Bursting the Obama bubble

Landlord of the Orange Sippy Cup™ projected that Obama will win the nomination and it's only a matter of time before Hillary's supporters must get used to the idea. Bah! Another serving of fetid tripe. Chris Bowers agreed titling his post, Finding Closure, in which he speculated (with emphasis):

It may not be popular to say this, but not only does it seem likely that Clinton will not drop out before June 3rd, but it also doesn't seem like a good idea for her to do so. Achieving the sort of closure necessary for a healed, unified party for the general election will require Clinton supporters feeling as though they were allowed to fight until there were no more realistic options remaining. I firmly believe that healing and unifying the party will be quicker and easier if the campaign comes to a slow, gradual conclusion rather than a quick knockout on either April 22nd or May 6th, or a massive superdelegate swing sometime later in May. To use an analogy, the pain will be less with a gradual withdrawal via the patch as Obama slowly builds on his advantage, then if we attempt to abruptly cold turkey on an unannounced date. In fact, it strikes me as quite possible that the party will be almost instantly unified following a mid-June Clinton withdrawal if events between now and then slowly, rather than rapidly, build the case that Clinton cannot win the nomination. In order to achieve the closure necessary for unity, Clinton supporters need to become convinced that there is no way she can win the nomination, and that will not happen all at once. Build slowly over time, and by mid-June we will be ready to unify behind Obama and beat McCain in the general election.

Let me pause for a good ol' fashioned bwahahahahaha! No personal offense intended to the Obama blogger but the idea of Barry's inevitability and letting us Hillary supporters down easy to come together singing Kumbaya after months of cruel Clinton-bashing in the media and WWTSBQ in the 'sphere strikes me funny. It's a joke, right?

What Bowers inadvertently foreshadows is the Obamasphere and Tweety Inc. will once again crank up the Wurlitzer from here to August until it annoyingly harangues Clinton can't win at a teeth-gritting velocity and further alienates Clinton supporters. The sexist press denigrates Hillary. That's not news. But bursting the Obama bubble, the inevitable narrative that's going to perk up like hot java spewing throughout the mainstream media is that Obama can't beat their darling John McCain. Unify that.

First of all, contrary to Bowers erroneous supposition, there is no closure in an Obama nomination. Nada. Zilch. None. Anglachel politely served Reality Bites:

The outcome of the primaries has been hamfistedly altered by the anti-Clinton faction in the Democratic Party. These people appear determined to stop at nothing to prevent a Hillary nomination and force their candidate on the electorate. They will literally do anything to win, including stealing votes, threatening super delegates, rigging delegate selection and throwing away ballots to get their way. They will do this even as their actions undermine their candidate's legitimacy and all but guarantees a loss in the general.

Kiss the Oval Office buh-bye and the hindquarters of Hillary supporters exiting in droves. Clueless Obama supporters slay me. Let me start with a marginalized minority. Do they think self-respecting gays and lesbians will leap with pride to vote for Mr. Homophobe? M'yeah, that'll happen. And women and men who love women--you know, grown-ups--have noticed the misogyny oozing out of the Obama camp. You think the awakened ones will suddenly forgive and forget for the sake of a party that's turned stone-silent about the blatant sexism that ramped up this campaign season? Up yours and the Unity Pony you rode in on, sweetie darlings.

Don't forget the lunch-bucket crowd more likely to turn to McCain over Obama. Rerun the Wright controversy and Obama's 20-year association with the reverend but don't misname the issue as racial. No amount of beautiful speeches can erase what they heard. "God damn America!" And that's that, no more, no less.

Second, never ever count Hillary Rodham Clinton out.

Third, Bowers totally ignores--and why does he?--that Hillary has declared she's going all the way to the convention and fighting for Florida and Michigan delegates to be seated. And she will. Additionally, the DNC rules do not state that the popular vote doesn't count. The national tally must include all the votes from all contests (h/t Jet), and on that score, yes, Hillary can win (via).

Even Lou Dobbs knows darn well neither Barry nor Hillary will have enough pledged delegates to cinch the nom. The battle will conclude at the convention.

1. The superdelegates will arrive at a stalemate before the convention or change their decisions at the convention. As an aside, can someone explain to me how Kerry (MA), Kennedy (MA), Napolitano (AZ), Richardson (NM), and others can thwart the will of the voters in their states that Clinton won? Isn't that inconsistent with Obama rules? Oh, wait. Obama rules change according to the most favorable result for Obama. D'oh.
   

2. At the convention, after the first round of floor votes, pledged delegates are free to declare for whom they wish to nominate. With the exception of Obama's home state, Hillary won the big states, the ones with the Electoral College cha-ching.

