A SG Conducted Poll Disagrees

One poll finds that a "majority" of "Democrats" want an Obama-Clinton ticket.

A very scientific study done by yours truly disagrees. I crunched a lot of numbers and the result is: DON'T DO IT, BARACK!

You may now resume your daily activities.

Most Overreported Meeting Ever

Hillary and Barack met last night.

You would have thought by the coverage that they were negotiating a Middle East peace deal or divvying up territory after the Louisiana Purchase the way the media was covering it. Hell, it happened last night and they're still covering it. And by "covering it" I mean "going on and on about something they know nothing about."

So they met. Big whoopedi do. We all know that he's the presumptive nominee and she's going to endorse him. That is not a surprise.

Politics are so silly sometimes.

Is this the end?

I'm currently watching the Hillary speech. I don't know yet whether this is a concession or a campaign stop.

But it's official...Obama has clinched. I am happy, but I am worried at the same time.

After picking up my orthodics at the podiatrists this morning I heard a Republican guy listening to a Republican pundit. God, do they love that we're not yet together. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

She wants us to go to HillaryClinton.com. I'm not sure if I'm welcomed there. But apparently she's not "making any decisions tonight." Sorry to tell you, Hil, but the decision is made for you.

When Did Rules Get so Sexy?

Tomorrow is an important day for a lot of ardent Hillary-supporters (I'll decline coming up with a tacky nickname for them like they've done for Obama supporters which is really demeaning). Tomorrow is the day the Democractic National Convention Rules committee meets. On the agenda is the Florida/Michigan situation.

Some Hillary supporters from around the country are planning on holding a protest outside the meeting. It's the most attention a rules committee has received in the history of rules committees. Robert's Rules of Order doesn't consider a situation like this.

So it got me thinking: what is it that they hope to achieve? Do they really think there's a shot in hell?

Apparently they do. And so many of them are wrapped up in feeling salty about the sexism that has faced Hillary's campaign that they've neglected anything else--including the fact that Hillary herself supported stripping Michigan and Florida of its delegates when she was the frontrunner. Now that she's the self-proclaimed underdog (and more accurately the bad penny that just won't go away) she's favoring the seating of those delegations. I can only ask those Hillary supporters planning to march--if Obama or Edwards or any other Democractic candidate were in this position, would you be marching on the Rules committee? And if the answer is anything but a vehement "of course not!" then you're lying to yourselves.

The fact is that it doesn't matter if Saturday's meeting ends with them deciding to seat Michigan and Florida in favor of Hillary. It's almost a moot point. The fact is that for months now, Hillary's campaign staffers and insiders have known that she has no chance. This has been an exercise in futility the purpose of which I'm still searching for.

There are two realities that need to be faced in this situation:
1. Hillary's support for the seating of these two states' delegates rings hollow seeing as she strongly supported their initial disenfranchisement and agreed not to campaign in those states, only leaving her name on the ballots for reasons unknown (symbolic maybe, financial also probably).
2. Hillary's "victories" in Michigan and in Florida are flawed...they aren't true victories. When you tell people that if you cast a Democractic primary vote it won't count, there are many Democrats (present company included) who would rather bite the bullet and vote Republican to screw with them. So even though Hillary won those states, they weren't true wins because many of the potential voters were effectively disenfranchised (and disillusioned) from the start.

What's fair? I support some sort of compromise. What's probably the ultimate mark of fairness is holding everything as it is and not allowing those delegations to be seated. I mean, those were the rules and it wasn't a miscalculation or ambiguity that led to this situation--it was a calculated decision, knowing the consequences full-well, in order to gain greater ground in the 2012 primaries. BUT, I realize that there is a desire to seat these delegates one way or another. So I think a 50/50 split amongst the remaining candidates is the only fair thing to do--it makes it even without disenfranchising two entire states (important ones at that) from the process. (For the record, I'd support the slightly skewed compromise as well, though I don't think it's as fair.)

But why are these Hillary people so rabidly anti-compromise? I have yet to hear a good argument to support her desire to have all of the Michigan and Florida delegates seated in her behalf. Fairness certainly isn't one since she knew the rules and supported them until she happened to be on the wrong side of them. So what is the real support for this argument? That the popular vote should count? Not only is this an argument that falls into the category of "how convenient" but it only is true if you give Clinton complete victories in Florida and Michigan and take away Obama's caucus victories...something which makes absolutely no sense.

Please, enlighten me. Because right now, I just see rules that should be applied when the rule breakers knew the consequences. Can I admit that I'd probably be pissed if the candidates' roles were reversed? Sure. But at this point, it's time to move on and heal the party and work towards beating McCain. Those people who don't care about that goal and only care about getting some light shone on the sexism in this campaign, though a laudable goal, are really only shortchanging themselves in the end.

Sadly, some of them are still too salty to get it.

Why Refusing to Vote for Obama Because He's Not Clinton is Wrong

There are a few people in the blogosphere, particularly the feminist blogosphere (e.g., here and here, that believe as some sort of bizarre retribution or protest against Obama's failures to address the sexism aimed at Clinton, they should withhold their vote for Obama in the general election.

Let me be crystal clear: this is the most ridiculous thing I've heard of since screen doors on a submarine.

You probably think this is going to be a long drawn-out manifesto. You probably think that I have some brilliantly articulate thoughts on this subject. You probably think that I've thought long and hard about this.

Don't be sad...two out of three ain't bad. The fact is that it doesn't take a long set of words strung together to tell people why not voting or voting for McCain because of some perceived or actual slight on behalf of the Obama campaign is wrong. You're probably right that Obama could have spoken out about sexism in the media. You're probably right that the media treated the female Clinton differently than they'd ever treat the male Clinton.

Nevertheless, you're wrong. Here is the rhetoric and reasoning:

If Barack Obama and his supporters become the new Democratic party, then the Democratic party will no longer be the party of women’s rights. There will still be women in the party, naturally, but basic respect for women as citizens will be a dead letter. It will be the party of John Roberts and anti-choicers and the most virulent outbreak of public misogyny I’ve ever seen. All the sexism of this campaign will be rewarded instead of repudiated.

