Rock the VOTE for 11/9

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Rock the Vote for 11/9
All Americans are really, really ready for this R rated reality show circus of a presidential election to be over.

Voters on both sides feel frustrated, even embarrassed by it all. There is a visceral fear, an angst about the result. When we wake up to November 9, post-election, when the confetti is swept away and the election is finally over, what will we see?

I am looking at the choice I have between two flawed candidates and thinking why should I even vote? It would be so easy to just toss this ballot in the trash. But I am going to vote because I can and this year I must.

In 1848 the first Women’s Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. It demanded that women be granted all rights as full citizens including the right to vote. For the next 72 years women — and some male supporters — spoke out, petitioned, lobbied, sued, protested, marched, and engaged in civil-disobedience, for the right to vote. They braved beatings, mob attacks, rape, jail, seizure and destruction of property, forced divorce (and consequent loss of children), forced feeding of hunger strikers, and murder, to fight for their rights to be full citizens… And they got them in 1920.

As a female small business owner, I would normally vote Republican. However this year, no Republican is actually running. The Republicans have a fractured brand but America is still a two party system. Trump is a throw back, divisive, sexist bully a la the TV show appropriately named Mad Men and he is so ego driven that he is not fit to be President of the United States.

I want to go high and not low. I want all kids to be able to engage in unedited American Civic classes again and go forward into a healthy and equal future. I am voting for HER. I truly want to believe that she is the type of person who learns from her mistakes. Hilary Clinton is smart, prepared, qualified and she is a fighter. And even Donald Trump admires that last quality.

VOTE. If you do not exercise that right, you might not like what you get when you wake up to see the results on 11/9/2016.