In scenario No. 2, CA, NY, NJ, TX, OH, MA, TN, NM, RI, AZ, OK, AR, NH, NV, (soon PA, KY, WV, and maybe IN)--including MI and FL, dammit!--can tilt the nom for Hillary. Them's the rules. Seems Howard Dean's all willy-nilly about a brokered convention but he created the nightmare by playing favorites, punishing Michigan and Florida, and allowed the mess to play out like, What--Me worry? Let him pout, stew and maybe his head will explode all over Donna Brazile.

In scenario No. 1, Sean Wilentz at Salon reiterated what the superdelegates must have realized or are coming to ascertain (with emphasis):

Obama's totals thus far have come in great part from state caucuses nearly as much as from actual primaries. (Eleven out of the 30 states and other entities he has won held caucuses, not primaries. Washington held both, as did Texas, where Obama won the caucuses and lost the popular vote.) Of the two systems, caucuses are by far the less democratic -- which may be why there will be exactly zero caucuses in this fall's general election. By excluding voters who cannot attend during the limited times available, the caucuses skew participation toward affluent activists and students, and against working people, mothers and caregivers, and the military. Clinton's victories, by contrast, have come overwhelmingly in states with primaries, not caucuses. Obama is certainly entitled to the delegates he won in the caucuses. But he can hardly, on that account, claim that he is clearly the popular favorite.

In 2004, Democrats lost most of the states where Obama's delegates come from now. The Democrats are likely to lose most of those states again in 2008, no matter how much his supporters speak of winning crossover votes. (Idaho and Wyoming, for example, where Obama won caucuses, are not going to vote for either Clinton or Obama come fall.) Of the remaining states that Obama has won, only one is a large state with a considerable number of electoral votes -- his home state of Illinois. Clinton has won the popular vote in all of the other large states -- and has done so in primaries, not caucus decisions. The arithmetic here is simple: Because of the flawed system, the delegates from the states that Obama has won, many of which vote strongly Republican, represent far fewer Democratic voters than those from the states Clinton won.

Finally, there is the disquieting question of acknowledging what kind of democracy will determine who wins the presidency in 2008. Strong arguments could be made that, in a thoroughgoing democracy, voters choose presidents with a direct, plebiscitary system. The candidate who commands a majority (or, perhaps, a plurality) of the popular vote nationally wins the election. But, interesting as they might be as an academic exercise, such musings are irrelevant to the politics of 2008. We have a winner-take-all system, but it operates on a state-by-state basis (except in Maine and Nebraska, where it's winner-take-all by congressional district). Like it or not, we will choose the president under the indirect and fractured democracy of the Electoral College.

Obama has tried to reinforce his democratic bona fides by asserting his superior electability, and by claiming that Clinton's supporters are more likely to back him in November than vice versa. The polls, however, show otherwise. And even more important, the polling data on the electoral vote totals show an outcome very different from the one suggested by Obama. The latest state-by-state figures (as of late March) updated from SurveyUSA, indicate that if the election were held today, Clinton would defeat McCain in the Electoral College because of her lead in big, electoral-vote-rich states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- and McCain would beat Obama.

In the final analysis, though, the fights inside the Democratic Party aren't really about either an ideal American democracy or the American democracy that actually exists. According to the Obama campaign, democracy is defined as whatever helps Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a candidate arguing this way. But everybody should see it for what it is -- not something new or transformative, but one of the oldest ploys in the playbook of American politics.

So much for a different kind of politics, Change We Can Believe In.

If the Democrats really want to win the WH--sometimes I wonder if Democratic leaders do--they will nominate Hillary. Surely, superdelegates will realize who's more likely to deliver the most Electoral College bang--including supers who have been bullied into supporting Obama--and they will ultimately endorse Clinton.

Let's hope the Obamasphere won't reel from the shock to their Obama bubble when he loses to McCain, if the Democrats are self-destructive enough to crown Barry, and maybe, oh, maybe the Orange Sippy Cup™ King and his pals can find closure.

UPDATE: Added a TM to Orange Sippy Cup™ lest people forget where it started.

The sexist de-nominator

Hillary in Hillsboro -- Photo by Barbara Kinney

In defense against WWTSBQ--the battle cry of the Obamasphere--our sophia man Lambert at Corrente uncovers one of the most common sexist de-nominators against Hillary Clinton in this year's Democratic presidential race via The Reclusive Leftist.

