THE LINE Election Round-Up: The Scandalous and The Sexist
Image via Humberto Moreno on flickr.
Another election season has passed – and what has changed? Besides the major political developments and highlights- Barbara beating Carly, Reid holding on (but only real close), the unfortunate near-victory of Buck, and the switch from Pelosi to Boehner as Speaker and a coordinating, new, and more conservative House- some interesting events and victors are worth discussing.
First is the loss of “scandalous” Krystal Ball, who faced trouble in her VA campaign for a congressional seat after photos of her dressed as a sexy Santa at a college party were leaked to the media. Ball faced a lot of heat for her “controversial” (read: completely normal) college days, despite the fact that it was irrelevant to her current work and her current experience. This is an excerpt from Ball’s website:
In my professional life, I have tried to live the values of my parents and of King George County. I helped reform the Civil Criminal Accounting system for 89 Federal District Courts to improve accountability and increase efficiency. I also traveled to Louisiana to assist in the Court’s efforts to recover after Hurricane Katrina. While working full-time with the Courts, I took night classes and obtained my CPA to better understand the accounting issues I was dealing with.
Somehow, it sounds to me like Krystal got over her scandalous days. (But tell that to politicians, the media, and the voters.)
While the scandalous were pushed out, many controversial winners still rode to the top. For example, Salon highlighted the following three candidates who claimed victory yesterday – featuring two major misogynists and one unapologetic racist.
It’s time to take stock of the incoming Congress, and there’s no better place to start than Salon’s list of the 10 most terrifying (and colorful) would-be congressmen, put together before the election last week. Five of the 10 won last night, four lost, and one is stuck in a race that has not been called.
The winners are:
- Renee Ellmers in North Carolina, who ran perhaps the single most anti-Muslim attack ad of the entire campaign season (and then refused to apologize for it).
- Ben Quayle in Arizona, the son of the former vice-president who dissembled about his role as a commenter on the misogynistic website DirtyScottsdale.com.
- Scott DesJarlais in Tennessee, who allegedly dry-fired a gun outside the door of a room his wife was hiding in during a fight.
This sounds like a great batch of victors, too.
With a Republican-leaning house, it is looking like a challenge for activists of the human rights perspective to continue to push their issues. Immigration bills, for example, are now expected to move very slowly- meaning LGBTQ couples hoping to grab a green card through marriage need to hold up, just a little longer. But what does it say as a challenge when the political landscape, more fraught than ever with women- and with sexist attacks on them- and more filled with fear, manipulation, and, in many ways, outright ignorance of the issues facing this country, seems to really be in a standstill?
As Pelosi packs her things and Boxer stays in her office (crossing my fingers must have worked!), we are reminded always that the political arena is dynamic and always-changing. November 2 was a day to share our voices, and now it is more important than ever that we continue to speak loudly and decisively. Protecting women’s rights (and yes, this would mean hoping that misogynists don’t win and that feminists don’t lose) is a task well-assigned to politicians, so we should make sure we trust ours. Keep talking and keep fighting.
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