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My Letter to the Valley News:
I am planning to vote on Tuesday, November 2nd. I always vote. This year, more than usual, I am thinking about the women who made it possible for me to exercise such a basic right. Less than a century ago, suffragettes were imprisoned, abused and beaten in their campaign to make sure women were considered autonomous individuals capable of self determination.
Given that legacy, the only possibility is that I vote for a Senate candidate like Paul Hodes, who unlike his opponent, is pro-choice. It is only possible that I vote for a candidate for Representative to Congress like Ann Kuster whose long history of support for women, children and working families in New Hampshire clearly distinguishes her from her opponent, a long time Bush ally. The only candidate I could possibly support for State Senate is Deb Reynolds, who has demonstrated her commitment to the people of New Hampshire and has worked for equal rights for all of us. I can only vote for State Representatives Jim Aguiar and Carol Friedrich who have taken the same positions on choice, privacy and civil rights.
Our previous roster of local NH congresspersons held many of these same positions on choice and privacy, but such Republicans are no longer welcome in their party. Now a slate of tea party endorsed or, by their own admission, tea party loving candidates for our state and national legislatures want New Hampshire voters to believe that they have our best interests in mind. I am not fooled. They are beholden to big business and corporate interests. They are not concerned with my civil rights, those of my daughter, or those of any of us. For all their complaining about big government, it is the Republicans who want to legislate personal, private matters while allowing multi-million dollar business interests to do as they please at our expense.
It is in honor of the legacy of those women who gained for American women the right to vote, through years of hard work and grave bodily hardship, that I vote. And when I do, I will only vote for those candidates who respect me as an individual. I will only support the Democratic candidates who, in this day and age, are the only ones who have shown a commitment to my personal right to make decisions about my life and body and my daughter's right to make decisions about hers.
Ruth Cserr
Orford
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