What Would Ann Do?
It's our time to put a president in the White House who cares about women's health, take back our country, and move once again with progress and commitment to the future. That's what Hillary Clinton said when she suspended her presidential campaign and that's what my mother Ann Richards would say if she were alive today. When Mom lost her reelection bid for governor of Texas to George Bush in 1994, she didn't just get over it, she went on with it -- on to campaign with gusto for hundreds of women and other progressive candidates across the country.
Mom required only one thing of the many folks who asked for her campaign help: a 100 percent belief in women's rights. If they didn't have it, they were out of luck. But if they stood up for women as she did, she would travel to the ends of the earth for them.
That's why if she were still around she would suit up and campaign for Senator Obama in the farthest corner of the farthest state. Mom would see in him a leader with a long and consistent record for standing up for women's health care, a man raised by a single mother, a father of two daughters, and a husband who supports women's rights 100 percent.
She'd see in him what we at the Planned Parenthood Action Fund see: a leader who will improve access to quality health care for women, a partner who will support and protect a woman's right to choose, and a president who will invest in prevention programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion.
Elections are about choices, and Mom would have said that women voting for John McCain would be like chickens choosing to vote for the Colonel. In 25 years in Washington, John McCain has consistently voted against women's health. McCain wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, opposes basic family planning programs, and voted against insurance coverage for birth control. He has a zero percent voting record from Planned Parenthood.
As a health care provider to millions of patients every year, we take our endorsement process very seriously. In this election, the choice is very clear. Our national Action Fund board has voted unanimously to recommend an endorsement of Senator Barack Obama for president. That recommendation has been sent on for ratification to our local action organizations, who represent the interests of all 103 affiliates.
This year we have seen historic numbers of women, young people, and millions of new voters engaged for the first time in the political process. This is the kind of social change that Mom believed in and fought for her entire life. And that's the kind of work we at Planned Parenthood are all about.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund polling finds that more than half of women voters in battleground states have no idea where Senator McCain stands on women's health issues, and even worse, half of the women who support him describe themselves as pro-choice. The good news is when these women learn about his record of voting against access to family planning and sex education, as well as his opposition to Roe v. Wade, they become much less likely to support him.
That's why we are out there, engaging and educating voters on the records of both Senator Obama and Senator McCain, and turning out the key voters who will be instrumental in electing a pro-choice, pro-women's health care president.
In her famous speech at the Democratic convention twenty years ago, Mom said, "I think of all the things that never would have happened and all the people who would have been left behind if we had not reasoned, and fought, and won those battles together." Like Hillary, she would be imploring all voters to not let this moment slip away. She would agree that we have come too far and accomplished too much. Let's link arms and get on with the future, she'd say. It's time to elect Barack Obama president.
Cecile Richards, daughter of the late Ann Richards, former governor of Texas, is president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
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All evidence that McCain lives in a dreamland of rich people who don't have kids.
I think we should leave off woman's issues on birth control. It's a devisive issue and the repubs seem to get traction from the fanatics who are 'right to life'; you know 'save the foetus, kill the child.' Let's not fall into the God, guns and gays issues. We have to concentrate on this terrible economy, the Iraq War, and health care and education and JOBS for Americans. Those are the real issues. The repubs have nothing to offer on these isues. I always support Planned Parenthood and would not discuss a pregnancy unplanned with anyone except those who love me. Keep government out of our ovaries, please. Let's just skip the subject, it's easier. We can always donate to women who need us by giving to Planned Parenthood..
By the way, Ann Richards was a great lady!
Independent for Obama '08
A McCain presidency would be even more detrimental to the USA than W!!!!
This man wants women to be second class citizens... he voted against an equal wage bill also!!
I hope those scorned women voters threatening to vote for this man will reconsider!!!
I, being a woman, happen to enjoy the rights and freedoms that I have! I do not like abortion, and do not promote it, but I am also in NO position to tell someone else they can't have one! I appreciate birth control... appreciate family planning... these things are important to me!!!
