Racism v. Sexism

Sometimes someone says something that perfectly reflects your own feelings and beliefs. This is one of those times when we could not have said it better ourselves:

Race to the Bottom -- as published in The Nation Magazine, May 1, 2008

By Betsy Reed

"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.

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." "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. 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 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. 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.

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; 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.

"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."

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 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?" 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?" 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, 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. 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. 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."

Clinton and Obama on Equal Marriage Rights

Earlier in the primary season we wrote an article about the various candidates' position on marriage rights.

At the time, there were six candidates. Now (with the exception of Mike Gravel, who is now running as a Libertarian and is still 100% supportive of full and equal marriage rights for LGBTQ people) there are three.

First, straight (no pun intended) talkin' McCain is all over the map but he makes it absolutely clear that during his presidency he will never sign a bill granting marriage rights, nor will he allow LGBTQ couples to have access to the thousands of federal rights and benefits that marriage would provide:

• On July 14, 2004, as the Presidential election was heating up and the Repugnicans were using the marriage issue to get votes, McCain said this: "The constitutional amendment we're debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans" and he voted against it.

• In 2005, when Republicans in Arizona decided to amend their state's constitution to ban equal marriage rights, McCain said he "supports an initiative that would change Arizona's Constitution to ban gay marriages and deny government benefits to unmarried couples."

• In March of 2006, as he was gearing up for his own run for the presidency, McCain told the now deceased Reverend Jerry Falwell that he would support a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman if a federal court were to strike down state constitutional bans on gay marriage.

Recently, both Clinton and Obama have restated their positions on the issue:

At an LGBTQ fundraiser in NYC last month, Obama told a group of about 125 gay men and lesbians that he did not think it was “politically feasible” to secure marriage rights for same-sex couples in the country at this point. However, Obama did say that although he understands that LGBTQ people want full marriage rights, he favors civil unions for now but will leave open the possibility that his position might evolve in the future.

And just a few days ago, Clinton made clear her position. Like Obama, Clinton does not support full marriage rights. And she believes specific marriage laws should be left up to individual states to decide upon. However, Clinton promised that if she is elected, she will "defend gay rights and eliminate disparities for same-sex couples in federal law, including immigration and tax policy.

We think it is a clear that whether or not Clinton or Obama is elected president in 2008, in addition to fighting for a more equitable health care system, better education policies, more stringent EPA standards, etc., both of them will also be open to granting federal rights and benefits to LGBTQ couples.

The bottom line?

Vote for the Democrats in November!

The Bottom Line

Whoever gets elected as President in November, each candidate must first win their respective party's nomination.

John McCain has made it over this hurdle and is now wandering the globe making gaff after gaff with virtually no opposition.

And although Clinton and Obama must first wrestle the nomination from the other, both would be well served to spend the next few weeks or months talking about themselves, their positions and policies as they also highlight the problems with McCain.

After all, the whole point of an election is supposed to be about giving voters time and information that informs us about each candidate so that we can make the best decision.

So, shut up already about what is wrong with the other Democrat!

Tell us what you will do about the economy, the war(s), health care, the environment, our infrastructure, Social Security, Medicare, education, LGBTQ equality, and on and on and on...

The bottom line is this -- we need a Democrat elected as President in November.

Period.

How is Hillary like George W?

Like most Americans -- especially progressives -- after 8 years of Bush II following 8 years of Clinton-esque triangulation, preceded by 12 years of Reagan and Bush I, we are desperate for real change in Washington.

That is why we are supporting Obama for president.

We are really impressed with the way he has been conducting himself in this unfortunately divisive primary campaign.

As rumors abound -- on the Internet and in the media -- that:

• Obama is a Muslim;
• he does crack and gives blow jobs in the back of limos;
• he is a good friend of domestic terrorists and Louis Farrakhan;
• he is anti-Semetic;
• he's the antichrist;
• and -- even worse -- that he only got where he is because he is lucky enough to have been born a Black man!
  

Throughout it all, Obama has remained above the fray -- refusing to get in the gutter with Clinton. And there is a wealth of anti-Hillary fodder to tap into if he wanted to do so. We are impressed that he has resisted gutter politics as he is also being besmirched with much mudslinging.