Here's where that logic fails. First of all, assuming that the Democratic party will be somehow changed by Obama's nomination in terms of women's rights is a bit overdramatic. The Democratic platform wasn't built overnight and the party would never turn its back on one of its biggest voting blocks. If for no other reasons than strategical, this statement is wrong. First of all, it places way too much value on the nomination of Obama on the history to be made of the party.

It goes on:

And that Democratic party will not deserve my vote.

And it’s not just women’s rights at stake. Social Security, health care, sticking up for the working class — those things are important. The Democratic Party is supposed to be the place where those things are defended, not dismissed. The place where those values are embraced. The place where, at every turn of American history over the past century, underdogs and reformers and humanitarians have found shelter.

So, let me ask this...who will you vote for? Will you not vote and just throw away the rights that so many women fought for? Or will you vote for McCain and basically ensure a society that doesn't give a damn about working people, poor people, older people, education, health care, etc.?

That’s why I won’t vote for Obama. I’ll be sending a message to the Democratic party: if you want my vote, then you need to earn it. If you throw me under the bus — me and my sisters and my grandparents and my friends and everybody in this country who isn’t a rich man — then to hell with you.

Um? What? I just don't get this. I guess it's a play on the whole "elitist" attack on Obama, but if you want to talk about throwing people under the bus, then look no further than our gal Hil, because she's got a long list of people that were trampled by the proverbial bus. Her days on the board of WalMart are filled with trampled people--workers, organized labor, the poor and the disadvantaged. You and your sisters and grandparents and friends and everybody in this country who isn't a rich man didn't benefit from NAFTA, which Hillary claims as a victory. You and your sisters and grandparents and friends and everybody in this country who isn't a rich man continues to suffer because of the vice-like grip corporations like WalMart have on the heart of this country, particularly on those people who aren't rich men.

My point is this--it's fine if you support Hillary. It's understandable that you'll be a little bitter that she isn't going to be the nominee. (I for one would be a bitter bitch if Obama wasn't, so I can sympathize.) But to go out and waste your vote or simply let it lose its value is only ensuring a country where people like George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and all of their little women-hating friends can have free reign over our society. They have taken the past eight years and made it hell on earth for anyone but them. And don't tell me that you think a vote for a third party is really going to make a difference. I know I'm probably not making any friends by saying that, but I don't care. It's what lost us (and by "us" I mean everyone that isn't a rich white man) the presidency in 2000 and is what continues to divide us.

And to do that, my dear friend, is what you call a damn shame.

Really NARAL? Really?

It's no secret that I support Obama. Call me an Obamabot or an Obamacrat or whatever. Don't care. I support him and that's my choice. Regardless, I don't dislike Hillary Clinton. I have my issues with her campaign, but she has always been a strong voice for issues near and dear to me, namely healthcare and choice.

So imagine my surprise when I get an e-mail from NARAL saying that they've decided that now is the time to chose Obama over Clinton.

First of all, though they are slight differences and he is still pro-choice, Hillary is far more the advocate for the choice movement than Obama. Secondly, what do they think their endorsement does right now? They claim it stops McCain from getting a free ride on choice, but honestly, why couldn't they have just done a special issue campaign focusing on his shitty choice record?

I just think that this was a weird thing to do and sadly, more than ever, tears the feminist community even further apart.

So far on their blog entry there are 791 comments. I thought I'd make 792...but in between my typing it jumped to 875. 90% of them are not fans of the choice.

What's that sound?

Somewhere Hillary Clinton just smacked one of her campaign advisors...and hard. Probably deservedly so.

Barack Obama just skipped ahead of Clinton in line for super delegates. The race that she continues from now on is not one of potential chance, but one of extreme ego and an unwillingness to let things continue without her.

More importantly, though, this weekend I read a brilliant article in The Nation (my paper version) that really summed up the way I've been feeling about the Clinton campaign--used and with no good reason to be.

I've posted it below. My comments are in bold. Words that are in bold and italics are from the original text, but emphasized to show my agreement.

--------------

Race to the Bottom

By Betsy Reed

This article appeared in the May 19, 2008 edition of The Nation.

May 1, 2008

In the course of Hillary Clinton's historic run for the White House--in which she became the first woman ever to prevail in a state-level presidential primary contest--she has been likened to Lorena Bobbitt (by Tucker Carlson); a "hellish housewife" (Leon Wieseltier); and described as "witchy," a "she-devil," "anti-male" and "a stripteaser" (Chris Matthews). Her loud and hearty laugh has been labeled "the cackle," her voice compared to "fingernails on a blackboard" and her posture said to look "like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court." As one Fox News commentator put it, "When Hillary Clinton speaks, men hear, Take out the garbage." Rush Limbaugh, who has no qualms about subjecting audiences to the spectacle of his own bloated physique, asked his listeners, "Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?" Perhaps most damaging of all to her electoral prospects, very early on Clinton was deemed "unlikable." Although other factors also account for that dislike, much of the venom she elicits ("Iron my shirt," "How do we beat the bitch?") is clearly gender-specific. (I agree--I don't think anyone can deny this.)

Watching the brass ring of the presidency slip out of Clinton's grasp as she is buffeted by this torrent of misogyny, women--white women, that is, and mainstream feminists especially--have rallied to her defense. On January 8, after Barack Obama beat Clinton in the Iowa caucuses, Gloria Steinem published a New York Times op-ed titled "Women Are Never Front-Runners." (Which I commented on here.) "Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House," Steinem wrote. Next came Clinton's famous "misting-over moment" in New Hampshire in response to a question from a woman about the stress of modern campaigning. For that display of emotion, Clinton was derided, on the one hand, as calculating and chameleonlike--"It could be that big girls don't cry...but it could be that if they do they win," said Chris Matthews--and, on the other, as lacking "strength and resolve," as her Democratic rival John Edwards put it, in a jab at the perennial Achilles' heel of women candidates. Riding a wave of female sympathy, Clinton won New Hampshire in what was dubbed an "anti-Chris Matthews vote."

