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August 06, 2010 11:44 PM UTC

High Heels, Manhood & Bulls**t

  • 19 Comments
  • by: StrongColorado

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Gender politics are a kissing cousin to racial politics. Just scratch the surface on this topic and emotions and anger burst forth. U.S. Senate candidates Ken Buck and Jane Norton are engaged in a battle of the sexes that has not exactly focused on intellectual issues.

Norton fired the opening salvo in this battle when she ran an ad accusing Buck of not being “man enough” to criticize her directly, because an independent political group was running ads doubting her conservative fiscal credentials.  Sensitive to his manhood being questioned, Buck’s now infamous response was: Vote for me “because I don’t wear high heels.”  Buck went on to point out that his footwear of choice was cowboy boots with bulls**t on them. You get the idea, not exactly the stuff upon which to base your Ph.D. thesis – or your vote.  

Buck was speaking to an ultra-conservative crowd and made the remark in that “it’s just between us folks” manner that people have when they are telling an insensitive joke. I have to admit, I laughed. Political gender correctness aside, I laughed out loud because it is amazing to watch a candidate for the U.S. Senate – a body known for its deliberative nature – utter something so outrageously lame on the campaign trail.

It is just not smart to mess with Colorado women and politics. In 1893, Colorado was the first state in the nation to give women the right to vote at the ballot box. We elected the first female state senator in the country. As recently as two years ago, Colorado had the highest percentage of female state legislators in the nation.

Historically, more women than men vote in Colorado. It is no secret that women often hold the key to statewide races. And I suspect that a bunch of those women have a pair of high heels in the closet. For that matter, a chunk of them probably own a pair of cowboy boots too.  

It’s doubtful that many Colorado women will base their vote in Tuesday’s primary election solely on shoe choices.  The more substantial issues that influence women’s votes are typically the economy and jobs, schools and health care.  

Jane Norton wants to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education; Ken Buck wants to gut it. Both Norton and Buck favor the so-called “personhood” amendment that gives constitutional rights to fertilized eggs, a misconceived amendment backed by an extremist group, rejected in a 3-to-1 margin by Colorado voters in 2008. Both candidates support corporate interests that plunged our country into this recession. Those are the issues that should be the deciding factors for Colorado women.  

That’s the real bulls**t on Jane Norton’s high heels and Ken Buck’s boots.  

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19 thoughts on “High Heels, Manhood & Bulls**t”

  1. In 1893, Colorado was the first state in the nation to give women the right to vote at the ballot box.

    Try again. Hint: It was almost 30 years earlier than that.

    2. http://www.heritageaspen.org/w…

      Women gained the right to vote through a Constitutional amendment passed by the people of Colorado during a general election on November 7, 1893. As reported in the Aspen Daily Times on November 9, 1893, “Colorado passes Women’s suffrage by several thousand votes.”

      1. Wyoming was the first territory to give Women the right to vote, in 1869, as Libby correctly noted.  But it was a territory, not a state, when it did so.  Interestingly, it also [provided for women to be paid the same as men for equal work…a concept very much ahead of its time.  

         When Wyoming became a state in 1890, it thus became the first state to allow women the right to vote.  But Colorado was important because it was the first state, ACTING AS A STATE, to give women the right to vote.  Because it had been 24 years since Wyoming’s action and because no state — as distinct from the Wyoming territory — had ever awarded the vote to women, Colorado’s action greatly encouraged suffragettes.  

  2. some clarification would be helpful. When people talk about eliminating or reducing the U.S. Dept. of Education, that doesn’t make them anti-education. They just want education to be controlled locally rather than nationally. I think this makes sense for several reasons. For one, it prevents propaganda being pushed through the educational system by either side. Also, if different states or locales lean different ways, we have more diversity of ideas, which is a good thing for America. Somebody may come up with a solution to a problem that is outside the mainstream of thought but turns out to be very useful.

    On the personhood amendment, we might as well just admit it’s a pro-life amendment. Despite the feigned outrage, that’s all it would affect. No, unborn babies would not become property owners, etc. Your view on this one just depends on whether you are pro-life or pro-death (*sigh*, pro-choice).

    Finally, Norton is certainly beholden to corporate interests (just look at her donor list), but I don’t know how you can say the same about Buck. Most of his donations come from individual Coloradoans. I guess some employees of Hensel-Phelps helped him get his campaign started, since he used to work there, but that hardly compares. Having loyalties to one local Colorado business (a former employer) is a far cry from owing allegiance to all of the big oil, medical, banking, and lobbying companies in D.C.

        1. I like the fact that Buck gives real answers to questions and doesn’t change his answer based on who’s asking. But those answers he gives… I generally (not always) fall on the other side of them.

          Ken Buck is a thoughtful, intelligent, straightforward guy – that we must defeat.

    2. “Coloradoans” is so old school.  “Coloradans” is the newfangled way of expressing our oneness.  The Google says so.  I’d vote for keeping the Department of Education.  Just sayin’.

    3. I have to disagree that one’s view on the personhood amendment “just” depends on whether you support or oppose a woman’s right to choose.

      That amendment is the most extreme anti-choice position one could possibly take. It would flat-out prohibit abortion in cases of rape or incest, and would even create ethical issues if the life of the mother were at stake.

      (And for that matter, why wouldn’t unborn babies, zygotes, etc. have the same rights as minor children? Minor children can be bequeathed property: why couldn’t a fertilized egg under this amendment?)

      It is an incredibly extreme, doctrinaire, almost taliban-like position, which explains why it was shot down by an astounding three-quarters “no” vote the last time around. It’s bizarre that both Norton and Buck support it.

    4. Yeah, now there’s a diverse thinking crowd.

      The reason we benefit from a federal education agency is uniformity of achievement.  Any kid in almost any country in the advanced world can move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction without finding completely different programs and achievement levels.

      The DOE also acts as sort of a clearing house of education ideas, what works and what doesn’t.

      Is the DOE the most important agency?  Not by a long shot?  Does it contribute to the betterment of our nation?  Definitely.

      (And it’s not like the DOE is going to come in in their black helicopters and take over local boards, which is your implication.)

  3. you get the idea, not exactly the stuff upon which to base your Ph.D. thesis – or your vote.

    I beg to differ:

    Even now, there are Ph.Ds. candidates up in Boulder tearing up their dissertation outline on “Traditional voting patterns in rural Colorado up to but not including  1916” and gleefully writing up a whole new proposal “High Heels and Bull S&^”…The psychological impact of cognitive dissonance among Republican cohorts in non-urban Colorado.”  god to be 24 again…..or in Boulder now that election season is here….

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