Hillary's dirty campaigning style is enough to make Karl Rove proud.

And just as she is running a Rove-Bush style campaign, we see evidence that a Hillary Clinton presidency may very well be Bush-like as well.

How do we know what kind of president that Hillary Clinton would make? We don't. No one can read the future. The best we can do is try to analogize what might happen based on the information we have now.

For example:

1. Bush waged a war without a long-term plan because he believed it would be a cake-walk. Hillary ran a campaign without a long-term plan believing she would be the front runner throughout and that she would be the only Democrat standing after Super Tuesday -- in other words -- winning the Democratic nomination would be a cake-walk.

2. Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" and 5 years later we are still at war. Clinton declared herself the winner and offered the VP spot to Obama -- even though she is losing the race to him. Obama has won more states, has more pledged delegates and more popular votes. It is now mathematically impossible for Hillary to beat Barack yet she still claims to be the front runner.

3. Bush 's economic strategy has broken the American bank. The economy is in the toilet and we are awash in debt. Clinton's campaign ran out of money in mid-February forcing her to loan herself 5 million dollars. Barack on the other hand has spent his campaign money wisely. He has broken all fund raising records and has used the money to get out his uplifting message of change and hope.

4. Bush surround himself with incompetent and blindly loyal (for a little while) cronies who have little or no experience and who are loathe to tell their boss and the American people the truth. Clinton hired old and loyal friends who had little experience running a campaign and who spent her money as though the campaign would be over on Super Tuesday. Again, for the most part, Obama's staff has been respectful -- and when they are not -- he wastes no time to remove them from the campaign.

5. When members of his cabinet and staff -- or even one of his most ardent supporters (remember Ken Ley and Jack Abramoff?) have f'd up, Bush quickly distances himself -- claiming he barely knew them or that their errors were not his fault. Just as Clinton did when Geraldine Ferraro, Bill Clinton, PA Governor Ed Rendell and other supporters have played the race card -- overtly or subtly -- against Obama. So far, no one in Obama's camp has resorted to making mysogenistic attacks against Hillary. If you disagree with this point (and we are not referring to the media) please let us know and we will happily make a correction.

6. The best word to describe this Bush administration might be "secretive." Second only to Bush in surrounding themselves in secrecy are the Clinton's. How can we hope for change if we are kept in the dark about how policies are being made and for whom?

7. When it seemed as though he couldn't win the majority of popular and/or electoral votes in 2000, Bush simply stole the election to become President anyway. It seems Hillary is willing to do the same if she does not receive the majority of votes. She is pushing to have delegates seated in Michigan and Florida even though she previously agreed that those primaries would not count. She is also threatening to steal the nomination by getting the super delegates to nominate her even if she does not win the popular vote. We fear she will not give up her pursuit of the White House even if she eventually loses the Democratic nomination. Hillary and Bill want to win so much that it seems they prefer that McCain win so that Hill will have another shot at it in 4 years.

This begs the question -- if Hillary and Bill want to win so bad that they would stoop to destroying the Democratic Party and presumably maintain an illegal and unethical war that sends thousands more to needless deaths, why even have an election in the first place?

Whats all the campaigning about if Hillary is just going to screw it up anyway?

We should just let her have it if she wants it so bad that she feels the need to snuff out hope as though it were some annoying bug.

Obama has waged a brilliant campaign and against all odds -- against the Clinton machine and the un-level playing field -- he has shown himself to be a strong and competent leader.

We predict here and now that if Hillary loses the Democratic nomination, she and Bill will take all their marbles and -- rather than go home -- she'll run as an Independent thus ensuring a win for McCain in November.

Ugh. Hope we are wrong!

