the Kilgores to be. The first time I met him with John and told him I was a Republican, he commented, "Hey, so's my father in law, and he's a fine man." I knew that he was able to see past the party line and think with a clear head, and to me that means something when you know a Kilgore can't.

So go ahead, attack me some more, it feels great! You know why? It means I am doing something I haven't done in awhile, and that's ruffling feathers for change.  And nothing ruffles feathers more than the pure truth spoken with conviction. I assure you, I will be the hardest working person in SWVA when it comes to the two Kilgore campaigns this year. Not for personal gain, but because it is the right thing to do. And that you can take SERIOUSLY!

I am still VaGOPgal, and I still pay my yearly "dues" and get my little card to carry around. But that doesn't mean that I blindly follow the crowd. I was taught to think on my own and to always do what is right, and that my kind dear, is what we call PRINCIPLES, something the Kilgores can not claim to have . The way I see it, a party I can't believe in isn't worth much, and if we don't start changing how we think a good candidate is defined, I might just join another party indefinitely.

So, as someone who knows, and as a person who has paid my "dues," I say loud and clear: REPUBLICANS FOR KAINE!!!!

~Tabitha

P.S. If we are so absurd, why are you reading us? Hmmm. . . Anyway, whoever you are, feel free to call anytime, we'll do lunch.  Then, I'll give you a longer version of why I would feel I was going to hell if I hadn't made the 180.  And believe me, I am a might more passionate in person, so I hope you don't mind foul language. . .

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