The movement to get Hillary to drop out defies the history of the Democratic nominating process. Ah, but maybe something else is afoot. The Reclusive Leftist, um, nails it:

It is, in truth, an argument virtually without precedent in modern political history, at least at this stage of such a close race. And while it does have its origins in an effort to preserve party unity, it also has its roots in an odd and vitriolic crusade to purge the Clintons and hand the nomination to a candidate who has yet, after all, to win a single large state’s primary (other than his own), let alone the nomination.

The fact is that, until now, candidates have rarely, if ever, faced such a concerted movement (featuring prominent names, such as Bill Richardson, and a column in Slate titled “The Hillary Deathwatch”), urging them to drop out before their rival has clinched the nomination. To review the history:

• In 1988, Jesse Jackson took his hopeless campaign against winner Michael Dukakis all the way to the convention, often to great media praise.

• In 1980, Ted Kennedy carried his run against Jimmy Carter all the way to the convention, even though it was clear he had been routed.

• In 1976, Ronald Reagan contested the “inevitability” of Gerald Ford all the way to the convention. Few, then or since, have ever thought to criticize Reagan’s failure to step aside and let Ford assume the mantle.

• Also in 1976, three candidates — Mo Udall, Jerry Brown, and Frank Church — ran against Jimmy Carter all the way through the final primaries, even though Carter seemed more than likely to be the eventual nominee.

• Even in 1960, Lyndon Johnson and Adlai Stevenson fought the “certain” nomination of John F. Kennedy all the way to the convention floor.

In fact, until this year, it’s been an axiom of American politics that candidates are allowed to pursue their runs until they decide to drop out — which is usually, by the way, when they run out of money. Even Mike Huckabee kept running against John McCain in this campaign long after it was obvious he had no hope of winning the GOP nod.

Okay, class, who can tell me what all those candidates had in common? Starts with a p…..

That’s right! Penis! Yes, all candidates with penises have the right to compete.

Clearly the rules are different for penis-less lady candidates:

Yet in one of the tightest races in modern history — before the opponent has come close to clearly clinching the nomination, before a number of voters have been given the chance to have their voices heard, and when Clinton still has a chance, albeit a slim one, to win the prize, she is continually vilified for failing to see the light and bow out. What gives?

I know! I know! Pick me!

…Clinton is being held to a different standard than virtually any other candidate in history. That’s being driven by Clinton fatigue, but it’s also being driven by a concerted campaign that examines every action the Clintons take and somehow finds the basest, most self-serving motivation for its existence. Thus, in this case, when Clinton is simply doing what everyone else has always done, she’s constantly attacked as an obsessed and crazed egomaniac, bent on self-aggrandizement at the expense of her party. Is there a fair amount of sexism in the way she’s being asked to get out of the way so a man can have the job? You be the judge.

No, there’s not a fair amount of sexism. There’s a huge amount of sexism, both conscious and unconscious. All this talk of Clinton fatigue is bullshit — in 2004 the party was wishing they could re-nominate Big Dog after his speech at the convention. What’s going on now is that lay-deez aren’t supposed to reach for power, and those who do are evil unnatural witches who consort with demons, eat babies, and fuck ponies for fun.

Deserves repeating with emphasis: "Clearly the rules are different for penis-less lady candidates."

DNC rules ruse

Riverdaughter posted, A Tale of Two Videos, one that displays the cravenly misguided DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee hearing that eventually voted to strip Florida of all of its delegates. Toward the end of the video, Donna Brazile giddy-ups on her highhorse to ride the meeting to a disgraceful crescendo of its amen chorus... Piss off Florida voters!

For further background, read Wayne Barrett on how the Democrats got stuck on stupid with Michigan and Florida with help from their enemies, the Republicans. Barrett pointed out that Ralph Dawson, who at 35:48 in the video introduced the motion to penalize Florida with a 100% loss of delegates, "was Howard Dean's Yale roommate and an advisor to Dean's 2004 campaign. Dawson's role was seen as a signal of Dean's appetite for a kick-ass rebuke. . . As much as the DNC tries to pretend otherwise, it had choices. In fact, it later showed understandable leniency to three other states who changed their primary dates--New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina -- seating all their delegates. The tough love treatment was reserved for Michigan and Florida."

The other video via Riverdaughter shows Howard Dean in action on This Week with George Stephanopolous as he attempts to rationalize alienating Florida and Michigan voters. He said to George during the interview there was only one candidate on the Michigan ballot. Not true. Clinton, Gravel, Dodd, and Kucinich were on the ballot as well as Uncommitted, a designation that Obama and Edwards supporters campaigned for voters to to chose in lieu of the other candidates.

