Mariannettepower in 2nd Congressional District
May 30, 2008 10 Comments
Okay, so at the cost of revealing I’m not as brave as I would like to be, I have to admit I am a person who has fears, and one of them right now is Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
The bottom line is I believe it’s necessary to investigate thoroughly the character of any woman who seeks a position of power in any arena, be it business, teaching, the medical profession, politics, you name it. Full disclosure: the uneasiness I suffer at the prospect of any woman in power stems initially from the seventeen years I spent in an all-female grade school, prep school, and college, both in this country and abroad, not to mention many years in jobs with female (as well as male) bosses. So I speak from the point of view of one who has had countless opportunities to observe how women operate and I have come to the conclusion that it takes an unusual man to remain uncorrupted by power but it takes an even more unusual woman to do so. As we look at women who have been drawn to the political scene over the years, we find some who rise above the predilection of their sex but we can also find just as many, perhaps more, who do not. There is a joke (from I’ll bet the sixties) that whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men. This I believe is true. But I strongly disagree with the punch line that says, “Fortunately that’s not difficult.”
I have no proof that Mariannette Miller-Meeks lets power go to her head, but there are a few instances of behavior on her part which give me pause.
I e-mailed Mariannette Miller-Meeks some time ago and asked if I could send her some questions to answer. After a bit of back and forth correspondence with her campaign manager, I finally received an e-mail from Ms. Miller-Meeks impressing on me the fact she had just returned from Washington and stating she would not answer any questions in black and white (nor did she offer her phone number,) because she prefers to speak to people in person, face to face as it were, so that they may see her sincerity, or words to that effect. She suggested I attend a venue where she would be available. There was, by the way, no sensitivity on her part to the possibility I might be an older “shut-in” or unable to drive.
So I proceeded to find out what I could about Ms. Miller-Meeks from her website, where I discovered she wants to cut federal spending and reform taxes and fix health care (she’ll get no argument from me on these initiatives although it’s unclear from the website how she plans to accomplish them.) Interestingly enough, the information at her site steers clear of certain social/family values issues on whose bandwagon so many candidates seem to be heedlessly jumping (and that was almost a relief– that she did not feel the same obligation!) I also found out how she left home as a teenager and made her way in the world and joined the military and eventually attended medical school…..these are all very admirable accomplishments and I am convinced Ms. Miller-Meeks has a high IQ and lots of ability and is ambitious and successful.
All well and good, but still I found myself troubled, as if something I needed to know was missing, and I felt somewhat mystified… I started to put the pieces of my puzzlement together when I heard Ms. Miller-Meeks speak at The District Two Convention in April.
First of all, Ms. Miller-Meeks and the other District Two candidates for Us Representative were scheduled to speak in the afternoon. Peter Teahen and Lee Harder were present earlier in the morning, talking to constituents and circulating, and not long after Ms. Miller-Meeks arrived, the time frame for speeches was changed to accommodate her schedule (she had just rushed to convention from a medical meeting and had to rush back.)
After some confusion as to which candidate should speak first, Ms. Miller-Meeks spent her allotted minutes in a list of comparisons to Loebsack, cheering herself on with praise about her success in getting ahead, in being in the military, in being a doctor, in being a wife of twenty-five years with two children. It was a speech based on the topic, “Who is better? I am!” Except for the embarrassment of her poor grammar in referring to herself repeatedly as “They,” it was a very effective pep talk and I noticed many women in the audience egging her on. She said very little about how she planned to cut federal spending, or lower taxes and the cost of health care while making the latter more available to us all.