Good News: Bill Clinton favors Hope over Fear

In 2004, Bill Clinton campaigned for John Kerry who was running against the Republican fear-mongering machine. Here is what Bill had to say about fear:



Here is a new ad put out by the Hillary Clinton campaign:



Here is Obama's response:



From a New York Times article by Bob Herbert:

"The Republicans, who had nothing going for them in this election, who had a weak field of candidates and were on the wrong side of virtually every major issue, are beginning to feel a bit like Lazarus. Democratic voters were courageous enough to put two candidates at the head of their line of potential nominees who have built-in political disadvantages. Party unity and a strong message are essential to overcoming those disadvantages. The longer the Clinton-Obama fight goes on, and the more bitter it gets, the better it is for the G.O.P.

A further complication for the Democrats is the possibility that the results in Texas — which has a ridiculously complex primary-caucus setup — will be unclear. If Senator Clinton wins Ohio and there’s a battle royal in Texas (both sides are prepared for a legal fight), the McCain forces will pop the corks on another round of Champagne.

Democratic voters are tremendously excited about this presidential election. In addition to the obvious concerns about war and the economy, voters in both the Clinton and Obama camps believe that some of the fundamental values of the United States are at risk. They are worried, for example, about the undermining of governmental checks and balances, the erosion of civil liberties and the makeup of the Supreme Court.

Tuesday’s elections may decide the nominee. But if they don’t, the wisest heads in the party will be faced with the awesome task of preventing a train wreck that would ruin what was supposed to have been a banner year."

"Get Us Out of Here!"

The heading of this post is lifted from the last line of an article by Barbara Ehrenreich published in today's Huffington Post.

In the article, entitled "Unstoppable Obama", Ehrenreich attempts to analyze and explain the difficulty faced by Senator Clinton as she tries to formulate a coherent and positive reason to elect her over Barack Obama:

"Consider our present situation. Thanks to Iraq and water-boarding, Abu Ghraib and the "rendering" of terror suspects, we've achieved the moral status of a pariah nation. The seas are rising. The dollar is sinking. A growing proportion of Americans have no access to health care; an estimated 18,000 die every year for lack of health insurance. Now, as the economy staggers into recession, the financial analysts are wondering only whether the rest of the world is sufficiently "de-coupled" from the US economy to survive our demise.

Clinton can put forth all the policy proposals she likes - and many of them are admirable ones - but anyone can see that she's of the same generation and even one of the same families that got us into this checkmate situation in the first place. True, some people miss Bill, although the nostalgia was severely undercut by his anti-Obama rhetoric in South Carolina, or maybe they just miss the internet bubble he happened to preside over. But even more people find dynastic successions distasteful, especially when it's a dynasty that produced so little by way of concrete improvements in our lives. Whatever she does, the semiotics of her campaign boils down to two words - "same old."

We believe that Obama's promise of change has become a life-boat for many of us who are just so sick and tired of the same-old, same-old that we are desperately seeking a way out of the fiscal, environmental and political miasma that envelops America today.

As realists we understand that no one person can solve the overwhelming issues that the World faces. Obama is no super-man. He is not the ultimate fixer.

Positive change will only happen when a majority of Americans -- acting together and for a common purpose -- choose to take positive action that will result in positive change.

And America is in dire need of serious change -- not the timid or partisan incremental kind of change that happens in a Congress where every vote is filtered through a "what's in it for me?" lens.

In order to achieve a monumental kind of change, a President must have a mandate from the American people. And we do not mean the phony mandate claimed by Bush after squeezing out a microscopic victory in the 2004 election, but rather the kind of mandate handed to FDR during the Great Depression.

Like FDR, Obama has captured the imagination of the American people and his message inspires us to believe that something good can happen again.

Really, we have never seen anything like it in our 50+ years of living.

We understand now that change can happen only when the collective "we" -- not just Obama -- decide that we can and we must do something. And once a majority of citizens decide we want things to change in Washington, all of those stale and bickering politicians -- Democrats and Republicans -- will need to get on board or get out of the way .

Hillary and Bill have adopted a new "words are cheap" message to try to thwart Barack. But his message is more than words. Obama's call for "change" provides us with that longed for "courage of conviction" which has been so lacking in the Democratic Party since the mid-1990's.

It seems that the the Democratic Party lost their majority and their spine as soon as Newt Gingrich made his "Contract with America." And with no opposition party to counter the Republican machine, the country has suffered greatly.