Thus, feminist opposition to the sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton has morphed into support for the candidate herself. (And this is where I must digress. I feel that in the feminist circles, especially those in the feminist blogosphere, a self-declared feminist is almost required to be a Hillary supporter. It's a sad state of affairs when this is the case. I am capable of having more than one thought--I can, in fact, think that the treatment being passed onto Hillary is sexist without thinking that she's the right candidate for the job. In other words, I can support her historic run for the White House in historical terms without picking her as my candidate in personal terms.) In February Robin Morgan published a reprise of her famous 1970 essay "Goodbye to All That," exhorting women to embrace Clinton as a protest against "sociopathic woman-hating." In the Los Angeles Times, Leslie Bennetts, author of The Feminine Mistake, wrote of older female voters fed up with the media's dismissive treatment of Clinton: "There are signs the slumbering beast may be waking up--and she's not in a happy mood." A recent New York magazine article titled "The Feminist Reawakening: Hillary Clinton and the Fourth Wave" described how "it isn't just the 'hot flash cohort'...that broke for Clinton. Women in their thirties and forties--at once discomfited and galvanized by the sexist tenor of the media coverage, by the nastiness of the watercooler talk in the office, by the realization that the once-foregone conclusion of Clinton-as-president might never come to be--did too."

The sexist attacks on Clinton are outrageous and deplorable, but there's reason to be concerned about her becoming the vehicle for a feminist reawakening. For one thing, feminist sympathy for her has begotten an "oppression sweepstakes" in which a number of her prominent supporters, dismayed at her upstaging by Obama, have declared a contest between racial and gender bias and named sexism the greater scourge. (This is especially where I have problems. And I think as the rest of this article demonstrates quite articulately, Hillary has done everything she can to bring Barack's race into the presidential picture except come right out and use racial epithets to describe him. She has done more in the past five months to derail the progress some of us attempt to make to heal the wounds of the feminist movement's attempt to understand and help heal its own racial divides than anyone has in years.) This maneuver is not only unhelpful for coalition-building but obstructs understanding of how sexism and racism have played out in this election in different (and interrelated) ways.

Yet what is most troubling--and what has the most serious implications for the feminist movement--is that the Clinton campaign has used her rival's race against him. (Exactly. In one breath it's sinister to use gender against her, but using race against him...well, that's a different ballgame altogether. And yet Bill wonders why the Black community is pissed at him for playing this double edged sword like a stoogie in the night.) In the name of demonstrating her superior "electability," she and her surrogates have invoked the racist and sexist playbook of the right--in which swaggering macho cowboys are entrusted to defend the country--seeking to define Obama as too black, too foreign, too different to be President at a moment of high anxiety about national security. This subtly but distinctly racialized political strategy did not create the media feeding frenzy around the Rev. Jeremiah Wright that is now weighing Obama down, but it has positioned Clinton to take advantage of the opportunities the controversy has presented. And the Clinton campaign's use of this strategy has many nonwhite and nonmainstream feminists crying foul. (Like me.)

While 2008 was never going to be a "postracial" campaign, the early racially tinged skirmishes between the Clinton and Obama camps seemed containable. There were references by Clinton campaign officials to Obama's admission of past drug use (at least he didn't try to cop-out on it claiming that he 'didn't inhale.'); the tit-for-tat over Clinton's tone-deaf but historically accurate statement that Martin Luther King needed Lyndon Johnson for his civil rights dreams to be realized; and insinuations that Obama is a token, unqualified, overreaching--that he's all pretty words, "fairy tales" and no action.

From the point of view of Obama's supporters, the edge was taken off some of these conflicts by the mere fact of his stunning electoral success, built as it was on significant white support. Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton and an Obama volunteer, recalls that for black Americans "Iowa was an astonishing moment--watching Barack win the caucus felt like Reconstruction. There was something powerful about feeling as though you were a full citizen." In democracy, Harris-Lacewell explains, "the ruled and rulers are supposed to be the same people. The idea that black folks could be engaged in the process of being rulers over not just black folks but over the nation as a whole struck me as very powerful."

Soon enough, however, that powerful idea came under attack. (Kind of like when Michelle Obama said she felt proud to be an American for the first time and people were all "for the first time?!!?" Um...yeah. When you grow up with the history of gender discrimination on top of racial oppression on your mind, I doubt you often feel proud of the conditions that allowed such things to happen.)

"More than any single thing, that moment with Bill Clinton in South Carolina represents the rupture that was coming," says Harris-Lacewell. The moment occurred in late January, when the former President compared Obama's landslide win, in which he received a major boost from African-American voters, to Jesse Jackson's victories there in 1984 and 1988. Because the former President offered the comparison unprompted, in response to a question that had nothing to do with Jackson or race, the statement was widely read as chalking up Obama's win to his blackness alone and thus attempting to marginalize him as a doomed minority candidate with limited appeal. Obama was now "the black candidate," in the words of one Clinton strategist quoted by the AP.

By March, multiple videos of Wright, Obama's former pastor, had popped up on YouTube and had begun to play on an endless loop in the right-wing media. "God damn America for treating your citizens as less than human," Wright inveighed, reciting a litany of racial complaints. And he said in his sermon immediately following 9/11, "America's chickens are coming home to roost."

According to Smith College professor Paula Giddings, author of a new biography of Ida B. Wells, Ida: A Sword Among Lions and the Campaign Against Lynching, Wright's angry invocation of race and nation tapped into a reservoir of doubt about the very Americanness of African-Americans. "American citizenship has always been racialized as white. Who is a true American? Are African-Americans true Americans? That has been the question," she says.

In Obama's case--given his mixed-race lineage, his Kenyan father, his experiences growing up in Indonesia, his middle name (Hussein)--questions about his devotion to America carry a special potency, as xenophobia mingles with racism to create a poisonous brew. The toxicity is further heightened in this post-9/11 atmosphere, in which an image of Obama in Somali dress is understood as a slur and e-mails claiming that he is a "secret Muslim" schooled in a madrassa spread virally, along with rumors that he took the oath of office on a Koran. The madrassa and Koran canards have been thoroughly debunked, but still they persist--and few have been willing to stand up and say, So what if he was a Muslim? For her part, Clinton, asked on 60 Minutes whether Obama was a Muslim, said, "There is nothing to base that on, as far as I know." (As if that were even a valid question to begin with.)

Giddings calls the Wright association a "litmus test" that Obama must pass, saying, "It will be interesting to see if a man of color, a man who's cosmopolitan, can be the quintessential symbol of America" as its President.

Obama initially responded to that challenge with his speech in Philadelphia on March 18. While condemning Wright's words, he placed them in a historical context of racial oppression and said, "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." (More recently, of course, Obama did renounce him.) But in the Philadelphia speech, called "A More Perfect Union," Obama also outlined a racially universal definition of American citizenship and affirmed his commitment to represent all Americans as President. "I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together--unless we perfect our union by understanding that we have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction."

