Wonderful Women Of The World
Posted by Michelle Moquin on December 7th, 2013
Good morning!
If you are on a spiritual path and follow new-age gurus then you must know of the spiritual teacher, bestselling author, and speaker, Marianne Williamson. And…you will most likely know that she is running for Congress in Califiornia. For those of you who haven’t heard of her, you may be thinking., “Oh that is soo like California!” :)
Williamson has been a name I have been hearing for years. I haven’t read any of her books but she has come across my plate and into conversations that I have had. And from what I have heard, she intrigued me enough to every now and then follow her by tuning in to a few of her videos for inspiration. Most recently I watched her lecturer on Tedx. I like this woman. A lot. In my book, anyone who wants to spread more love on the planet is a Wonderful Woman of The World.
Marianne Williamson, New-Age Guru, Seeks Congressional Seat
Monica Almeida/The New York Times
Marianne Williamson, a best-selling author and lecturer who is running for a House seat, speaking last month at a bookstore in Redondo Beach, Calif.
Instead, they found Ms. Williamson, a best-selling author known for her new age spiritual guide “A Return to Love,” arguing against drone strikes in Yemen, denouncing the influence of money in politics and soliciting donations for her latest campaign — for Congress.
After three decades as an author and speaker, Ms. Williamson, 61, is stepping onto a path familiar to California celebrities, with a midlife career shift into politics.
It is a transition plenty of Hollywood entertainers have sought to make — take Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger — some more successfully than others. Ms. Williamson, however, would almost surely be Congress’s first new age guru.
“I’m sure they’re going to say I’m a new age nutcase, dragon lady, lightweight thinker,” she said, as she waded into the crowd of about 100 people.
In these first days of her unlikely campaign, Ms. Williamson is making the case that an injection of her brand of spirituality is what American politics needs. “America has swerved from its ethical center,” she said. “Most of us want to feel that we can have a progressive conversation and contextualize it morally. To me, drone use is a moral issue.”
Almost as an afterthought, as if mindful of her new profession, she added, “And also, I think strategically it’s just absurd.”
Ms. Williamson has chosen an unusual race for her initial foray into politics. She faces the daunting task of trying to unseat Representative Henry A. Waxman, a popular Democrat who has coasted to re-election for nearly 40 years, in an increasingly Democratic state. The district stretches south along the coast from Malibu, through some of the wealthiest communities in the country.
Ms. Williamson will label herself an independent on the June ballot. But in an interview, she described herself as a “lifelong Democrat” and acknowledged that she had voted for Mr. Waxman many times herself.
She offered very few substantial policy differences with him, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, she has adopted rhetoric more common to positive spiritual discourse than traditional campaigns, declining to refer to him as her opponent. (“We are just two people applying for the same job,” she said.)
As with most celebrity candidates, she is facing questions about why she is running, particularly against someone she disagrees with so little.
Mr. Waxman pointedly noted the lack of differences in a written statement, signaling a potential weakness in her challenge.
“I’m gratified Ms. Williamson thinks I’m doing a good job and agrees with me on most issues,” he said. “And while some think it would make more sense for her to challenge a Republican and help us regain control of the House, I respect her right to run.”
In 2009, Ms. Williamson explored running in a Northern California district near San Francisco. Instead she chose to run in her home district, where she said she would have the best chance to alter the political discourse, which she called her primary goal.
“Democracy as we know it is being dismantled in front of our eyes,” Ms. Williamson said. “I can’t any longer toe the line that if we just vote here a little different or vote there a little different, that it will all be O.K., when both major political parties are moving in such a corporatist direction.”
She added, responding to critics, “Would a man ever be called vain for speaking his mind?”
Bob Shrum, a Democratic consultant, said celebrity candidates had been successful when they had a well-established history of serious political involvement (like Reagan before his successful run for governor in 1966), or they faced another candidate whom the public simply could not stomach (like Mr. Schwarzenegger, who took advantage of the recall against the unpopular Gov. Gray Davis to win office in 2003).
Mr. Shrum said he did not understand why Ms. Williamson was running.
“It seems like a candidacy without much rationale,” he said. “Henry Waxman is doing everything he can to prevent the House Republicans from acting like crazy people, and I think folks know that.”
With a redrawn, less Democratic district, Mr. Waxman may be more vulnerable than in years past, if only slightly. He faced his toughest re-election bid last year, when Bill Bloomfield, the co-founder of the bipartisan group No Labels, took 47 percent of the vote after spending millions of his own money to paint Mr. Waxman as a stubborn partisan who had spent too long in Washington.
Ms. Williamson appears to be hoping to tap into that same anti-Washington sentiment, a popular tactic that cuts across ideological lines in a year when congressional approval ratings have fallen into single digits. (Brett Roske, who has also declared for the race, is also running as an independent.)
She has presented her scant political experience as an asset, and at the bookstore last month, she played on her own mistrust of government. (“Look at Fukushima,” she said of Japan’s crippled nuclear plant. “Should we or should we not agree with the U.S. government that none of that radioactive energy is making its way here? Hello!”)
“There is an insidious lockout,” she said. “Financial leverage determines political influence in a very disproportionate way. Looking to the political status quo to fix this situation, when the political status quo created this situation, is naïve at best.”
Southern California voters have shown a willingness to give celebrity candidates a serious listen, though they are just as frequently the subject of lampooning.
Mr. Schwarzenegger endured nonstop jokes about his role in the “Terminator” movies, but was able to capitalize on his fame and access to well-heeled donors.
Acknowledging that she would need to raise millions of dollars to be competitive, Ms. Williamson has begun tapping her nationwide network of supporters, many of them in Hollywood. Jane Lynch, star of the television series “Glee,” is throwing a house party for the campaign.
Still, Mr. Waxman’s last opponent, Mr. Bloomfield, who left the Republican Party to run as an independent, appealed not only to anti-Washington voters, but also to the conservative voters in this redrawn district.
That is not a constituency likely to respond to Ms. Williamson, who is advocating free college, universal health care, universal preschool, gay marriage, an end to domestic nuclear energy production and “massive investment” in renewable energy.
At the bookstore last month, one man in the crowd suggested, “You need new voters, I think.”
Ms. Williamson disagreed. But when asked what constituencies her campaign might target, she said there were none. “The kind of politics that sees some voters as more important than other voters, that’s not why I’m doing this,” she said. “I’m speaking to the American in people.
*****
Readers: Do I think she could be a great representative for California? Basing my opinion on what little I know of her, which is mostly her spiritual beliefs, I want to say “Yes! I think she could be pretty darn amazing, and quite refreshing in the House.” And, however as much as I agree with some of the issues that she stands for, I am not familiar enough with all of her political views to make a well-informed opinion right now. But…I can tell you, I am HOPEful.
What are your thoughts? Fill me in with what you know. Blog me.
Peace & Love…
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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Posted in Political Powwow, Wonderful Women Of The World | 26 Comments »