I came away from the convention not knowing much more about Ms. Miller-Meeks than I did before…. except that I discovered she is very energetic and speaks well and fast and likes cute ideas like the white coats and pink (yes! PINK!) stethoscopes around the necks of supporters at her booth (so much for those of us with white coat phobia)…. and forgive me, I couldn’t help remembering the fitting quote from Mark Twain that the only people who should be allowed to employ the “royal we” are “kings, editors, and people with tapeworms. “
The next opportunity I had to glimpse what makes Ms. Miller-Meeks tick was her interview on Steave Deace’s show. Here again, Ms. Miller-Meeks showed remarkable verbal skills, in fact she herself emphasized how good they are, something about some family “dynamic” involving children and husband… My problem is not with her skills but in the way she seemed to be using them in the interview. Instead of answering Deace’s questions, Ms. Miller-Meeks jumped through hoops with words to do everything BUT answer his questions. She stumbled badly on the abortion issue–don’t worry about how we might react to your answer, Mariannette, just tell us how you feel! –so that it must have been evident to all but the least perceptive listener that she was just plain avoiding the question.
She showed overall a great reluctance to answer many of Deace’s questions. Instead it seemed she used her verbal skills to restate his questions and twist them slightly (or more so) into the questions she would have liked him to be asking her. She did this nearly effortlessly and pleasantly and without appearing to be aggressive, but still she did it, and that is fact. Afterwards, when I thought about the interview in its entirety, I realized it was really not as much an interview as it was a monologue. Ms. Miller-Meeks used her enviable verbal skills to make herself unreachable, in fact almost invulnerable, and I wondered if the reason no listeners’ phone calls were accepted was that she had used up so much time talking. At any rate, it was an amazing feat and I would think Ms. Miller-Meeks would be much sought after as a participant in a filibuster.
However, a US Representative has more to do, we hope, than filibuster. A US Representative is in Washington to serve us. If Ms. Miller-Meeks is going to be an effective representative she is going to have to listen to somebody besides herself and talk about something besides herself. She is going to have to answer people’s questions in whatever form the questions take, and she is going to have to learn to accommodate herself to other people and to situations where she is not in control. Part of a doctor’s job is telling people what to do (er… making recommendations,) and I am not certain that is necessarily appropriate training for the people’s representative, much of whose job often involves listening to what your constituents would like to have you do.
Frankly, I find Mariannette Miller-Meeks intelligent, competent, aggressive, and self centered. I have yet to see any indication that she has as big a heart as she does a head, particularly since I remained wholly unconvinced by her display of emotion (as in: sorry, I may get a little emotional about this) when she was talking about the plight of underprivileged children. Well aware that her audience would not have been able to see tears in a radio interview, Ms. Miller-Meeks was considerate enough to warn us and imply that she might be about to shed them.
And so Ms. Miller-Meeks has left me to ponder the Power of Tears, not to mention the ramifications of Tears AND Power.
Hold those thoughts, everybody, when you go to the polls to vote.
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Well stated. Thank you for “reading between the lines” with this candidate. District 2 may be a lost cause for Republicans this year. Let’s gear up for 2010.
This is great insight! All conservatives should take notes and really start to look at candidates. Not all Republicans are the same……………..
Thank you for your time and ability to express your views in such a clear and thoughtful way, neighhay.
I must agree with Iowans Rock- 2010 sounds like a better plan fto find candidates that more reflect what Iowa needs in political leadership.
Good call, and I thought the same thing on her “may get a little emotional” line. It and she seem too contrived or made for consumption without providing any meat. I have no idea where she would vote if elected.
Thank you for contributing the word CONTRIVED. It’s the one I was looking for in addition to manipulative and domineering. People like this can shake you down in a second and you won’t have a clue what’s happened to you.
I just read that MMM considers herself a Progressive Republican. Well, progress isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, either.
I don’t find this article in anyway accurately describing Ms. Miller-Meeks. The amount of assumptions in this article are astounding, of which, almost none of these assumptions are based on any sort of concrete evidence.
I personally know Dr. Miller-Meeks and there is nothing contrived about her, she is genuine, caring, and the second you meet her you know that she is the real deal, a genuine candidate and friend.
I tried to make it very clear that this piece was primarily about my opinions ONLY, which are based on firsthand observations of Ms. Miller-Meeks, mostly at district convention (but also on what you might call one “non-observation,” due to her refusal to answer questions in black and white.)