A vote for this man, is like taking us back to pre 19th Amendment days... (next he will try and take our vote away)
Also, being an African American female, when he voted not once, but TWICE against MLK holiday... that did it for me!!! This man care nothing for minorities what so ever... pandering to get the vote, then completely forgetting them when it comes to serving them!!!!
PLEASE AMERICA>>>> wake up and realize this man is DANGEROUS for us!!!!
Come on, Hillary Supporters For McCain. Where's your rebuttal to the president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and daughter of the late, great former Texas governor? I'm not seeing lots of you commenting here. Tell us why she's got it all wrong and why you're right to exercise your little snit by voting for McCain.
(crickets chirping....)
Do you seriously believe that any REAL Democrat would vote for McCain? Even before Clinton dropped out, I would read these comments from SUPPOSED Clinton supporters threatening to vote for McCain and I can promise you they were TROLLS!
I supported Clinton. So did many people I know, black and white. But, I can tell you that not one of us would ever in a million years vote for McCain or any other repug. I have always said that if Obama were our candidate, not only would I vote for him, I would campaign for him!
No REAL Democrat is going to vote for McCain out of spite! That is childish. And, people like you who keep insisting that Clinton supporters will support McCain are falling for bait left by trolls who are trying to divide our party!
Obama won. He's OUR candidate. So, stop trying to bait people who never existed in the first place and LET IT GO! You aren't helping our candidate and you aren't helping our party. Your hatred for all things Clinton is dividing our party. Unless, of course, YOU are a troll and that is your goal!
I'm so tired of the pundits' hysterical hand-wringing over those Clinton's supporters who are "threatening" to vote for McCain. This is one of several reasons why they will eventually grow up and see the light.
After they get a few good looks at McCain, hear his anti-choice swill, understand his intentions in Iraq and Iran, realize that he has no plans to regulate anything, see how hideous he really is, they will probably come to their senses. If not, there are millions of younger, energized new voters to cancel out their defection.
This is an excellent op-ed. Let's send it around?
For this to work we need to pan out and hit all the republican blogspheres. Stop just posting here your just preaching to the chorus. You have to get your opinion out amoung people who may be sitting on a fence !!!
Find blogs in Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Nevada to start with. and unload.
Bravo Pippen. Let's get to it. this is specific to those sitting on the fence, and the Clinton crowd who, hopefully have moved on and decided to stand up for women's rights. But don't piss and moan if you vote for McSame and lose them for yourselves and your daughters in the future.
Thanks so much for posting, Cecile. I actually cited your mom a few times as the kind of female candidate I'd like to see in the Oval Office (I did not support HRC).
Those women who are defecting to McCain - after reading a piece like this, are you still convinced that he's the better candidate for women's issues?
Thanks for carrying on your Mom's legacy of truth-telling.
She was one classy broad - in the best sense of the word.
Maybe she and Molly can work some mischief from the other side! ; )
You took the words right off my fingertips, buckbuck11!
Our loss is Heaven's gain...sigh ;-[
Ditto! How I miss both Mollie and Ann.
Great post, Cecile! I see that the "apple didn't fall to far from the tree". I miss Ann's sharp wit and wisdom, especially right now.
Cecile, remember the march to the capitol on your Mom's inaugeration day? That was the first time the American Indian community from all over Texas came together to participate. We donned our traditional regalia and proudly walked to honor your Mom. We knew she cared about the unique issues that confront Indian people. We never lost affection for her and we remember her with love.
Worked at DFW for an airline...in one day I say a prominent Republican celebrity 'Mary Lou Retton' curry favor and want a celebrity cart and need to be seen attitude and not 5 minutes later I saw 'Ann Richards' toting here own luggage buy a coffee ...said hello to people who recognized her but not linger as if to say "here i am'.