A mere three days after Obama spoke those words, Bill Clinton made this statement in North Carolina about a potential Clinton-McCain general election matchup: "I think it'd be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics." Whether or not this statement constituted McCarthyism, as one Obama surrogate alleged and as Clinton supporters vigorously denied, the timing of the remark made its meaning quite clear: controversies relating to Obama's race render him less fit than either Hillary or McCain to run for president as a patriotic American. A couple of weeks later, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen went so far as to call on Obama to make another speech, modeled after John F. Kennedy's declaration in 1960 that, despite his Catholicism, he would respect the separation of church and state as President--as though Obama's blackness were a sign of allegiance to some entity, like the Vatican, other than the United States of America.

In the Democratic debates, enabled by the (incompetent) moderators, Hillary Clinton has increasingly deployed issues of race and patriotism as a wedge strategy against her opponent. First, in the debate in Cleveland on February 26, she pressed Obama not only to denounce but to reject Louis Farrakhan--to whom he was spuriously linked through Reverend Wright, who had taken a trip with the black nationalist leader in the 1980s. In style as well as content, that attack was a harbinger of things to come. In the most recent debate, ABC's George Stephanopolous and Charles Gibson peppered Obama with questions such as, "Do you believe [Wright] is as patriotic as you are?" (who cares?) and, regarding former Weatherman Bill Ayers, a Chicago neighbor and Obama supporter, "Can you explain that relationship for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?" (Can Hillary explain her relationship with Walmart or the Rose Law Firm for the Democrats and explain why it won't be a problem?) Time after time, Clinton picked up the line and ran with it. "You know, these are problems, and they raise questions in people's minds. And so this is a legitimate area...for people to be exploring and trying to find answers," she said (because for once in the past fifteen years it didn't have to do with her or her husband), seeming to abandon her argument that these issues are fair game now only because they will be raised by Republicans later and thus are relevant to an evaluation of Obama's electability.

The Wright, Farrakhan and Ayers controversies have been fueled by a craven media, and ABC's performance in the debate has rightly been condemned. But given that Clinton is the one who is running for President and who purports to represent liberal ideals, her complicity in such attempts to establish guilt by association is far more troubling. While she has dealt gingerly with the matter of Wright in the wake of his recent appearance at the National Press Club--accusing Republicans of politicizing the issue--she also took pains to remind reporters that she "would not have stayed in that church under those circumstances."

It's disappointing, to say the least, to see the first viable female contender for the presidency participate in attacks on her black opponent's patriotism, which exploit an anxious climate around national security that gives white men an edge both over women and people of color--who tend to be viewed, respectively, as weak and potentially traitorous. Says Paula Giddings, "This idea of nationalism and patriotism pulling at everyone has demanded hypermasculine men, more like McCain than the feline Obama, and demanded women whose role is to be maternal more than anything else."

For Hillary Clinton, the gendered terrain of post-9/11 national security politics has been treacherous indeed. As Elizabeth Drew observed in The New York Review of Books, Clinton took steps in the Senate, like joining the Armed Services Committee, "to protect herself from the sexist notion that a woman might be soft on national security." As a 2002 study by the White House Project, a women's leadership group, found, "Women candidates start out with a serious disadvantage--voters tend to view women as less effective and tough. Recent events of war, terrorism, and recession have only...increased the salience of these dimensions." Clinton has been quite successful in allaying these concerns, although she faces a Catch-22: her reputed toughness and ruthlessness have helped ratchet up her high negatives. The White House Project study found that a woman candidate faces a unique tension between the need to show herself "in a light that is personally appealing, while also showing that she has the kind of strength needed for the job she is seeking."

Of course, Clinton's decision to play the hawk may have had other motivations. Perhaps she really believed that voting to authorize the war in Iraq was the right thing to do (which is, arguably, even more worrying). But her posture in this campaign--threatening to "totally obliterate" Iran after being asked how she would respond in the highly improbable event of an Iranian nuclear strike against Israel, for example--has at least something to do with a desire to compete on a macho foreign policy playing field. It's the woman in this Democratic primary race who has the cowboy swagger: the nationalist and militaristic rhetoric, the whiskey-swilling photo-ops, the gotcha attacks for perceived insults to a working-class electorate (as in "Bittergate") that is usually depicted as white and male.

Clinton has, to be sure, faced a raw misogyny that has been more out in the open than the racial attacks on Obama have been. But while sexism may be more casually accepted, racism, which is often coded, is more insidious and trickier to confront. Clinton's response to "Iron my shirt" was immediate and straightforward: "Oh, the remnants of sexism, alive and well." Says Kimberlé Crenshaw, law professor at Columbia and UCLA and executive director of the African American Policy Forum, "While sexism can be denounced more directly, that doesn't mean it's worse. Things that are racist have yet to be labeled and understood as such."

While on occasion Obama's campaign has complained of racial slights, Obama himself has avoided raising the charge directly. Even so, Clinton supporters make the twisted claim that it is Obama who has racialized the campaign. "While promoting Obama as a 'post-racial' figure, his campaign has purposefully polluted the contest with a new strain of what historically has been the most toxic poison in American politics," wrote Sean Wilentz in The New Republic in an article titled "Race Man." Bill Clinton recently groused that the Obama camp, in the controversy over his Jackson remark, "played the race card on me."

As for the way the Clinton campaign has dealt with race, Crenshaw says, "It started with a small drumbeat, but as the campaign has proceeded, as Hillary has taken part in things, more people are really seeing this as a 'line in the sand' kind of moment."

Among the black feminists interviewed for this article, reactions to the declarations of sexism's greater toll by Clinton supporters--and their demand that all women back their candidate out of gender solidarity, regardless of the broader politics of the campaign--ran the gamut from astonishment to dismay to fury. Patricia Hill Collins, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland and author of Black Feminist Thought, recalls how, before they were reduced to their race or gender, the candidates were not seen solely through the prism of identity, and many Democrats were thrilled with the choices before them. But of the present, she says, "It is such a distressing, ugly period. Clinton has manipulated ideas about race, but Obama has not manipulated similar ideas about gender." This has exacerbated longstanding racial tensions within the women's movement, Collins notes, and is likely to alienate young black women who might otherwise have been receptive to feminism. "We had made progress in getting younger black women to see that gender does matter in their lives. Now they are going to ask, What kind of white woman is Hillary Clinton?"