No one made Obama or Edwards remove their names from the Michigan ballot when four candidates didn't. Dean gets no cigar for his argument that superdelegates should decide who they support by the end of June before the convention.

He also stated that Democrats "have to win the election," that McCain isn't the best choice for the country. And then Dean audaciously warned that "the only thing that can beat us is disunity in the Democratic Party," conveniently overlooking how the party had already sowed the seeds of disharmony in denying the Florida and Michigan delegation to count during the nomination process--not after the nominee has been decided as Dean explained April 1:

One, they can be seated by agreement between the two campaigns if there is no clear winner, or, two, they will be seated I suspect by whoever does win the nomination.

As I said before, "If one thinks that seating the FL and MI delegates after the nominee has been decided will endear those states' voters to the Democrat in November, just put down the wacky tobaccy and step away from the bong." Dean has to hope that Clinton becomes the nominee if Democrats want to win the WH. Obama hasn't inspired loyalty by his opposition to a revote or proposing to count 50% of the MI and FL delegates.

If you can stomach the nauseating reality of a party hell-bent on losing the presidency because of its hubris, click the images to view the videos.

Amazingly, Democratic poobahs and Barry's arrogance mistakenly think Hillary supporters will vote for Obama in November. They need to re-think that scenario.

Additionally, Hillary, not Obama, beats McCain in swing state polls of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Obama hasn't won the big states--including his anticipated defeat in the upcoming Pennsylvania contest--that deliver the Electoral College payload to beat McCain.

Hillary did and she can again in November.

Upgraded to Haloscan

Unfortunately, in upgrading to Haloscan, I lost all the comments previously recorded on The RealSpiel. Anyone know of a fix? Oh, well.

Female politics in a superpower

Edgamacation via Redstar at NYCweboy:

And now for the morning lecture: Female representation in politics. 13 years ago I did a stint with the Electoral Reform Society in the UK, and have since retained a love for proportional representation voting systems and information about increasing the ranks of women in office. This asinine comment thread over at Ezra Klein (his commentary on the Clinton campaign really undermines the rest of his work these days), got me thinking that the 'sphere needed some edgamacating about the proportion of women in higher office, especially here in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world.

We'll begin with Echidne's guest lecture on quotas:

a second concept of equality is gaining increasing relevance and support: the notion of "equality of result". The argument is that real equal opportunity does not exist just because formal barriers are removed. Direct discrimination and a complex pattern of hidden barriers prevent women from getting their share of political influence. Quotas and other forms of positive measures are thus a means towards equality of result. The argument is based on the experience that equality as a goal cannot be reached by formal equal treatment as a means. If barriers exist, it is argued, compensatory measures must be introduced as a means to reach equality of result. From this perspective, quotas are not discrimination (against men), but compensation for structural barriers that women meet in the electoral process.

She quotes the head of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a 100+ year old kick ass organization in Geneva that studies electoral systems and women's political representation, as saying that all the top countries for women's leadership have some sort of quota system. (I used to have a fabulous IPU map in my NYC apartment that color-coded women's representation around the globe. It was a big hit at parties.)

Currently, the U.S. is ranked 70th of about 140 countries. Women comprise 17% and 16% of elected officials in the House and Senate, respectively. Countries that are kicking our ass in electing women to higher office include Rwanda (#1; 49% in its lower chamber and 35% in the upper chamber), all the Scandinavian countries, a notable portion of African and European countries, and Iraq (26% in its lower chamber).

Anyone who tells me that I should be satisfied with the elections of Thatcher (Uk #59) or Bhutto (Pakistan #43) as historically significant - and thus electing Senator Hillary Clinton for President is historically irrelevant - might keep in mind that just because public housing in the U.S. is more secure housing than shantytowns in Kenya does not make relative inequality (and poverty) in the U.S. less critical. We have our own work to do at home on improving gender, ethno-racial and economic equity, particularly given the notion that we are the land of the free and the land of opportunity. Right now that's a pretty narrow political pipeline for the majority of our country's population to squeeze through. Perhaps we can invite some wonks and officials from Mozambique (#12) and Honduras (#38) to show us how to increase women's political leadership. (Hint: see the above link for proportional representation.)

That concludes this Friday's lecture on women in politics in the U.S. and abroad. Sen. Clinton on The Tonight Show last night had awesome harsh words for Bush's train wreck governance. Apparently, she's speaking for the masses, even if, because of her gender, she's unlikely to lead us into a brighter future, and more generally be denied full benefits for her service to our country.

Good times are not had by all.

My brain feels fuller but my heart is heavy at the state of our nation's backward lean against female politicians. America, a superman power.