Yesterday, the Democrats in the House of Representatives stood up to Bush for the first time ever when they refused to adopt the Senate version of the FISA bill that would extend the President's warrantless spying power and grant immunity to the telecommunication companies.

Even in the face of the usual (and empty) threats from the President and his Republican minions, Nancy Pelosi found strength and courage. Why now? Where did her fearlessness come from?

We do not know if the Dems will stay strong and fierce or if they will ultimately cave in to Bush's demands (as usual).

BUT, whatever happens, we believe the Democrats are feeling empowered -- in part -- by the resounding echoes of change that is ringing in their ears.

For even veteran politicos must know that there is a great movement afoot and that it would be political suicide to stand in its way.

"Change" has become more than a mere mantra. It is no longer just a buzz word. It is not a Madison Avenue slogan -- it has snowballed into an unstoppable movement. And that movement has a leader -- Barack Obama.

A great leader understands that he or she needs to inspire others to join in the revolution. And for years we have bemoaned the lack of true leadership in our government.

Well, now we have a leader who has reminded us that we have always had within ourselves the the power to make real and positive change.

You and I ARE the change we have been waiting for!

2 Words for Feminists Supporting Hillary Because She's a Woman: Condoleeza Rice

Who could have imagined – after 8 years of the Bush Crime Family – that in 2008 we would be forced to choose between the first viable African American man and a woman to represent the Democratic Party as a candidate for the office of the President of the United States!

That these candidates stand before us – and against one another at the same moment, is both breathtakingly sweet and extremely frustrating. If either of them were up against the usual white man, we’d know exactly what to do.

But as fate would have it, we must make a choice and so we have chosen to support Barack Obama.

Our choice was not made lightly. Nor is it based upon our allegiance or betrayal to our “gender.” We are not secretly suffering from internalized misogyny.

We are intelligent and thoughtful, 50+ year old lesbian feminists who choose Obama over Clinton because we believe he is the best candidate for America right now.

We know this choice sets us apart from our other lesbian feminist friends who have already told us why they support Hillary. One of our dearest friends reasons that as women, we ought to support the woman candidate and let the Blacks support the African American candidate. Period.

Another lesbian feminist friend sent an email where she reasoned:

“She [Hillary] is the first woman to be a viable candidate for the presidency since Eleanor Roosevelt, and for the same reason: Their husbands were presidents. No, I’m not happy about that, but the bottom line remains: She has a shot at it, and I don’t believe, in my lifetime, I will see another woman candidate who has that shot.”

To which another lesbian feminist friend responded “I couldn't agree more!”

So, we want to explain to all of you – especially our lesbian feminist friends – our rationale for supporting Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton.

• First, as feminists, we do not take our civic duty to choose a President lightly. A candidate’s gender is but one factor we consider. More important than gender is whether or not a candidate shares our feminist world view. Does he or she work for peace? Do they place the rights of people over profits and power? And just because a Condi Rice is a woman, we wouldn't vote for her -- even if she were only running for dog catcher.

• Second, as feminists, we believe that the patriarchal system not only oppresses women but also minorities – including gay men, lesbians, bi-sexual, transgendered and transsexual persons. Thus, if a minority person is elected President of the United States, many of the boundaries and obstacles to power created by patriarchy will crumble, thereby opening the floodgates of opportunity for women and minorities to run for the highest political office -- in the near future and beyond.

• Third, our primary criticism of Hillary Clinton has to do with her stance on the Iraq war. Rather than questioning the wisdom of using military force in Iraq, Clinton went along with the war-mongers without ever challenging them. Hillary’s vote for the Iraq war resolution and her convoluted explanation for why she did so, may foretell how, as President, she would continue to prop up a male-dominated, patriarchal mindset rather than try to transform it.

Both Clinton and Obama now claim the war is wrong and say they will end it. But Obama was against it from the beginning – even when it was not “politally wise” to say so out loud. On the other hand, Hillary (who has yet to apologize for her vote or say her vote was a mistake in the first place) appears to have decided it is politically advantageous to stay firm in decision to give Bush the authorization to go to war rather than appear to be a Kerry-esque flip-flopper. It is this political strategizing in the face of such a horrendous and deadly error that gives rise to our decision.

