Why my Republican friend - and her sisters - are voting for Obama

This evening I had dinner with a Republican friend. She and I usually avoid talking about politics, and instead just silently agree to disagree. There's plenty of other stuff to talk about.

But tonight she insisted on bringing it up. It turned out that she wanted to let me know that she will be voting for Obama tomorrow. I think this will be the first time in her life that she has voted for a non-Republican candidate.

She is a fiscal conservative, and complained about "Obama's deficit". But then she explained that she couldn't support the GOP war on women's reproductive rights, and that was her reason for this difficult decision.

She also said that her two sisters, themselves staunch Republicans, would be voting for Obama as well, for the same reason.

I chose not to address the deficit issue. Sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone.

I'm hoping that many other Republican women will see things the same way as my friend and her sisters. Hopefully the misogynists in the GOP have pushed the envelope a bit too far this time.