Intro and Summary from Chicago Women’s Conference

I have never been to such a phenomenally concentrated conference in terms of content and absolute mental horsepower in terms of who presented.  While you couldn’t make it to the event, I hope that you’ll consider these blog notes and my synthesis as a way to save yourself the airfare (and perhaps consider donating the airfare amount .  This event was incredible.

 

Net net – it equipped me with great information around economic policy, healthcare, women’s rights, energy, foreign policy and more.  It helped me be even more impressed and humbled at the caliber of advisors with whom he’s surrounded himself and it helped me feel inspired and draw energy from the incredible people also helping to get him elected from across the country.  I asked this of a couple of additional people – but I’d say that my top key learnings or top things with which I’m now equipped from the conference were:

1)      People talk about McCain being more of the same with George Bush.  I no longer feel that way.  I think that, if McCain and Palin get elected, we’ll be yearning fondly for the days of George Bush.  It’ll be a complete debacle to our healthcare system, our financial system, our social fabric, our military, and basically every other system in this country if we elect McCain/Palin.  Just using one tangible healthcare example – his proposal to open up the insurance market for people to shop cross-state would mean that kids wouldn’t necessarily be covered for the inoculations that they need for school.  This is because that requirement for insurance companies to cover vaccines is required by states’ laws as a consumer protection.

2)     The two statements that really bring home the point that Obama and his campaign are confident, but humble (and healthily paranoid)

a.      That he did not enter this campaign saying “I want to be President, what should I say” instead – it was “we need change, here’s how we do it” and

b.      The campaign’s goal is not to simply elect a President, it’s to change this country.

3)      That the building industry should be enlisted to get ahead of the next big crisis in this country – the home heating shortage – that’ll hit this winter.  The idle industry employees could/should be employed by the state/gov’t to weatherize and help people lower their bills and keep their houses at acceptable temperatures.

4)      That the term MAVERICK means cattle without a brand – and is a very negative ranch term.