• Fourth, we agree that Hillary has/had a right to ride Bill’s coat-tails to power. It is one of the few ways women have of getting there. But now that she is a Senator and a viable candidate for President, we are discouraged to see her continue to rely on her connection to Bill rather than claiming her own power.

This “Billary Partnership” is not empowering to the rest of us who do not have a man to latch on to. Bill and Hillary are indeed a force to reckon with. They are skilled partisans who know how to play the political game and win it. But we were so very discouraged when they employed obscene tactics from the Rovian playbook to race-bait and marginalize another Democrat.

Bill used his time as President to re-create the progressive Democratic Party into something that resembles Republican-lite. Free trade, welfare reform, DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell all happened under Clinton. Since leaving office, Bill has spent the last 8 years cozying up to Bush and his family. Why should we believe that all of this will disappear when and if Hillary wins the White House?

Unfortunately, in this campaign, we have seen and been reminded that the Clinton team will do whatever it takes to win -- not for the good of the country – not even for the good of the Democratic party – but merely for the good of the Clintons.

• Fifth, we are not for Barack because we are against Hillary. We are seriously impressed with Obama’s promise to change the nature of politics and inspire hope -- even in the most cynical among us. Unlike Clinton, we believe Obama has the temperament and ability to unite the warring political factions that stall real progress.
  

Obama is a poignant leader for change. He stands for something other than “more-of-the-same.” His soaring rhetorical skills do more than just send chills up the spine. He energizes and unites disparate groups of people. Folks who otherwise would have stayed out of the process are voting for and donating to Obama in record numbers. Republicans, Independents and Democrats are ecstatic by the prospect of something other than politics-as-usual. People want change and the time is ripe for someone who can deliver it.

Unfortunately for Clinton, relying on her stint as First Lady (in Arkansas and Washington), makes her the candidate with both the baggage and the advantage of her “35 years of experience.

Other than the war, on most issues and policies, there is not much difference between Obama and Clinton. What is different is their leadership style. Rather than telling people how its gonna be, Obama asks us to get involved in the process of making change happen.

Whether we like it or not, Hillary is the prime target of rabid right-wing Republicans who love nothing more than to bash both of the Clintons. If she is our candidate, they and lots of other Hillary-haters will come out, en masse, to vote against her on election-day.

And many of those newly energized-by-Obama folks may feel so defeated by the partisan bickering, they will simply stay home.

Don’t take our word for it -- if you want to understand the depth of Hillary hating in America, just spend a few hours each week listening to Washington Journal, a call-in show that airs each morning on C-Span.

• And our last and most important reason for supporting Obama is the war in Iraq. He doesn’t just want to end the war, he wants to “end the mindset that got us into war in the first place.”

For us, this issue trumps all of the others. Barack Obama is the only Presidential candidate from either side that even suggested that a mindset for war is – in and of itself -- a problem.

Can you “imagine all the people, living life in peace?” Like us, Barack Obama is a dreamer. He dreams of peace and unity and if that isn’t a feminist position, we do not know what is.

We believe Obama has the ability to help America rise above partisanship politics that muddles our thinking. He alone can and is inspiring a new generation to engage in this transformation with him.

We want to give him the opportunity to make his – and our – dream come true.

Obama, Clinton and the War

This article by Robert Scheer articulates perfectly why we -- progressive, lesbian feminists -- support Barack Obama and not Hillary Clinton for President:

"It should mean a great deal to progressives that in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination Sen. Ted Kennedy favors Sen. Barack Obama over two other colleagues he has worked with in the Senate. No one in the history of that institution has been a more consistent and effective fighter than Kennedy for an enlightened agenda, be it civil rights and liberty, gender equality, labor and immigrant justice, environmental protection, educational opportunity or opposing military adventures.

Kennedy was a rare sane voice among the Democrats in strongly opposing the Iraq war, and it is no small tribute when he states: "We know the record of Barack Obama. There is the courage he showed when so many others were silent or simply went along. From the beginning, he opposed the war in Iraq. And let no one deny that truth."

