Over the weekend, I tuned in to the Barack Obama rally at Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus.
Among the speakers: California's First Lady, Maria Shriver. Accompanying her cousin Caroline Kennedy as well as Oprah Winfrey, Shriver announced her support for Sen. Obama.
Watching the crowd, I noticed that while most attendees enthusiastically applauded Maria's endorsement-delivering speech, at least a few women in attendance chose not to emote at all.
I realize that I'm at a disadvantage because I wasn't there. But still, if my observations were and are correct, I have to think the lack of unanimous acclamation for Maria Shriver was driven in part by the fact that her husband happens to be California's Republican Governor, the McCain-endorsing Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Among the progressive California women voters I know, what I have just described is not a unique sentiment.
To be sure, some of these voters admire Maria Shriver for being "her own woman." Others, including some with that sentiment, also feel that a loving marriage is quite possible across political divides.
But I have to tell you. Those who seem to have sat on their hands when Maria spoke yesterday remind me of some women I know who think that any true progressive female dare not marry a Republican. Especially one with the public persona of Arnold.
In this type of thinking, any accomodation of that type is surrender to the enemy.
Going along with that line of thinking, there's the argument that any progressive that falls in love with someone from the enemy camp should at best be pitied.
Well, I have something to say to those progressive, Obama-loving women at yesterday's rally.
You have the perfect right to sit on your hands when wives of Republicans speak. But if your blood is so boiling with "us against them" that you cannot embrace Maria Shriver's honest intent, then please understand that your attitude is unrepresentative of the uniting force Barack Obama hopes to before this nation.