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The politicians in D.C. (and Sacramento for that matter) could take a lesson from Orange County moms Michelle Tingler of San Clemente and Debbie Devine of Newport Beach.
Michelle (blue sweater) is a Democrat and Debbie (red sweater) is a Republican. In their spirited “Kitchen Table Talk” discussions on the news and issues of the day — Prop. 8, Haiti, Tiger Woods, the underpants bomber, the economy, you name it — when they disagree, they do so respectfully.
You won’t hear either one of them interrupting the other with shouts of “You lie,” or going over the top in self-righteous indignation that later demands an apology, a la MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.
No, Michelle and Debbie look for common ground — and common sense — in their desire to share information and bring a mom’s perspective and family-oriented principles to social and political debate. And they encourage other moms to do the same thing on the Web site they launched in November: O-Mama.com.
O-Mama (that’s O as in opinionated) grew out of a political conversation that began at a party Debbie held last summer, a gathering she says she holds every year “for the gals I really like.”
Those gals at the party — all moms, some Democrats and some Republicans — got to discussing who they might vote for in the 2008 presidential election and why. The conversation was so lively and informative, the group of women continued it over the next few months on into the election through an exchange of e-mails and other back-and-forth.
“We came at the issues through this common ground place which was that of a mom,” Debbie explains. “Women can sort of respectfully disagree with each other and share information and not get all hot under the collar. We thought, gosh, how interesting that we gained so much just from our conversations with each other. We bet there are other women in America who want to share information.”
Besides which, they wanted to continue the fun they had.
The site features chat forums and discussion groups for Republican moms, Democratic moms, stay-at-home moms, working moms, step moms, divorced moms, new moms, grandmoms, gay moms and more. O-Mama runs the gamut and encourages visitors to “cross the aisle” and join the conversation in whichever forum interests them.
Other features include a news blog, videos, inspiring quotes, a monthly comic strip and, soon to come, a place to buy stuff (a mom has got to be able to shop, too, doesn’t she?).
Michelle and Debbie, both 42, have backgrounds well-suited for their goal of empowering moms through informative and opinionated conversation.
Michelle, married for 13 years, was an advertising exec before the first of her three children (10, 7, and 4) was born and she switched gears to stay-at-home full time. Debbie, fluent in Spanish, was a broadcast journalist who worked for Telemundo, CNN en Espanol and CNN International before, she, too, trained her focus more on her two children, 11 and 7. She is divorced from her TV producer husband but they remain good friends.
The two mamas say the only spin they look for with the newsy topics discussed on O-Mama is the mom spin. “Change begins at home,” is the theme for the Web site.
“There were so many examples of adults, whether they were celebrities or athletes, politicians or pundits, that weren’t living up to the expectations we have for our 8-year-olds and 10-year-olds to live up to,” Michelle says. “There was nobody that could call them out on it because everybody has their agendas. But America’s moms don’t have an opinion other than raising great kids. If we’re in charge of shaping the future of our country, we need adults out there to be reinforcing the lessons we’re teaching at home. We thought we could break through the nonsense.”
Want to see them in action breaking through the nonsense? Check out this Kitchen Table Talk webisode from O-Mama, a regular segment Michelle and Debbie do to present the liberal and conservative perspectives on issues that matter to them as moms. This one tackles political extremism.
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Of course tonight they will be watching President Obama’s State of the Union address. We’ll check back with them after the speech to get their thoughts and timely O-Mama opinion.
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