The sense of progress unraveling is profound. "What happened to the perspective that the failures of feminism lay in pandering to racism, to everyone nodding that these were fatal mistakes--how is it that all that could be jettisoned?" asks Crenshaw, who co-wrote a piece with Eve Ensler on the Huffington Post called "Feminist Ultimatums: Not in Our Name." Crenshaw says that, appalled as she is by the sexism toward Clinton, she found herself stunned by some of the arguments pro-Hillary feminists were making. "There is a myopic focus on the aspiration of having a woman in the White House--perhaps not any woman, but it seems to be pretty much enough that she be a Democratic woman." This stance, says Crenshaw, "is really a betrayal."

Frances Kissling, the former president of Catholics for a Free Choice, attributes this go-for-broke attitude to the mindset of corporate feminism. "There's a way in which feminists who have been seriously engaged in electoral politics for a long time, the institutional DC feminist leadership, they are just with Hillary Clinton come hell or high water. I think they have accepted, as she has accepted, a similar career trajectory. They are not uncomfortable with what has gone on in the campaign, because they see electoral campaigns as mere instruments for getting elected. This is just the way it is. We have to get elected."

The implications of all this for the future of feminism depend significantly on the outcome of the primary, says Kissling. "If Clinton wins, the older-line women's movement will continue; it will be a continuation of power for them. If she doesn't win, it will be a death knell for those people. And that may be a good thing--that a younger generation will start to take over."

Many younger women, indeed, have responded to the admonishments of their pro-Hillary second-wave elders by articulating a sophisticated political orientation that includes feminism but is not confined to it. They may support Obama, but they still abhor the sexism Clinton has faced. (Finally, an identity I believe in.) And they detect--and reject--a tinge of sexism among male peers who have developed man-crushes on the dashing senator from Illinois. "Even while they voice dismay over the retro tone of the pro-Clinton feminist whine, a growing number of young women are struggling to describe a gut conviction that there is something dark and funky, and probably not so female-friendly, running below the frantic fanaticism of their Obama-loving compatriots," wrote Rebecca Traister in Salon.

It's not just young feminists who have taken such a nuanced view. Calling themselves Feminists for Peace and Obama, 1,500 prominent progressive feminists--including Kissling, Barbara Ehrenreich and this magazine's Katha Pollitt--signed on to a statement endorsing him and disavowing Clinton's militaristic politics. "Issues of war and peace are also part of a feminist agenda," they declared.

In some sense, this is a clarifying moment as well as a wrenching one. For so many years, feminists have been engaged in a pushback against the right that has obscured some of the real and important differences among them. "Today you see things you might not have seen. It's clearer now about where the lines are between corporate feminism and more grassroots, global feminism," says Crenshaw. Women who identify with the latter movement are saying, as she puts it, "'Wait a minute, that's not the banner we are marching under!'"

Feminist Obama supporters of all ages and hues, meanwhile, are hoping that he comes out of this bruising primary with his style of politics intact. While he calls it "a new kind of politics," Clinton and Obama are actually very similar in their records and agendas (which is perhaps why this contest has fixated so obsessively on their gender and race). But in his rhetoric and his stance toward the world outside our borders, Obama does appear to offer a way out of the testosterone-addled GOP framework. (This has been the main reason since Day 1 that, notwithstanding similar policy arguments, I have felt he is a better candidate than Clinton.) As he said after losing Pennsylvania, "We can be a party that thinks the only way to look tough on national security is to talk, and act, and vote like George Bush and John McCain. We can use fear as a tactic and the threat of terrorism to scare up votes. Or we can decide that real strength is asking the tough questions before we send our troops to fight."

As comedian Chris Rock quipped, Bush "fucked up so bad that he's made it hard for a white man to run for President." Rock spoke too soon: many are hungry for a shift, but the country needs the right push to get there. Unfortunately, from Hillary Clinton, it's getting a shove in the wrong direction.

He keeps them running...yeah, he keeps them running

Running straight to him, that is. Obama has picked up 4 more superdelegates today. At least one of those was a former Clinton supporter.

I think we've hit that point where the tides have officially changed. And while I appreciate the debates that have been on the issues (though sadly few and far between), it's time to let the party rest and heal before the big race in November. This thing has gone from useful to damn-near harmful in just over two months and it's time to put it to bed.

Please Hillary, you know I love you as a senator and politician, but this race has worn out the party and frankly you've been very divisive the past few weeks and months. You keep trying to appeal to working class white folks at the detriment to those black and brown folks that pretty much elected your husband the first time around. Not to mention the fact that your alliance with middle- and working-class America is tenuous at best. (I mean how does someone who grew up in a privileged background go from being on the board of directors of Walmart really relate to working people?) White people aren't the only ones that need attention, by the way. Regardless, the time has come and I pray that you'll save us all, including yourself, and just let us all collectively move on.

There Already Is

Hillary Clinton has vowed to stay in the race until there is a nominee.

Um...there already is. His name is Barack. He's a nice young fella. You should meet him sometime.

Clinton-Obama 2008?

Or Obama-Clinton 2008? Seems that now that Hillary's campaign got a bit of a Ohio-Texas boost (though Obama won the Texas caucuses), she's willing to discuss a shared ticket. Of course, she'd get top billing.

I'm so ready for this primary stuff to be over. I feel like now that the Republicans have a for-sure nominee we need to cut the games because the longer we let this go on, the worse it's going to get in terms of in-fighting and we need to focus on the big prize, which doesn't get awarded until November.

And of course, there's more flutter now about a do-over in the Michigan Democratic Primary. Gov. Granholm wants a caucus. I think that's about right. What I don't think is right, though, is just handing the delegates over to Clinton who decided not to pull her name from the ballot when the race was decided not to count. If you're told something isn't going to count, I think that should stick.

Another Maureen Dowd Gem

Maureen has come out swinging at Hillary's latest attempts to de-mystify the momentum of the Obama campaign. As Maureen and I understand, it seems to be all but over for Clinton and her attempts to derail her fellow Democrat don't ring of anything but bitterness and exasperation.

