Lynette Long

TOLERANCE FAILS T-SHIRT TEST FROM THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Tolerance fails T-shirt test

John Kass

November 13, 2008

Catherine Vogt, 14, conducted an experiment in political tolerance at her Oak Park middle school and learned some valuable lessons. (Tribune photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo / November 12, 2008)

As the media keeps gushing on about how America has finally adopted tolerance as the great virtue, and that we're all united now, let's consider the Brave Catherine Vogt Experiment.

Catherine Vogt, 14, is an Illinois 8th grader, the daughter of a liberal mom and a conservative dad. She wanted to conduct an experiment in political tolerance and diversity of opinion at her school in the liberal suburb of Oak Park.

She noticed that fellow students at Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama for president. His campaign kept preaching "inclusion," and she decided to see how included she could be.

So just before the election, Catherine consulted with her history teacher, then bravely wore a unique T-shirt to school and recorded the comments of teachers and students in her journal. The T-shirt bore the simple yet quite subversive words drawn with a red marker:

"McCain Girl."

"I was just really curious how they'd react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters," Catherine told us. "I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be."

Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain's name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.

"People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn't be wearing it," Catherine said.

Then it got worse.

"One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed," Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

But students weren't the only ones surprised that she wore a shirt supporting McCain.

"In one class, I had one teacher say she will not judge me for my choice, but that she was surprised that I supported McCain," Catherine said.

If Catherine was shocked by such passive-aggressive threats from instructors, just wait until she goes to college.

"Later, that teacher found out about the experiment and said she was embarrassed because she knew I was writing down what she said," Catherine said.

One student suggested that she be put up on a cross for her political beliefs.

"He said, 'You should be crucifixed.' It was kind of funny because, I was like, don't you mean 'crucified?' " Catherine said.

Other entries in her notebook involved suggestions by classmates that she be "burned with her shirt on" for "being a filthy-rich Republican."

Some said that because she supported McCain, by extension she supported a plan by deranged skinheads to kill Obama before the election. And I thought such politicized logic was confined to American newsrooms. Yet Catherine refused to argue with her peers. She didn't want to jeopardize her experiment.

"I couldn't show people really what it was for. I really kind of wanted to laugh because they had no idea what I was doing," she said.

Only a few times did anyone say anything remotely positive about her McCain shirt. One girl pulled her aside in a corner, out of earshot of other students, and whispered, "I really like your shirt."

LYNETTE WILL BE IN NEW MEXICO OCTOBER 17th

Republican National Committee: New Mexico Victory Announces 'Ladies For Victory 2008' Tour

Last update: 12:35 p.m. EDT Oct. 17, 2008

WASHINGTON, Oct 17, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ --

The following was released today by the Republican National Committee: New Mexico Victory announced today that U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, actress Morgan Brittany who played Katherine Wentworth on the TV show "Dallas," Dr. Lynette Long, and Capt. Leslie Smith will participate in the "Ladies for Victory 2008" tour on Saturday, October 18 to rally support for John McCain, Sarah Palin, and the entire Republican ticket. The "Ladies for Victory" will address grassroots volunteers and answer questions during stops in Albuquerque, Sandoval, and Santa Fe.

Albuquerque, NM

WHO: U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM)

Actress Morgan Brittany

Dr. Lynette Long

Capt. Leslie Smith

WHAT: Ladies For Victory Rally

WHEN: Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. MDT

WHERE: The Franciscan Room

Hotel Albuquerque

800 Rio Grande Boulevard

Albuquerque, NM

Sandoval, NM

WHO: U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM)

Actress Morgan Brittany

Dr. Lynette Long

Capt. Leslie Smith

RNC Committeewoman Rosie Tripp

Women for McCain New Mexico Co-Chair Penny Rose

Bernalillo County McCain

Campaign Chairman Robin Dozier Otten

Women for McCain Member Debra Sanchez

WHAT: Ladies For Victory Rally

WHEN: Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. MDT

WHERE: Sandoval County Republican Party Headquarters

4100 Southern Boulevard

Suite 200

Sandoval, NM

Santa Fe, NM

WHO: U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM)

Actress Morgan Brittany

Dr. Lynette Long

Capt. Leslie Smith

WHAT: Ladies For Victory Rally

WHEN: Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. MDT

WHERE: 31 Eagle Ridge Drive

Santa Fe, NM

LYNETTE IN THE WASHINGTON POST

The Washington Post did a profile of me in today's Metro section:

A Real McCain Supporter? Or Just a Clintonite on the Rebound?

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Lynette Long's friends can barely sputter their objections. "How could you?" they say. "What about the environment? What about gay rights? What about Roe v. Wade?"

Long's son calls, flabbergasted. And her patients in affluent, liberal Bethesda? They can hardly fathom it.

Lynette Long -- psychologist, feminist, Democrat, Dupont Circle dweller, Whole Foods shopper, George Bush hater, Hillary Clinton supporter (to the max) -- is not just voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin, she even took the stage at their rally in Fairfax to trumpet her decision to the world.

