Moms for Kerry

I didn't choose Yellow Dog in a Red State as the name for my blog because I own a yellow lab (or more precisely, a yellow lab owns a piece of my heart I never knew existed prior to his arrival) and I live in Texas (the granddaddy of all red states), but rather because I am and forever will be a Yellow Dog Democrat and because of God's interesting sense of humor, I was born in Texas. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of good things about Texas. I hate to be cold and there is very little of that here. I also think had I not been born and raised in Texas, I could have never have known how much I despise certain things that there are quite a lot of here. There is a Kenny Chesney song that says, "I am what I am and I'm not what I'm not." I love that... because what you're not is sometimes way more important than what you are. And I, am not a Republican.
I live in a suburb where the median annual household income is greater than $100,000 AND most mothers do not work outside the home. Add to that the fact that the population is 98% white and the average age is less than 40 and that equates to a whole lot of young, successful white folk. In short, not a lot of diversity and a lot of men who have achieved a lot of success early. Oh, and they are 99.9% Republican. Don't get the wrong idea... I'm white too, my household income is greater than $100,000, but I CHOOSE to work outside the home and I, as we've already established, am a Democrat.

I'm really an undercover operative. On the surface, I look like all the rest. I have a lovely home, a fabulous church in which my family is active, we drive nice cars, I shave my arm pits, don't own any Birkenstocks, have never hugged a tree while eating granola, and believe that for me, a personally conservative life is what brings me peace and happiness. So, its not surprising that most people who are unfortunate enough to begin a political conversation in my presence, are stunned into at least a 2 minute silence. During this silence, my husband if he is present, will take the opportunity to distance himself from me as much as the physical space will allow. He's a Dem too (although he will not confirm this), but I forgive him this as God has not given him the same political anointing as me. Following the silence, the conversation usually goes something like this:

Unfortunate Republican: What??????????
Me (taking a deep breath because I'm irritated I have to repeat myself): I'm a liberal, a Democrat, and I'm mad as hell this country has elected someone, not once, but twice, who cannot enunciate his way out of a paper bag.

(Slightly less silence)

Unfortunate Republican (now thinking they are on some modern version of candid camera): Very funny!
Me (as monotone as I can muster): I don't joke about politics.

At this point, the unfortunate republican who has begun to resemble a deer caught the headlights will either engage me or run. If they engage me, I'm ok with whatever they throw out as its usually some lame bullshit about Hillary or Bill. Nothing serious. No social debate, no foreign policy debate, no health care, social security or Iraq... Nada... all in all, not very much fun.

I do occasionally get to have a little fun though. During the 2004 Presidential election, I worked in a very conservative office. Now, its not like there are any offices around here that aren't, but this office was run by an ex-Marine with a picture of him and George W. on the wall and his partner is a non-political good ole boy. Now, I liked them and they liked me and we bantered back in forth about Kerry vs. Bush. I had to be careful only to the extent that the Marine thought it was disrespectful for me to refer to the President as "Big Ears". So, I tried to watch that. Anyway, one day while signing up for the MomsforKerry email list, it occurred to me that I could sign the Marine and the Cowboy up too. Which, of course, I did. Now, I'm not advocating that anyone else do anything like that. But, it was the most fun I had the entire election cycle considering the unfortunate outcome.

I can only imagine what's going to happen when Hillary starts emailing them in a few months and their Christmas gifts ordered from yellowdogdemocrat.com arrive.