----

February 27, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Begrudging His Bedazzling

By MAUREEN DOWD

CLEVELAND

A huge Ellen suddenly materialized behind Hillary on a giant screen, interrupting her speech Monday night at a fund-raiser at George Washington University in Washington.

What better way for a desperate Hillary to try and stop her rival from running off with all her women supporters than to have a cozy satellite chat with a famous daytime talk-show host who isn’t supporting Obama?

“Will you put a ban on glitter?” Ellen demanded.

Diplomatically, Hillary said that schoolchildren needed it for special projects, but maybe she could ban it for anyone over 12.

Certainly, Hillary understands the perils of glitter. The coda of her campaign has been a primal scream against the golden child of Chicago, a clanging and sometimes churlish warning that “all that glitters is not gold.”

David Brody, the Christian Broadcasting Network correspondent whose interview with Hillary aired Tuesday, said the senator seemed “dumbfounded” by the Obama sensation.

She has been so discombobulated that she has ignored some truisms of politics that her husband understands well: Sunny beats gloomy. Consistency beats flipping. Bedazzling beats begrudging. Confidence beats whining.

Experience does not beat excitement, though, or Nixon would have been president the first time around, Poppy Bush would have had a second term and President Gore would have stopped the earth from melting by now.

Voters gravitate toward the presidential candidates who seem more comfortable in their skin. J.F.K. and Reagan seemed exceptionally comfortable. So did Bill Clinton and W., who both showed that comfort can be an illusion of sorts, masking deep insecurities.

The fact that Obama is exceptionally easy in his skin has made Hillary almost jump out of hers. She can’t turn on her own charm and wit because she can’t get beyond what she sees as the deep injustice of Obama not waiting his turn. Her sunshine-colored jackets on the trail hardly disguise the fact that she’s pea-green with envy.

After saying she found her “voice” in New Hampshire, she has turned into Sybil. We’ve had Experienced Hillary, Soft Hillary, Hard Hillary, Misty Hillary, Sarcastic Hillary, Joined-at-the-Hip-to-Bill Hillary, Her-Own-Person-Who-Just-Happens-to-Be-Married-to-a-Former-President Hillary, It’s-My-Turn Hillary, Cuddly Hillary, Let’s-Get-Down-in-the-Dirt-and-Fight-Like-Dogs Hillary.

Just as in the White House, when her cascading images and hairstyles became dizzying and unsettling, suggesting that the first lady woke up every day struggling to create a persona, now she seems to think there is a political solution to her problem. If she can only change this or that about her persona, or tear down this or that about Obama’s. But the whirlwind of changes and charges gets wearing.

By threatening to throw the kitchen sink at Obama, the Clinton campaign simply confirmed the fact that they might be going down the drain.

Hillary and her aides urged reporters to learn from the “Saturday Night Live” skit about journalists having crushes on Obama.

“Maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow,” she said tartly in the debate here Tuesday night. She peevishly and pointlessly complained about getting the first question too often, implying that the moderators of MSNBC — a channel her campaign has complained has been sexist — are giving Obama an easy ride.

Beating on the press is the lamest thing you can do. It is only because of the utter open-mindedness of the press that Hillary can lose 11 contests in a row and still be treated as a contender.

Hillary and her top aides could not say categorically that her campaign had not been the source on the Drudge Report, as Matt Drudge claimed, for a picture of Obama in African native garb that the mean-spirited hope will conjure up a Muslim Manchurian candidate vibe.

At a rally on Sunday, she tried sarcasm about Obama, talking about how “celestial choirs” singing and magic wands waving won’t get everybody together to “do the right thing.”

With David Brody, Hillary evoked the specter of a scary Kool-Aid cult. “I think that there is a certain phenomenon associated with his candidacy, and I am really struck by that because it is very much about him and his personality and his presentation,” she said, adding that “it dangerously oversimplifies the complexity of the problems we face, the challenge of navigating our country through some difficult uncharted waters. We are a nation at war. That seems to be forgotten.”

Actually it’s not forgotten. It’s a hard sell for Hillary to say that she is the only one capable of leading this country in a war when she helped in leading the country into that war. Or to paraphrase Obama from the debate here, the one who drives the bus into the ditch can’t drive it out.

Hint?

Was Dodd's endorsement of Obama less of an endorsement and more of a hint to Clinton to back out now?

John Nichols of The Nation thinks so.

Plagerismssmsmsms

First of all, plagiarism is a funny word. Without spell check it would inevitably be wrong every time I wrote it.

More importantly, though, plagiarism is at issue between the Clinton and Obama campaigns. Seems Clinton is throwing out plagiarism (I'm using it in a sentence as many times as possible to learn the spelling) against Obama as some reason why people shouldn't vote for him.

CVD brought this up last week. I then posted the Maureen Dowd column yesterday, which was and still is brilliant. Then last night on News and Notes on NPR, the bloggers roundtable discussed it and I'm convinced more than ever that: (1) it's not plagiarism as the person to whom those words first belonged wanted Obama to use them, and (2) it's just another Clinton dirty campaign tactic that comes out in the wake of her campaign being shaken (not stirred) to its core.

Here's a link so you can listen.

This touches on an issue that I'm developing a longer piece about, which is about the Clinton campaign and what it means, truly, for feminism. There are so many feminist bloggers (here are some) that are now focusing on discrediting Obama for the sake of somehow uplifting Clinton in what appears to be a gender-focused attack. It seems silly to me because I believe that the best candidate happens to be a male here and that I can be a female and a feminist and still believe that, yet the "Blogosphere O'Feminism" says otherwise and I take issue with that. I'm still developing my full argument, but that's just a tid-bit. Gnaw on it for awhile.

Reason #23979323 I love Maureen Dowd

(And this one goes out to you, CVD, who wondered why "your Obama couldn't write his own speeches.")

Maureen Dowd's column today was a brilliant piece about how Clinton's mudslinging towards Obama for his use of others' words was nothing more than the pot calling the kettle black. I can't possibly capture the beauty of it, so I'll post it in its entirety here.

Just another reason I red-puffy heart Maureen Dowd.
------

February 20, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

To Catch a Thief

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

Lenny and Squiggy were nowhere in sight.

But Hillary was doing her best to come across as a “Laverne & Shirley” factory girl as she headed away from not-a-chance Wisconsin and on to gotta-have Ohio.

