Governor Palin? Knock, Knock. Who's There? MomsRising.

Yesterday, I joined MomsRising's co-founder and Executive Director Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner and 13 other moms to hand deliver a letter to Governor Sarah Palin's state office in The DC.  The letter had been signed by over 21,000 mothers and others.  None of this was supposed to take much time, I mean how complicated could it be go into an office building, take the elevator up to the third floor and drop off a box on someone's desk?  Quick In n Out then off to grab a bite to eat. Yes?

NO! Here's how it actually went down.  I arrived at the appointed time just as the local ABC News , Channel 7,was wrapping up an interview with Kristin. More moms arrived. We posed for a group photo  Kristin asked us to walk into the building where, she had been instructed, we would all be required to sign in at the lobby desk.  Again, nothing unexpected.  With the exception of the security guard who was less than thrilled to have 15 women in her lobby. Yes, she actually referred to it as her own lobby. Lobby ownership aside, we were told to wait for the news crew to return from upstairs.  Which we did.

Once outside the news crew explained they had been told our group would not be allowed upstairs and the person in Palin's office cited "the presidential campaign" as the reason no one in their office would accept a non-partisan letter being hand delivered by a group of moms. We're a group of mom voters, none of us is behaving in a threatening manner.( Although, now that I  think back on it, one of us was openly  wielding wearing a baby. But, it was a really happy baby. So I don't think that would have made Palin's staff nervous.)  It's a mystery to me as to why Palin's office just didn't send down a staffer to speak with Kristin. Even if just to say,"Everyone's at lunch we'll get back to you." If there is a campaign protocol preventing them from accepting the letter, why not send a staffer down with a copy of it?  It seems fairly commonsensical.  But maybe inside the Beltway this behavior makes more sense. I've spent all of my life living outside of the Beltway, so maybe it's a cultural thing.  Roll the tape, make your own decision:

All we wanted to do was drop off a large stack of white paper with black writing on it.  Don't people do this sort of thing in government buildings every day?  Drop off information for politicians to read?  Uh oh. Maybe we've got "kick me" micro-chipped to our collective back and the United States Government has gone paperless.  Well, if that's true, they need to do a much better job of informing the public.

Here you see me with the stack of paper. I was trying to look disappointed, but I think the picture turned out with me looking more like I had just been told I couldn't have a friend sleep over.

So now what will MomsRising do with the letter? According to Kristin, MomsRising will stick it in the mail and send it to all 4 state offices plus the campaign.  Hopefully it won't come back as "Return To Sender" and Palin will read the letter with the understanding that mothers and others want to know where she stands on issues important to many of us moms, such as paid family leave and vacation days.

An original DC Metro Moms post.

Devra also supports mothers and others over at Parentopia.