Long got the call from the McCain campaign at 10 the night before the rally this month. With a twinkle in her eye, the struggle for women in her heart and a bit of mischief in her mind, she agreed to be a warm-up speaker for the Republican ticket.

She had never been to a candidate's rally before. She had voted for the Democrat for president in every election except for the elder George Bush's first time, against Michael Dukakis in 1988. Sure, she had demonstrated against the Vietnam War, but she basically wasn't the political type. That is, until Hillary Clinton came along.

All of a sudden, Long saw hope. As she told her son: "How would you feel if every day all the people you saw in authority were men, all the statues in Washington are all men, the money in your pocket, all pictures of men -- and then finally, a woman comes along and she could be president? How would you feel? I would vote for her."

Long didn't just vote for Clinton in the D.C. primary. She blogged for her, campaigned for her, even wrote op-ed columns about her. But as Clinton's campaign faltered, Long felt wronged. She blogged about purported irregularities in caucus voting, accused Barack Obama and his supporters of taking women for granted, put all her hope in the Democrats picking a woman for vice president.

After Clinton's campaign ended, Long was among a group of local supporters who called McCain headquarters, asking, "What can you do for us?" To Long's shock, they were invited to a meeting -- with McCain himself.

"We told him we wanted gender parity, on the Supreme Court and in the Cabinet, and he listened," she says. "His eyes opened." At meeting's end, a senior staffer asked Long if she would endorse their man publicly.

"No way," Long said. "I'm a Hillary supporter."

Then, lo and behold, Sarah Palin happened.

By coincidence, Long was on an Alaskan cruise that week. "Everybody there loved" Palin, Long says. "I could see people glowing with pride."

The next time the McCain campaign called, Long was ready. She had 10 hours to write a speech, sleep and get herself to Fairfax City.

"What do you want me to say?" she asked the organizer. "Do you want to see my speech?"

Whatever you want to say, she was told. And no, we don't need to see it.

"I was shocked," Long says. "I wouldn't let someone go up and speak without seeing the speech. But they did, and that told me something about the man."

Long agrees that Palin is not exactly, um, worldly, and that she lacks a certain base of knowledge. ("But I know character and instincts, and she is real.") And yes, Long vehemently disagrees with the Republicans' social conservatism.

But other factors trump those issues, she says, naming Obama's inexperience, Clinton's treatment by her party and the media, and the Democrats' failure to choose a female running mate.

The issue that has most of Long's friends recoiling in abject horror from her decision is abortion. Long calls herself unwaveringly "pro-choice." But, she says, "as long as we let that determine our votes, we are hostages to the Democrats. If someone really tried to turn around choice, there'd be a revolution in this country. And I'm not going to let a future possibility nullify my vote. Women have sacrificed our power as the largest voting bloc in the nation because of one issue, abortion."

Now hold on: Long disagrees with McCain on many issues and concedes Palin's limitations. Then, when her e-mail lights up with unfounded rumors that Obama might dump Joe Biden and switch to Hillary Clinton, she nearly explodes with excitement. Is she really pro-McCain, or is she just being provocative?

Long is the kind of person who is drawn to a fire, she grants that. She says she wore her Palin button to the Whole Foods on 14th Street NW just to see if she'd get a rise out of the assembled crunchies. No one would even look her in the eye, she reports.

She seems downright gleeful as she describes her fellow liberals' faces draining of blood when she sings Palin's praises. But when I suggest that the McCain camp is using her even as she uses it to teach fellow Democrats a lesson about taking women for granted, she says: "No, that's too crass. You have to break down a house to rebuild it, but Palin is likable, popular and has integrity. She's a person who will listen. Is she smart enough to do the job? Hey, Reagan was no brain surgeon, but people would follow him. It's about leadership. Sarah has made mistakes, but out of naivete, not out of corruption."

Every couple of minutes, Long -- looking like the unPalin in black T-shirt, cargo pants and canvas sneakers -- reflexively checks her e-mail, revealing a new list of fire-spewing rants accusing her of betrayal, sexism and worse. She loves it.

I posit that her newfound activism is really more about sticking it to Democratic men than about any real belief that McCain might promote the interests of women or that Palin would be a good president should she ascend to that role. Long protests that she really would be happy with a President Palin, a woman who understands the majority of Americans as no man could.

And then she says this: "I just don't understand how the Democrats couldn't see that women wanted a woman. I'm not getting back in bed with someone who's just abused me. Yeah, it's payback time."

LYNN FORESTER DE ROTHSCHILD TO ENDORSE MCCAIN

CNN reports on its Political Ticker blog that Lynn Forester de Rothschild, "a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee's Platform Committee, will endorse John McCain for president on Wednesday."  Forester "was a major donor for Clinton earning her the title as a Hillraiser for helping to raise at least $100,000 for the New York Democratic senator's failed presidential bid."