She was drinking red wine and talking up the virtues of imported Blue Moon beer with a slice of citrus on her plane and putting up an ad in Ohio about how she works the night shift, too, just like the waitresses, hairdressers, hospital workers and other blue-collar constituents that she’s hoping to attract.

And she doesn’t mean that being married to Bill Clinton is what keeps her up all hours. She’s talking about burning the midnight oil in her Senate office.

At any minute, she might break out into the “schlemiel, schlemazel” “Laverne & Shirley” theme: “Give us any chance, we’ll take it.

Give us any rule, we’ll break it.

We’re gonna make our dreams come true.

Doin’ it our way.”

Doin’ it her way, Hillary huffed to reporters on her plane: “If your whole candidacy is about words, they should be your own words.”

I guess that means if your whole candidacy is anti-words, you don’t have to use your own words.

The Clintons are known political cat burglars. They pilfered Republican jewels in the ’90s, and Hillary has purloined as much as she can stuff in her pantsuit from her husband and Barack Obama.

She changed to Change. She co-opted “It’s time to turn the page” and “Fired up and ready to go.” She couldn’t wait to shoplift the words “yes” and “can” from Obama’s trademark “Yes, we can!” — (which he appropriated from Cesar Chavez) — even though she was cagey enough to put them in separate slogans, “Yes, we will!” and “Americans still have that can-do spirit.”

Bill, master thief, got in on the act, too. After Obama said that his election would tell the world that America is back, Bill said that Hillary’s election would tell the world that America is back.

Although the only solid voting bloc in Wisconsin Hillary seemed to get was women over 60 years old, she did seem happy that the press had “finally,” as she put it, scrutinized him. America’s pretty boy was getting muddied up.

The Clinton camp has spent days trying to undermine Obama’s chief asset, the elegant language that has sparked a generational boom.

“We’re seeing a pattern here,” Hillary enforcer Howard Wolfson said, in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. Yeah, we are. She’s losing, and looking for anything to bruise Obama.

Obama swiped a couple distinctive riffs about words and aspirations — his supposed specialty — from his pal Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts, thereby violating the new cardinal rule not only of politics but of life: Don’t do anything you don’t want to see on the top favorites of YouTube.

He had credited Patrick in the past, and Patrick had channeled Obama when he ran for governor in ’06, so basically they’re like two roommates sharing clothes. Or two politicians sharing a strategist. Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, worked for Patrick in the gubernatorial bid.

“You may know that both Deval Patrick and Senator Obama have the same consultant and adviser,” Hillary told reporters, “who is apparently putting words in both of their mouths.”

It wasn’t campaign shredding, as when Joe Biden absorbed Neil Kinnock’s Welsh inflection and life experiences in ’88. But it was sloppy. If you’re going to be hailed as the messiah and sermonize about offering a “hymn that will heal this nation,” you should come up with your own lyrics.

Obama is basing his campaign on his freshness and integrity and honesty, so he shouldn’t cut corners, as he seems to have done with crediting Patrick and explaining the extent of his relationship with his sleazy former fund-raiser, Tony Rezko.

The attribution problem might be small beer compared with Michelle Obama’s comment in Milwaukee on Monday: “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”

It’s a discordant note for the stylish, brainy 44-year-old Princeton and Harvard Law School grad. Cindy McCain showed that Republicans would jump right on a line like that, and twist it into something that sounded extremist and unpatriotic.

Michelle made another of these aggrieved pronouncements at a rally in Los Angeles before the California primary: “Things have gotten progressively worse, throughout my lifetime, through Democratic and Republican administrations, it hasn’t gotten better for regular folks.”

Given the way the Clintons unfairly turn the tables, we’re only moments away from Hillary asking Obama: “Can’t you control your spouse?”

The slaps keep coming

Obama is on a roll and Clinton is now the underdog. Who knew? Who would have guessed? The latest is that Bill's ex-campaign manager is now an Obama supporter.

It's weirder still because she's not that many delegates behind and she has more superdelegates, but the Obama bandwagon seems hard to slow down.

I'm almost starting to feel sad

Almost.

Over the weekend, Hillary Clinton had to replace her campaign manager. Seems Barack's sweep of the states whose caucuses took place this weekend shook the Clinton campaign up a bit. This comes after last week's "loan" to the campaign by Bill and Hillary.

To be honest though, he's only ahead like 27 delegates, so it's still anybody's race. It just seems the Clinton campaign hit the panic button this weekend, and maybe rightfully so.

I'll break a $20 for you, but I ain't loaning you money

Apparently Hillary Clinton loaned her presidential campaign $5 million last month. Even if I were on the Hillary bandwagon, I doubt I'd make the following assessment about this situation:

"The loan illustrates Sen. Clinton's commitment to this effort and to ensuring that our campaign has the resources it needs to compete and win across this nation," Wolfson said in a statement.

Um...actually, it illustrates a lack of outside funding. That's what it illustrates. Furthermore, why didn't she just GIVE the campaign some money if she has it? How does that work, exactly?
Apparently, while Obama raised $32 million in January, Clinton only raised $13.5. There were many talks this morning that in the next set of primaries, Clinton will have to rely less on paid media advertising and exert more efforts on appearances and debates because of her monetary situation.

I don't know how this woman can make more appearances. She's all over the damn place. I'll give her ten bucks to take a nap. She needed one the other day--her voice was all crackly and stuff. I just felt bad for her. She needs a day at the spa and a day of sleep.

Apparently we need a lesson on the word "betrayal"

Betrayal is not at the heart of this next bit of news, no matter what is said.

Apparently NY NOW is pissed at Ted Kennedy (and others join the bandwagon) for endorsing Obama. The kicker--they think it's a "betrayal" to feminists. Um...yeah.

Once again, let me state this for you in no uncertain terms: supporting a man over a woman is not being anti-feminist. Requiring a woman or a man to give support to a woman candidate because she is a woman is anti-feminist.

Now that we've cleared that up, let's talk about this. How is this a betrayal? Here's the whole statement, with my commentary in bold:

“Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. The words "ultimate betrayal" are fighting words, I'd make damn sure that you mean it. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Not me, I was actually excited about it. And this sentence is very telling--it wasn't his endorsement of Obama, it was his endorsement of ANYONE OTHER THAN HILLARY--"Hillary Clinton's opponent"--the way that is worded just speaks volumes about the lack of thought put into this. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few. And your point? Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings. I don't get what this means. I mean, I get it, but it doesn't really apply here.

