If the GOP has finally lost Susan, they will never catch up
Beginning back in the 80's, I had a years-long affair with a woman named Susan.
Susan was a dream come true - beautiful, smart and funny. We had like tastes in pretty much everything - music, wine, fast cars, cuisine, you name it. Susan was classic Fort Worth, Texas.
But she was a Republican, through and through.
Susan worshipped St Ronnie, forgave Iran-Contra, and even backed GHWB.
She listened to LimpBo and watched Faux (not when I was around, however).
The woman thought W was going to save the world, early on, but wavered at the end.
I moved on and had only spoken to her once in the past four years.
She called me last week from SFO, on her way to Yosemite. Asked if she could stop by, drink some wine and play some music.
So I said, "Sure".
Long story short, the night wore on and we were talking about our respective situations.
She told me she has been dating a Judge in Austin, and then she dropped The Bomb.
"I just found out that son-of-a-bitch has been accepting money from Tom DeLay and Bob Perry. I told him that he had a choice - give back the money or get out of my life."
She then went on about the Republican War on Women and the Middle Class. She was livid about voter suppression, the pathologically dishonest Romney campaign, and on and on. Ironically, she had few misgivings about the Judge's political affiliation but her problem was with his supporters who are helping to fund everything else she was pissed about.
She did, after all, put up with me for all those years.
Susan has money and she has a voice.
If the 'pubs have lost the Susans in their race to the bottom, the Party may never recover.
Welcome Home, Suze.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I agree with the first poster: She sounds like a keeper.
She is one very smart, classy lady.
Jus' sayin'......
And I seriously doubt your self-criticism, but it does reflect your genuine modesty, and that, too, is beautiful. I hope she knows a good thing when she sees it and grabs onto you as tightly as you want to grab on to her. 
May she go forth and spread the truth, Amen.
Good luck.
YEAH!
There was an amazing story in Indiana this election. it was mostly lost because with this one exception, the election results were dismal here, with the GOP taking a super-majority in the legislature. Thanks, Team Obama for looking out for number one and not pushing for other Democrats. That really sucks.
But despite no help from anywhere, we got one huge win. We had had this complete idiot for Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Bennett ("I left my brains in San Francisco ..." This guy has been pushing vouchers and charters like crazy. It was a mission to wreck the largest public districts in the state (Indianapolis, Gary, Ft. Wayne.)
He was opposed in this election by a school librarian named Glenda Ritz. Long story short, she seemingly came from out of nowhere and kicked Bennett's ass by a wide margin -- it wasn't close.
http://www.indystar.com/viewart/20121106/NEWS0502/311060012/Indiana-election-2012-Tony-Bennett-loses-re-election-bid-school-superintendent-challenger-Glenda-Ritz
It is still an uphill battle turning around the damage the these right-wingers have done to public education, especially considering that the legislature is even more Republican after this election. But it is a first step. And the lesson in all of this is that we have to organize -- continuously. Ritz had a built-in constituency of virtually all public teachers in the state. This was not just about their jobs, but that was certainly a big part of it. Simply stated, Bennett's big plan is to privatize schools, sucking public money out of the public districts, giving that money to for-profit operators who don't have to meet the same educational standards and are given a Bonanza of resources, such as rent-and-maintenance-free buildings. Meanwhile the corpses of the public districts are kept alive for all the most difficult, undesirable students. The for-profit schools can have 50% of their staff without any teaching credentials -- in other words at or near minimum wage. But who needs teachers anyway? We will just put students in front of computers all day long and then test them on how much they have memorized. That is the right-wing formula for "education" in the 21st century.
It took a campaign to bring these assholes down. We have to sustain these efforts across the board all the time.
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Here is very good article that talks about what is possible
http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2012/11/07/what-glenda-ritzs-victory-over-tony-bennett-means-for-indiana-schools/
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I don't know if it is true, but people I know who are well connected with the Indiana education establishment say that Bennett thought he had the inside track to become Mitt Romney's Secretary of Education.
Talk about a rude wake-up call. "Mr. Bennett, I have some bad news and some worse news. The bad news is that you aren't going to be in Romney's cabinet. The worse news is that you are out of a job altogether."
I have these little Sony sticks (maybe 3 1/4" by 1 3/8" that will record 9 hours of everything.
They are great for live music, too.
Stereo, as well...
Great little tools
DBH
