This is my strategy, to confront the security moms. You know, the ones who voted for Bush because they thought he’d protect their families better. I wrote about this a little bit before the election. I am so often shocked by women who vote Republican. I just don’t get why you would vote for a party who is trying to slowly erode your rights.

But I think Hurricaine Katrina, the war in Iraq, and, sadly enough, the death of William Rehnquist gives me an in.

• Bush and the Republicans did nothing to protect families after Hurricaine Katrina.
• They didn’t help families evacuate even when they knew (or should have known) there were many who didn’t have the means to do so
• The financial aftermath could be devastating even for middle class families thanks to the new bankruptcy laws pushed through by the Republicans. Forget sending your children to a good college. You’ll be in debt to your eyeballs because you can’t declare bankruptcy. It was a natural disaster.
• Unless an anti-war Republican candidate comes along, we’ll be in Iraq for a long time to come and we might head over to Iran or North Korea or some other country the administration has decided it doesn’t like
• With our military already stretched too thin, another war could mean a draft. My son will not be old enough even in 2012 to be drafted, but if your child is 11 or older, he (or she, for that matter) could be drafted.
• With the death of Rehnquist, Bush now can appoint two justices to the Supreme Court.
• Roe v. Wade might be threatened. Many of you security moms are pro choice. Even if you’re not, your daughters might be. Or your daughters might get pregnant or raped and you might decide that abortion is an option. Do you want to have to find a shady back alley doctor to perform it? Or go down to Mexico? Do you want to risk her life like that?
• Erosion of basic rights. With a more conservative Supreme Court, the potential for losing rights increases dramatically. Your and children’s right to privacy could be threatened.

Aside from those specifics, I think there are many other ways the Republicans haven’t helped the welfare and safety of children–Education, Health Care, the Environment and Homeland Security. Many of the moms I know who vote Republican either do so because their husband does; they just don’t think for themselves. Or they don’t want to cause distress in the family. Hello? When your son is sent off to war, that’ll cause some distress. When your school can’t afford to buy supplies or pay its teachers, that’ll cause some distress. I’m going to make these women think, think about how the Republicans don’t really care about their children, how they’re ruining the future for them. I honestly thought the other day about the possibility that my children won’t be living in a world where they can lead “normal” lives. If we run out of fossil fuels and haven’t come up with an alternative, the world will become a chaotic and scary place to live. In that scenario, my children can’t get married, have kids, have a job they love. They’ll be too busy trying to survive. I don’t necessarily want to share that extremely pessimistic view with the security moms. The possibility of an alternative is there, if we get the right people in office and start pushing our officials to do something.