I am sorry you don’t agree with my assumptions (I would call them my perceptions) but I think we all need to be leery of women in politics: women who are seeking power in government, business, or the like need to be vetted perhaps more rigorously than men.
This is a theory I have discovered many of us don’t want to talk about—-it certainly is not PC! But I have found when broaching the topic that women are often more receptive to the idea than are men: sometimes it takes a woman to understand a woman and often men simply don’t have a clue.
And to play devil’s advocate, if you believe women do NOT need to be more closely vetted than men when it comes to issues of power, are you really satisfied with the behavior of some of the women in our U.S. Congress? For example Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton? Catherine McKinney?
Quite frankly, I watch them on tv and I squirm with embarrassment to be a woman (and as I am sure you would agree, Mr. Larsen, I can embarrass my “gender” quite successfully on my own without another woman’s help!)
In any event, I saw Ms. Miller-Meeks at the state convention and heard her speak and alas again I found nothing of substance in what she said. I turned to a friend and asked “What did she say?” and we both replied at the same time: “NOTHING!”
Ms. Miller-Meeks was somewhat toned down in her speech this time, and referred to herself in the singular, which was a relief, but I still find myself offended by her predilection for gimmicks, like the ambulance parked in the corner of HyVee Hall (no pink stethoscopes this time, though—whew!) I guess I prefer to be spared the cutesy stuff which is somehow so often expected of women.
I’d like to add, by the way, that I think Ms. Miller-Meeks’s slogan about “healing” congress is rather silly if not dangerous. I am not in the least comforted by the New Age tone of the phrase, and I also think the last thing we need in Washington is the medical model for getting things done.
So perhaps we will have to agree to disagree. I am sure Ms. Miller-Meeks is a good friend to you and as I said I have only my observations from afar to go on. But they have led me to think hard about Miller-Meeks’s candidacy. If the election were held tomorrow I would leave my District Two line blank.
I don’t know what you truly have against Miller-Meeks, but it’s clear that you have an agenda.
Your opinion piece is not at all accurate. Your *opinion* lacks facts, resulting in misinformation. You seem to have an agenda against Miller-Meeks,
Miller-Meeks is one of the hardest working people I know, with a proven track record of achievement. She is an excellent candidate for the 2nd district who is MUCH, MUCH better than incumbent Dave Loebsack.
Is she perfect? No, no candidate is.
Your recall about the 2nd district convention scheduling change of candidate speeches is not accurate.
MIller-Meeks is approachable, as she demonstrates time and again with her house calls, various GOP central committee meetings, campaign stops, and candidate get-togethers. She goes above and beyond in the performance of her duties.
No, she’s not polished, but then again she’s not a career politician (thank goodness!). She can tell a person when a where they met. She’s genuine. Agree or disagree with some of her policy stances, but she’s not at all how you try to portray her here.
And you wrote this based on a ten minute speech at a convention and a short interview on the radio?
That’s a disservice to your readers. I wouldn’t fill out a questionaire from a virtual stranger either. Further, gender arguments are shallow.
It seems to me people running for public office are doing themselves a disservice if they consider a single member of their constituency a virtual stranger.
I started my piece with full disclosure about the place I am coming from in my estimation of Miller-Meeks– which was my way of apologizing in advance for any offense my spin might create.
Gut responses are as important as intellectual ones but unfortunately I was unable to experience the latter as Ms. Miller Meeks would not provide me with the information I asked (POLITELY!) for.
I would have had more to think and write about than Miller-Meeks’s behavior if she had taken the time to answer my questions on the issues that are important to me. As Tim Pawlenty said recently in an interview, being clear on issue positions is the minimum any candidate running for political office is OBLIGATED to do.
And I am sorry but it seems we disagree on the importance of gender. I think gender differences are significant and run deep, but in the PC world nobody is supposed to talk about them.
I trust your opinion, neighhay. Your spin makes sense to me.