But that is precisely the truth that Sen. Hillary Clinton has shamelessly sought to obscure. Her supporters have accepted Clinton's refusal to repudiate her vote to authorize the war, an ignominious moment she shares with other Democrats, including presidential candidate John Edwards, who at least has made a point of regretting it.

It was a vote that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, 3,940 U.S. service members -- five more on Monday -- and a debt in the trillions of dollars that will prevent the funding of needed domestic programs that Clinton claims to support. And it doesn't end with Iraq. Clinton has been equally hawkish toward Iran and, in a Margaret Thatcher-like moment, even attacked Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden.

Clinton's apologists include Gloria Steinem and too many other feminists, who should know better than to betray the women's movement's commitment to peace in favor of simplistic gender politics. It is disturbing, not because they conclude that Clinton is the best candidate, but because they refuse to challenge their candidate to be better.

Does it not matter that Clinton's key foreign policy advisers are drawn heavily from the ranks of the neoliberals, who cheered as loudly for President Bush's war as did the neoconservatives? Are they not concerned that Richard Holbrooke, who exploited his experience and access to secret information during the Clinton presidency to back Bush's Iraq invasion, is a likely contender for secretary of state should she win?

Sandy Berger, a key Clinton adviser, played a major role in convincing Kennedy's congressman son, Patrick, to vote for the war authorization against what the younger Kennedy said was the advice of his father and his own better instincts. According to a Knight Ridder report at the time, "Patrick Kennedy said the most persuasive arguments for attacking Iraq came from members of the Clinton White House," including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who is often described as the foreign policy expert closest to Hillary. Patrick J. Kennedy refuses to be burned twice and now supports Obama.

Yes, if Hillary Clinton is the candidate, she probably will be better than the Republican alternative and, as Ted Kennedy made clear, deserving of our support. But isn't it troubling that she can't hold a candle to Sen. John McCain when it comes to fighting Pentagon waste or pushing for campaign-finance reform to curtail the power of lobbyists?

Isn't it disturbing that Sen. Clinton has received more money than any other candidate of either party from the big defense contractors, according to a report on the Huffington Post? Why have the war profiteers given her twice the campaign contributions that they sent to McCain, if not for the expectation that she is on their side of the taxpayer rip-off that has seen the military budget rise to an all-time high? It's for the same reason that the bankers, Wall Street traders and other swindlers who produced our economic meltdown fund Clinton.

Hillary Clinton has made "experience" key to her claim to the presidency and tells us she will do the right thing from "day one." The reality is that her extra four years in the U.S. Senate hardly provides better experience than Obama's eight years in the Illinois state Senate battling for progress with the nation's most hard-boiled politicians. And if she lays claim to her husband's presidency, then she must also take responsibility for caving in to big media with the Telecommunications Act, selling out to the banks with the Financial Services Modernization Act, and killing the federal welfare program -- a political gambit that deeply wounded millions of women and children. Her political career began with the Senate and she hit the ground running, but, as her craven support for Bush after 9/11 shows, it was in the wrong direction."

LGBTQ Families: On the Outside Looking In

A few days ago we asked which candidate for president is most likely to support you and your family? We've been thinking alot about this question over the last year or so and perhaps you have too.

As we weigh the various positions of each Presidential Candidate, we always try to determine which of them is more likely to govern in a way that best reflects our philosophy about the world -- about what is right and what is true.

Prognosticators have already weighed in on how the candidates might deal with issues like the war, the economy, health care, the environment and other pressing matters of the day. You can compare the candidates here and here.

Regarding LGBTQ rights, we can pretty much rule out all of the Repugnicans -- most of whom are still catering to the wing-nut fundies.

Unfortunately, other than making vague statements about being generally supportive of LGBTQ rights, none of the Democratic Candidates provide detailed descriptions about how that will work to make like better for our families. And none of the three "front runners" seem to support the one issue that matters most to our family – marriage equality.

