Opinion: The Failure of Shannon and the
Democratic Party -- and Mitt's Challenge
By Mark Charalambous
Spokesman for CPF/The Fatherhood Coalition
November 7, 2002
Shannon O'Brien's attempt to convince voters that
she was the one candidate who could clean up the mess
on Beacon Hill collapsed with a resounding thud yesterday.
"You can fool some of the people some of the
time..." the saying goes.... but only a truly
brain-dead voter could believe that Shannon was the
solution to the state's fiscal mess, rather than part
of the problem.
Shannon is very much an integral part of the Democratic
machine that has controlled Beacon Hill for as long
as I can remember. The liberal Democratic regime in
Massachusetts is driven by identity politics. It believes
that the role of government is to socially engineer
its citizens to redress past societal ills and achieve
"social justice."
Shannon probably did have moral convictions and core
beliefs owing to her Catholic upbringing when she
entered the Statehouse over a decade ago, but she
was assimilated a long time ago.
The defeat of Shannon O'Brien was also a defeat for
the various feminist groups that supported her: NOW,
EMILYS list, and NARAL. All these groups profit in
one form or another from public funding. They all
have a specific agenda. The name of the game at this
point is still "victimization."
Up until recently, the victimization pool was monopolized
by women and African Americans. The more recent additions
include Latinos and homosexuals. All issues are viewed
through the lens of victimization, which requires
one to ask the questions: "What victim group
fits me best for this particular issue," and
"Which group is responsible for my victimization?"
A bizarre twist to this campaign was that several
fathers rights activists adopted Shannon as their
candidate of choice because of a campaign statement
by a campaign staff member and spoken statements by
Shannon herself that supported the concept of "shared
parenting."
The Democratic Party speaks only one language on social
issues: "victimization." For a Democratic
administration to support "shared parenting,"
or even more significantly, reform of the domestic
violence laws and policies, would require that (heterosexual)
men be admitted into the victimization pool. However,
this can never happen because the entire victimization
paradigm requires a victimizer class, and that class
is and always must be: white, heterosexual males.
For the victimization mentality to accommodate male
victims of sexism in custody cases and female domestic
violence would be to embrace the seeds of its own
destruction. If EVERYONE is in the victim pool, the
very concept of a victim pool loses all sense of purpose
and reality.
Shannon O'Brien is incapable of transcending the Democratic
Party mentality. She is in Beacon Hill and Beacon
Hill is in her. Her prior moral stands on abortion
and gay marriage evaporated once the social-engineering,
Democratic Party gestalt assimilated her. This is
best illustrated by her notorious blunder on the last
debate when she vociferously championed the right
of sixteen-year-old girls to have abortions without
their parent's consent.
It became evident at that moment that Shannon no longer
had any moral center, and could only parrot the party
line of her supporters at NOW, EMILY'S list and NARAL.
That parents -- even liberal parents-- would agree
that their sixteen-year-old daughters should have
the right to have an abortion without their knowledge,
was simply assumed to be so by Shannon. There can
be no limits placed on a woman's right to abortion.
This is the party line, and Shannon can disagree with
it only at the risk and peril of losing the support
of the aforementioned feminist organizations that
hold sway in the Democratic Party.
The Democratic marriage to victimization as the paradigm
for social justice is, unfortunately, not the end
of the story. The next step in this road towards Gomorrah,
to use the language of Robert Bork, is egalitarianism.
Victimization, via discrimination, is the reason given
for inequality in society. Not too long ago the feminist
hue-and-cry about the lack of women in the hard sciences
attributed it to girls being shortchanged in K-12.
Now that more women than men enter and graduate college,
their attention is being turned to the underrepresentation
of males in traditional female occupations and fields
of study. The emphasis is on encouraging students
to pursue non-traditional careers. No one bothers
to ask "Why?"
The goal of egalitarianism is quite different from
the noble goals of the civil rights movement. Equality
of opportunity -- that no one should be denied the
opportunity to achieve anything they desire because
of the accidence of their birth, has transmogrified
into affirmative action, the promise of equality of
outcome. Now, if there is not equality of outcome,
it must be due to discrimination, and it must be corrected.
And it's here's where that other leg of the social-engineering,
Democratic establishment comes into play, the education
industry: academia and the teachers unions.
The facts speak for themselves. The quality of education
has been severely dumbed-down in Massachusetts. Dozens
of sections of what used to be called "remedial"
English and Math classes fill up the pages of Class
Schedules at our colleges. This is now referred to
by its politically correct, non-stigmatizing euphemism:
"Developmental Learning."
The mushrooming numbers of parents electing to home-school
their children is further evidence of the failure
of the education establishment. And here's the problem:
The driving principle in education is no longer academic
excellence, but fear. Fear that not all students will
reach similar levels of achievement. This fear is
most pronounced when results are categorized by race,
ethnicity and sex. The worst fear of educators is
that stratification of achievement along racial, ethnic
and gender lines will persist despite all efforts
to eradicate it. Hence the almost hysterical opposition
by teachers unions to standardized testing.
Their only solution is to pound down the spikes of
high achievement in the distribution curve. This is,
in actuality, what the dumbing down of education is
all about. For more explanation, refer to George Orwell.
Though I would love to believe that the defeat of
Shannon O'Brien was due to the rejection of the socially-engineered,
identity politics of the Democratic Party, I know
better.
In the final analysis, the thoughtful, sane voters
looked at the two candidates and chose the one that
seemed best able to solve the very real financial
problems in our state. Much of this was due to pure
physical appearance and presentation skills. Romney
looks presidential, and speaks in a presidential manner.
Shannon is simply not Governor material. Plain and
simply, she overreached. If this sounds "lookist,"
well, it's been said that everyone over the age of
forty is responsible for their face. I don't know
Romney personally, but he gives all appearances of
being a physically and psychologically healthy human
being.
The fact that Shannon was incapable of articulating
any real political vision whatsoever was, of course,
the final nail in her coffin. How many times did Shannon
say during the debates that the reason we should vote
for her was because "[She] will be a strong leader,"
and "[She] will fight for [me]." What kind
of idiotic message is this? Did she really believe
this was going to negate Mitt's message of capable
financial management skills that he will bring to
bear?
The saddest thing in this election is that Romney
had to betray a core moral belief in order to win
the election. There is no one that can convince me
that Romney truly believes in a woman's right to abortion
on demand, but the political reality is that with
an electorate that is 54% female, no politician can
at the present time be elected Governor unless they
support the party "choice" line on abortion.
Shannon thought she could ride this point into victory
with "pro-choice" voters. She was mistaken.
She went over the top with it, and it deliciously
backfired when she whimsically equated a sixteen-year-old's
getting a tattoo with getting an abortion.
Mitt's greatest challenge is not fixing the state's
budget, but rejuvenating the Republican Party in Massachusetts.
God speed, Mitt!
