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Friday, August 29, 2008
Republicans at the Podium in Denver
We were compulsively switching last night between Fox, MSNBC, and CNN, to catch the spin, but if you wanted to watch the actual convention, C-SPAN was the only place to be. Without C-SPAN we wouldn't have seen Ike's granddaughter Susan Eisenhower (pictured here), the most prominent Republican on hand to endorse Barack. (Text of her short speech is here)The cable news networks may have shown a bit of her remarks, because she's, you know, kin to someone famous. They showed absolutely NONE of the short speeches by ordinary, non-famous Republicans from around the country who came to endorse Barack. Prominent among them -- and a strong presence in her own right -- was Pam Cash-Roper from Pittsboro, who admitted she had voted for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush twice. "But no more," she said. "I can't afford it."
It was gratifying to see North Carolina represented by a nurse with a strong voice, a clear vision, and a sense of personal history intersecting with national destiny. She was one of the highlights of Thursday night.
Labels: Pamella Cash-Roper, Susan Eisenhower
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
An NC Republican for Obama
At Barack Obama's kick-off campaign event in Raleigh on Monday, the only other speaker was an unemployed nurse from Pittsboro, Pamella Cash-Roper, who highlighted what seven years of George W. Bush trickle-down economics have meant for blue-collar, pink-collar, and lower middle-class workers. The main message: Don't even think about getting sick in George Bush's America. (Details of Pamella Roper-Cash's remarks from IndyWeek.com)
Both Pamella, 54, and her husband Keith Cash, 58, who was an electrical technician at WakeMed, developed heart disease. Keith first. He needed heart surgery in 2000 and couldn't work. He lost his job and hence their company-paid health benefits; and though federal law guaranteed him extended health insurance for 18 months, they couldn't afford the $600 a month insurance payments on top of the $1,800 a month for his prescriptions.
Meanwhile, they were dropped by their disability insurance carrier, a decision they continue to dispute, so far, unsuccessfully. So they sold their house, moved to a smaller one and went without health insurance for two years until he became eligible for Medicare as a Social Security disability recipient.
Pamella continued to work as a home-health nurse/aide until 2005 when she, too, needed bypass surgery and also turned to disability payments.
Today, she said, the two live on combined disability payments of $1,164 a month. Each takes about 15 kinds of medicine paid for by a state prescription-subsidy plan enacted during the Easley administration and paid for from tobacco-settlement funds funneled through the Health & Wellness Trust Fund.
It cuts their costs to between $2 and $4 a month for each prescription, she said. "If that had not been implemented," she said, "we'd probably both be dead."
Pamella told NPR's "Morning Edition" "We were lower middle-class. Now we're not even lower middle-class, I'm as low as it can get. When the price of milk and the price of gas are almost the same, we need to start looking at something."
Pamella Cash-Roper is a Republican and Will Vote for Obama
Apparently, that particular headline caused the NCGOP a little heartburn. First, the state party chair apparently tried to deny that she was even a Republican. She is. I've been gazing at her voter registration on the state Board of Elections website. Her husband Keith is registered Unaffiliated.
Look for the Obama campaign to use more Republicans in this way and for local and state Republican Party apparatuses to stamp their feet indignantly.
Both Pamella, 54, and her husband Keith Cash, 58, who was an electrical technician at WakeMed, developed heart disease. Keith first. He needed heart surgery in 2000 and couldn't work. He lost his job and hence their company-paid health benefits; and though federal law guaranteed him extended health insurance for 18 months, they couldn't afford the $600 a month insurance payments on top of the $1,800 a month for his prescriptions.
Meanwhile, they were dropped by their disability insurance carrier, a decision they continue to dispute, so far, unsuccessfully. So they sold their house, moved to a smaller one and went without health insurance for two years until he became eligible for Medicare as a Social Security disability recipient.
Pamella continued to work as a home-health nurse/aide until 2005 when she, too, needed bypass surgery and also turned to disability payments.
Today, she said, the two live on combined disability payments of $1,164 a month. Each takes about 15 kinds of medicine paid for by a state prescription-subsidy plan enacted during the Easley administration and paid for from tobacco-settlement funds funneled through the Health & Wellness Trust Fund.
It cuts their costs to between $2 and $4 a month for each prescription, she said. "If that had not been implemented," she said, "we'd probably both be dead."
Pamella told NPR's "Morning Edition" "We were lower middle-class. Now we're not even lower middle-class, I'm as low as it can get. When the price of milk and the price of gas are almost the same, we need to start looking at something."
Pamella Cash-Roper is a Republican and Will Vote for Obama
Apparently, that particular headline caused the NCGOP a little heartburn. First, the state party chair apparently tried to deny that she was even a Republican. She is. I've been gazing at her voter registration on the state Board of Elections website. Her husband Keith is registered Unaffiliated.
Look for the Obama campaign to use more Republicans in this way and for local and state Republican Party apparatuses to stamp their feet indignantly.
Labels: Barack Obama, George W. Bush, North Carolina Republican Party, Pamella Cash-Roper