It isn’t that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not important to us. They are. Yet regardless of which candidate gets elected, we are concerned that the multi-national military industrial complex (which permeates our government) will not give up an inch of their war-mongering without making a huge stinky smoke screen of a propaganda fiasco that will leave us all scratching our heads in wonder and hiding under our beds in fear.

We can only hope that whoever takes over the controls in January 2009 is realistic (or idealistic) enough to recognize the game and try to dismantle it without getting themselves assassinated in the process.

As for health care -- since we have no health care coverage for ourselves, we are deeply concerned about it. We hope a Democratic President will start to clear the way for universal health care – but we also know that goal requires a steep climb against the odds as the champion of that cause will be inundated with Swift-Boat-like lies and accusations of bringing the dreaded ‘socialism’ to America.

Environmental issues, climate change, a crashing economy and renewable energy matter so much to us that 3 years ago we moved to rural West Virginia where we have been building a house (on 6 acres) with our own hands using recycled materials. The house has 1 foot thick walls and an indoor greenhouse. We will also have an outdoor greenhouse, a huge organic garden as well as chickens (for eggs) and goats (for milk, cheese and as a free lawn mower!).

With little grandchildren constantly exposed to lead-laden toys and about ready to begin public school we care deeply about imports, consumer safety and about education.

But, despite our concern for these and other pressing issues, we still feel that marriage equality is right up there with all of them.

Why?

Because without the respect and dignity that eventually follows governmental sanction of our relationships -- no matter what the next president is able to accomplish in many of the areas we listed above LGBTQ families will still be outside looking in. We will continue to live in a country that thinks we are not deserving of full equality. No matter how much better the economy, the environment, education and health care, our partners and our children will not be able to fully participate. We will still have the choice of seconds or nothing.

And at a time in history that is espousing change as its central theme – we think that it is fair to demand the brass ring for LGBTQ people.

If our next president is able to pull off something as wonderful as universal health care and yet is willing to accept that some of its citizens remain less equal than others, the dream of a changed and more progressive America will remain just that – a dream.

Vote Like It’s 1968

When he was running for President, Bobby Kennedy would often end his stump speech by proclaiming "Some men see things as they are and ask, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'"

Kennedy’s optimistic message – lost for decades -- has recently been excavated from the ruins of Watergate, Monica-gate, September 11, 2001 and the long desert that is the Bush Administration.

“Hope” and “change” are the main themes percolating to the top of the 2008 presidential election. This upbeat message is not only resonating with Democrats, but also with Independents, Libertarians and Republicans.

It seems most of us are finally fed up with politics-as-usual: fear mongering, war and partisan bickering.

Why is it that an optimistic message is connecting with a majority of Americans even as we face the cold reality of higher prices for groceries and gasoline, a looming recession, out-of-control national debt, a falling dollar, the threat of a job loss, mortgage foreclosure, bankruptcy, and (despite the past seven years of promises that policies enacted by the Bush Administration would keep us safe even as it lessened our individual freedoms and liberties) the real possibility of a nuclear attack on American soil?

Do we owe a debt of gratitude to Steven Colbert, who first exposed the naked Emperor behind the curtain at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2006? That was the day that it all started – making way for others like Jon Stewart, Keith Olberman, Bill Moyers and Rachel Maddow to really start to challenge Bush and the Republicans.

Could this populist awakening be a result of more access to progressive views on the Internet?

Whatever the reason for the trend, we are excited to see that Americans are not so easily entranced by the constant barrage of subliminal and not-so-subliminal messages that we should ignore reality and consume more, fear more, hate more, and care about each other less.

People today seem more willing to question the “conventional wisdom” of pundits and pols. Do we dare dream that those are the tender shoots of a new populist movement we see sprouting up from the frozen tundra of cynicism?

If so, its really got those entrenched party partisans and talking heads so frightened they are frantically stomping their feet and spraying weed killer on all that hope and optimism lest it take hold and strangle out the power and control over our election process that they’ve enjoyed for decades.

Although we do hope the momentum will continue to swell throughout the year -- eventually cleansing America of political pessimism -- we are not so naïve as to believe the election will not be rigged.

