Choice is Good

I was the president of our public school PTA this year, and did a pretty good job, if I say so myself. Now we have the elections, and I can run again and am then termed out. So I put my name down and all is well, and then 2 days before the election another parent, who had been president previously, comes and tells me he is going to run against me.

And I have to confess my first reaction was 'against me? poor me!' and I blanched. But as I got used to the idea, I thought, you know something, choice is good. It is, frankly, a hell of a lot of work, if I don't get chosen, I don't have to do the work. But if I do get chosen, well then I do the work, which I enjoy, and both parties (me and the parent body) feel that a choice was made. So either way I win.

There was a part of me that instinctively felt I should back down - oh, if you really want it, please go ahead... - and that's why I liked Hillary Clinton. She didn't back down. She fought relentlessly. And even if I didn't like the way she fought, I really admired the fact that she didn't shy away and go all coy and female, but fought on till there was nothing left to fight for.

I would have voted for her, and I would vote for her again, should she chose to run in the future. I just really liked the role model of just getting up there and doing it, no matter what. I could not have done that myself, and liked to see a woman show us how to do it, even if it makes us cringe a bit, but that wanting and fighting for something so openly and in the face of quite a bit of humiliation - that just made her very human to me.