We got Mary Lou to her destination with a few stops for autographs....Ann Richards walked to her gate pulling her tote with a cup of coffee in her hand .Fading away in the distance of the long terminal until she just merged with the mass of people.
She was the People!
That's a great story! Thanks for sharing it.
Molly Ivins, Ann Richards' dear friend and Texas' best wit, was not a Clinton supporter. In a column in January 2006, she wrote:
"I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.
Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges."
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2006/1304
I really miss both Molly and Ann. I would love to hear their take on current events.
That is a particularly prescient article. I wish Ms. Ivins would have lived to see the final repudiation of weaselly Clintonian triangulation with the Democratic party that this primary season has represented.
It is my belief that the son of a single mother, father of only daughters, will not forget women's health issues. Obama carries them in his heart as a precept to his purposes in politics. Your mother, whom I admired all my adult life for her edge, wisdom, and sassy spirit, would like Obama.
The proof of any candidate is after the fact. The White House changes a person, President and family. It magnifies who we are are and what we believe, for better and worse. With the women I love in mind, I will insist upon improving women's health forever.
A proud coalition of women and men who truly love women is what is required. What we do and what we say is terribly important in selecting a president. A man who denigrates his wife, ... his second wife at that, as being a C**T, has already demonstrated that he sees the world as being divided by our parts. I would not sit and have a beer with a man who did that, let alone elect him to President.
That Michelle Obama would be unlikely to tolerate that sort of rubbish in their home is a good sign, ... and perhaps the best of all. That Cindy McCain already has, ... and still ferries her husband from appearance to appearance in her personal jet, is pathetic. I'd have hoped a proud wife and mother would tell that SOB to take Delta Coach for the rest of the campaignseason until
I can see it all now! McCain wants no birth control, (like Mexico and Central America) so we can send all the excess peopel who will be born to US families to Mexico to work, where the natives will be told to feel sorry for them and take them in. Then they can work (maybe in the new Ford factory being build there) and send money back to the US--and stimulate the economy, just like is now done for Mexico, which gets its second largest income from such remittances! I'll bet McCain could even get some of the churches who need more members because they are losing theirs on his side in banning birth control.
Mom would have said that women voting for John McCain would be like chickens choosing to vote for the Colonel. --wonderful, wonderful quote!!
I loved your mother. Her quote about GHWB silver foot in his mouth is one of my all-time favorited. She never quit fighting. Quite a lady.
Thanks for your post. Your Mom was one great woman. I had the priviledge of working for the State of Texas when she was governor. WOW, what a time!
She caused the entire state government to become racially integrated. I'm not going to say it was easy, but she did it and the State of Texas was better for it. Of course, when Bush became governor, he dismantled the state agencies, just like he did to the federal government.
Ann Richards and Molly Ivans, those were the times. I didn't know how really great they were until now. I miss them and what they represented.
I too miss Ann Richards and Molly Ivins . It always made me feel good to know Molly was out there, fighting for the ordinary people with courage and humor.
Agreed. Ann and Molly were gems. Foul-mouthed and fun, but gems nonetheless.
I miss them both as much as I miss MY late senator, Paul Wellstone. Fighters, all. And fighters for the little guy. Who does that today? I have hope for Obama in that regard, but he could not find better examples in life than Ann & Molly & Paul.
epu
I loved your mom and Molly Ivins both. I wish they were here with us.
"I'm really glad that our young people missed the Depression, and missed the great big war. But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew. Leaders who told us when things were tough, and that we would have to sacrifice, and these difficulties might last awhile. They didn't tell us things were hard for us because we were different, or isolated, or special interests. They brought us together and they gave us a sense of national purpose."
Ann Richards 1988 keynote address, Democratic National Convention
"I feel very strongly that change is good because it stirs up the system." - Ann Richards
"So keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin' ass and celebratin' the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was."
Molly Ivins
Dear Cecile, I greatly admired your mother Ann Richards. I wish she were still with us.
Ann Richards inspired all Americans, not just Texans, to excell in life.
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