Yesterday Jay wrote an excellent piece sharing his thoughts on the results of the 2012 election, and if you haven’t read it yet, you absolutely should. While Jay sums up much of what I’m feeling right now, I wanted to share some of my own thoughts as well.
While I’m certainly disappointed Republicans maintained control of the State Assembly and regained control of the State Senate, neither result was surprising, given how favorably Republicans had gerrymandered Wisconsin’s legislative districts. However, I was happy that my State Representative – Democrat Chris Sinicki – easily beat back a challenge from “tea party” Republican Molly McGartland, and I was almost as happy to see Republican State Rep. Roger “some women rape so easy” Rivard get voted out of office.
Despite the setbacks of losing control of the State Senate and continuing as the minority party in the State Assembly, Wisconsinites did move our state and our nation forward, electing our state’s first female Senator, not to mention our nation’s first openly gay Senator. While Herb Kohl served our state well during his time in office, I believe Tammy Baldwin will not only be an improvement over her predecessor, but she also serious step “Forward” for our state.
And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note the significance of Tuesday’s election results. The number of women elected to serve in the United States Senate this year means that at no time in our nation’s history have more women served in the United States Senate, with 20 women being set to serve in the Senate during the next session of Congress. While that’s certainly a significant step forward, there’s still a lot more work to do, because women shouldn’t be outnumbered 4 to 1 in our nation’s highest deliberative body, a body that should be representative of our nation.
While the number of women elected to political posts in this country is a fourth of the males, one cannot think women are under represented in our legislature or any where else. The reason President Obama won re-election is almost certainly due to his vote ratio with women compared to Romney. It is always rather painful somehow to see abuse poored out upon a female candidate compared to a male candidate. So, one could say it’s our innate respect for women in this country that has kept the ratio of women low compared to men in politics.
Say WHAT??? Up at the crack of noon and haven’t had your coffee, yet?? You just forget the sarcasm tag, oh, I guessed correctly, right???