“And now the greatest betrayal! Step aside! We are repaid with his abandonment! Um...it's not like he supported some anti-choice conservative idiot. He just chose a different Democrat. He’s picked the new guy over us. WHAT?!?!?! I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY ACTUALLY SAID THIS. He’s joined the list of progressive white men (I love that the fact that he's white plays into this because he supported a black man) who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). Did he say that? Did he actually say that? No, of course not. They're just making that up. Since when did making a decision between candidates turn into a pissing contest? ‘They’ are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). They are Alternet Really?, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future or whatever. First of all, Kucinich lovers are pretty much as liberal as it gets, so they'd really get some benefits for all, including women, that would be helpful. And still, I don't get how an endorsement means that either Kennedy or Obama have abandoned women's rights or issues of importance to women...let's read on.

“This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation - to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who ‘know what’s best for us.’” So what you're saying is that electing someone with a vagina is, at all costs, the ultimate goal as opposed to electing the right person for the job? Wow. I haven't heard such sexist things in awhile.

I am just flabbergasted by this. It's amazing to me that some feminists just don't get it. Just simply don't get it. The thing is that being a feminist means supporting women but not making them any more important than men--it means picking a candidate for their qualities as a person and as a politician, not for their sexual organs, and it means finding someone who supports issues that are of concern to everyone because, as we know, women's issues are everybody's issues.

What a pile of pointless crap. Will it be thrilling when a woman is finally president? Yes. Is it long overdue? Yes. Does that mean we have to drop everything and vote for the first viable woman candidate because she is a woman? Absolutely not.

Cut the games, NY NOW.

And nobody wins

Well, not quite, but had more Dems voted Democrat in yesterday's primary in Michigan, Hillary would have been in even more of a hurt than she is now.

As it turns out, Hillary, though she "won" the "primary," only managed to get 55% of the Democratic ballots. Almost 40% of the people casting Democratic ballots voted for nobody. NOBODY. That means almost half the people who felt compelled to vote Democratically thought Hillary was a waste of their time. Vewy intewesting....

Notably,

Had Michigan voters been allowed to choose between all the serious contenders for the Democratic nod, CNN's exit poll found, Obama would have won the African-American vote by a 73-22 margin over Clinton.

In other news, Mitt "From the Mitten" Romney won the Republican primary here. I just can't see that momentum doing anything for him anywhere else, though. Sorry, Mitt. (What a dumb name, anyhow.)

And how did I vote you ask? I could give you the DadGrace/MomGrace standard answer of not telling you because, after all, it is a secret ballot. But I'll spoil it for you: I voted in the Republican Primary for Rudy Guiliani. What? Heresy! Yes, it's true--and I felt dirty the entire way. But the only hope I had of upsetting the balance in the force that is the Republican party was not to vote Democratically. Sad, but true. Thus, I cast a vote for someone who I don't despise, but who also doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell. And yet, it didn't do anything anyhow--what I thought would happen, did happen.

Eh, what can you do?

I'd Like To Answer Your Question With A Question: Are you serious?

This Article, by one Gloria Steinem, angers me because it seems to be based on the notion that because I'm a woman and I believe in feminism and equality amongst men and women that I must support, vote for, and blindly follow all women candidates..especially for president.

Simply put: I'm going to have to sort of disagree with you on this one.

Gloria (if I may call you that), you seem to question women who support Obama's medioric rise to fame with the allegation that maybe they should see the disadvantage of being a woman. In fact, I haven't heard such a misappropriation of the fundamentals of feminism in awhile. Women bloggers are here--and just like their male counterparts--they have genuine issues with Hillary Clinton.

You state "But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex." I can see where you're coming from on this one but, again, respectfully disagree. I don't think his unification efforts are based on race--I think they are based on charisma and a new message--something not left over from the wars of the 90s--that's fresh. He's unifying by talking of "we" not "me" and that's something entirely foreign for Hillary et al.

You state "What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations." I'm not sure what the gender card is, first of all, because just like the so-called race card, it doesn't work.

You state "What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo." Well, Gloria, what worries me is that people are so blinded by Hillary's gender that they can't see the fact that she's nothing more than the recycled politics of the 90s that, while good at the time, are not going to bring us out of the rut were in today. Her polices aren't that progressive--and her stance is often regressive. Universal healthcare fails? So now the plan is to hand it over to insurance companies. The War in Iraq is awful? The rule of law is lost? Let's vote for the Patriot Act renewal without working towards a solution to some of the problems (something Obama did as a senator).

You state, "What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age." First of all, I doubt most women young or old are denying the sexism that is pervasive in the world today. (Although in response to the "iron my shirt" comment Hillary was left to address the "remnants" of sexism--as if it weren't alive and well. talk about lack of confrontation indeed.) More importantly though, the fact that Iowa's young women did not cast a vote for Hillary does not mean that they aren't engaged in politics. It means they, like men, must make a choice about who they believe is best for the job based on characteristics other than sex. And heavens forbid everyone do that!

What worries me, Gloria, is that people like you are still dealing in antiquated notions of feminism and perpetuating the stereotype that being a feminist equals unbiased and unquestioned support for women politicians.

The view your perpetuating is this: Let's see if we can find fault with a black man rising to success over a white woman because we can't compare prejudices (though for me, as a white woman, I'd say the Black race has had a bit more to overcome). In trying to get us to (1) recognize the struggle of women candidates and (2) not compare wounds you do just that--you insult the struggle of women candidates as something that has to have a comparison and you compare wounds to the point of divisiveness.

Here's an idea: young women aren't voting for Hillary in Iowa as much as older women because they don't want to. And that's a radical freaking idea in and of itself. More importantly, your failure to see that and your insistence on attributing it to some sexist regime is, in and of itself, divisive. Young women are falling away from feminism because of this. First wave, Second wave, Third wave--it's all water under the bridge if women AND men aren't free to make choices.

Now excuse me while I take my shirts to the dry cleaners because I can't iron worth a damn.

(EDIT: Rox Populi--sorry for early edits of this blog attributing the comments to you)