Nonetheless, we think it is possible that young people, first time voters, independents and progressives will flock to the Democratic candidate in such high numbers that it will be impossible to totally control and fix each and every ballot.

We believe that this is precisely why the Democrats won in 2006 despite Karl Rove’s assertions that he had access to “the” numbers that showed Republicans would maintain a majority.

To successfully fix an election, the party-poopers rely on one or more of the following:

• A brainwashed electorate;
• Party bosses willing to do whatever it takes to get their candidate elected;
• Redrawing district lines to favor one party over another;
• Party loyalists who are willing to cheat;
• Easy-to hack voting machines with no paper trail;
• Voter suppression;
• Few in number but large in cash contributors having more sway than voters;
• Influential personalities willing to spin party messages and repeat talking points;
• An ignorant, lazy electorate unable or unwilling to find the truth;
• Voter apathy and/or a majority of eligible voters choosing not to vote.
  

When the primaries are over and the candidates are chosen – no matter which one is the Democrat or the Republican – those with the most to lose will line up behind the Republican (who is more likely to maintain the corporatist status quo) to point both barrels at the Democrat (who may be more likely this time to fight for the little guy).

What we can do – all of us – during that inevitable onslaught, is to avoid the same-old trap of letting the opposition frame the terms of the debate.

This time we must not let the mudslingers hide as we debate the accuracy of their swift-boating lies.

We need to expose the source of the misinformation and show that it originates from those with the most to lose – big money interests who've been getting rich and fat off our ignorance and despair.

When the Rush Limbaugh’s, Dan Bartlett’s and Karl Rove’s (or any right-wing pundit or supporter) starts spewing the old the left/right, liberal/conservative, Republican/Democrat paradigm, let’s avoid getting defensive about our candidate’s beliefs and positions.

Instead, we'll remind one another that these are the same loud-mouthed minions who carry water for big oil, big pharma and the military industrial complex.

If we can do this, then the Democratic candidate -- and the American people -- will win.

Barack Obama Embraces IN-Tolerants

This past weekend, Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, campaigned in South Carolina -- on what was billed as his "Embrace the Change" gospel tour that included gospel singer and renowned homophobe, Donnie McClurkin.

Despite being informed about McClurkin's anti-gay rhetoric prior to his tour, Obama apparently weighed the pros and cons and determined that he needs the support of the bigots to offset Clinton's ever rising poll numbers.

In a recent Advocate article, Obama tried to justify his decision to campaign with McClurkin by first stating that he was only recently made aware of the singers homophobic sentiments and second, by claiming that he is not responsible for the comments and expressions of every celebrity who endorses him.

True 'nuff.

However, there are ways to get support for your cause without depending on those whose personal demons keep their minds and closets shut tight.

Many Christian groups and other organizations that promote Civil Rights for Black Americans and other People of Color also support rights for LGBTQ people.

But one poll shows that Obama's cowardly choice to stand on a stage with McClurkin may be strategically wise:

"...new data show that in the key Electoral College states the endorsement of gay rights groups hurts a candidate much more than it helps.

Quinnipiac University polls of voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- the big three Electoral College swing states -- found voters by large margins more likely to see the endorsement of a gay rights group as a reason to vote against, rather than for, a candidate."

Still, it would be nice to see a candidate risk it all to stand up for what he or she believes is right. Maybe -- just maybe -- that person would be rewarded for their honesty.

Or NOT.

Back to the Future: President Giuliani

I had a sudden realization last night: Rudy Giuliani will be the next President.

Why? Because he, like Bush, is a thug.

Rudy is someone the Repugnican pit-bulls can really sink their teeth into:

• He is great at doublespeak, ignoring his own shortcomings and turning negatives into positives.

• He understands the power of simple, fear provoking sound-bites.

• He will win over the "values voters" by scaring them to death.

• He is a ruthless bully who is not afraid to lie to get what he wants -- power and money.

It seems the fix is in and so I predict Rudy will be the Republican and Hillary the Democratic candidate.

A look into my crystal ball reveals this likely scenario:

• The cabal in charge will "discover and foil a te