Wow, that was scary
In 1988, I was a young “rebel.” Rebel, in a Alex Keaton kind of a way. I didn’t understand politics nearly as well as I thought I did, and (at the time) certainly thought that Ronald Reagan was far and away better than anything that the Democratic Party was offering in the way of leadership.
That was not the scary part. Stay with me here.
1988 was also the year that I got a letter to the Editor published. Fine, it was in the Jersey Journal, a local newspaper that barely has a readership in its own area. But I was happy about it anyway. So, apparently was my mom, who unbeknownst to me, kept a copy of the paper that the article appeared.
Several months back, she had given me a box of different papers and such that she had saved over the years (since my father’s passing in 2004, she has slowly been “getting ready to die” by ridding herself of things that she had saved over th years and given them to me or my sister). In there were old report cards, clipping from sports stories about Little League, “reviews” from local play productions I was in, and among that I found the letter to the editor.
I won’t bore you (or embarrass myself) by revealing everything the young naive version of myself wrote at the time. But in there was little snippet that I thought was quite interesting (and scary in its accuracy. The emphasis added is mine now, and not in the published letter). “… and Geraldine Ferraro was a complete embarrassment. Not that I saw anybody else that could help Mondale actually win the hearts and minds of the country to a point that he would’ve stood a chance, but if I were a woman, I would have be absolutely flabbergasted by this. She is going to throw the woman’s movement back so far, that it will be 20 years before a woman can actually hope to run and have any real chance at the White House.”
And here we are exactly 20 years later.
Update: I should have been clearer on this. The article was written in 1988, in reference to Michael Dukakis, but went back and referenced this as series of lousy contenders put forth by the Democratic Party. (Now you know why there is a discrepancy in the years. Thanks to those who e-mailed me for clarification)
Comments
Got something to say?
-
Sponsors