Clinton tax returns

Good for the Clintons. They're prosperous and they earned their millions.

McClatchy reported (with emphasis):

Hillary Clinton's salary as a New York senator totaled $1 million over those years, while her book income was $10.46 million. Most of the book money came from her 2003 memoir "Living History".

The documents made public Friday didn't include the Clinton's 2007 returns; they provided a summary instead. The couple plans to file for an extension.

The release of the returns came after Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, and several good government groups have criticized Clinton for delaying the release of her tax information.

Clinton campaign officials had promised to release the information around the April 15 income tax filing deadline.

Clinton officials maintained that between the filings that were made public when Bill Clinton was president and their pre-White House tax returns that were public through the Whitewater land deal investigation, the Clintons have the most transparent finances of all the presidential candidates.

"This would appear to be about as complete a picture of the Clintons' finances as you can construct," said Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that examines money and politics.

"It's very clear that they are very wealthy, but that's not news. But we have a clearer picture of the sources of their income."

Obama released his 2000 to 2006 returns last week. They showed that his family income rose from $240,000 in 2000 to nearly $1 million in 2006.

The Illinois senator has been criticized for his relatively paltry charitable contributions in earlier years — $2,500 in 2004 from an income of $207,000, for instance. In 2006, the Obamas gave $60,000 to charities from an income of $999,000.

Obama and Arizona Sen. John McCain haven't released their 2007 returns.

No 10% tither is Obama, eh? Oh, what does religion have to do with it? Nothing. Trinity UCC probably didn't give it a second thought. M'yeah.

A campaign of hate

Oh, I get it and what I get is a reality check. Let's spell it out... liberals can hate, too, and do. They hate women. Enabling misogyny is not presidential nowhere near Change We Can Believe In. Susie Madrak:

I don’t understand why Obama supporters are so driven to publicly savage, insult and demean Clinton. What is it in themselves that makes them act… well, like Republicans?

It turns out that Randi Rhodes event for which she was suspended was sponsored by local Obama supporters and advertised on his offical [sic] campaign website.

As she called Clinton “a big fucking whore,” the Obama fans apparently cheered her on.

Obama doesn't have the good sense to shut this misogyny down. Doesn't he passively enable it? M'Yeah, by his lack of leadership.

Tennessee Guerilla Women posted a screen shot [look for the Update for "a full size screen cap"] of the Obama campaign website promoting the "fucking whore event" and offered some choice words:

As Hillary supporters everywhere will attest, spewing hatred at Hillary Clinton and her brave supporters (and probably everyone else they disagree with) is a favorite pastime of large numbers of Obama supporters. The hate is a problem that is frequently discussed on this blog and on other Hillary friendly blogs. As Tom Watson famously noted: "To be a Clinton blogger in the progressive blogosphere is to be hated."

The hate is why Hillary supporters left Daily Kos. The hate is a problem that Hillary's caucus-goers have experienced, and some of them are our elderly parents and grandparents! I have never seen anything like the hate directed at Hillary Clinton and all those of us who dare to admit that we support her. The contempt for women in this country scares the hell out of me.

God help us if the haters should lose the primary.

God helps us if Obama wins. Don't fool yourself into thinking the misogyny will suddenly stop. What's to keep it from getting worse? Bullies don't stop bullying because their "guy" won.

Wherever Obama goes, hate follows, and he plays stupid like, hate? What hate? Hate that he has enabled and indirectly inflicted.

Obama's poor judgment allowed a homophobe to get up and rant on his behalf against a marginalized minority. Joyce Rogers:

Last October, Barack Obama attempted to defuse the Donnie McClurkin debacle by issuing a statement (actually, burying it deep within his campaign Web site) that affirmed his "belief that gays and lesbians are our brothers and sisters and should be provided the respect, dignity, and rights of all other citizens."

I blogged the statement under the title "Barack Obama Attempts Damage Control, Comes Up Short. Way Short."

While Obama supporters screamed, "What else do you want him to do?!" I explained that Obama could say whatever he wanted, but if he didn't back up his words with actions, his words were meaningless.

As it turned out, his words were meaningless. Obama refused to dump McClurkin (or any of the rest of the anti-gay bigots) from his "Embrace the Homophobia Change" Gospel Tour, despite the widespread outcry from gay and lesbian Americans pleading with Obama not to allow a homophobic, "ex-gay" bigot to speak on his behalf, and especially not to exploit the deeply-ingrained homophobia endemic to conservative Southern black churches as a means of gaining a few political points.

But Obama didn't listen to us, and "after the tour when asked why the campaign would seemingly reject gay voters for far-right leaning blacks a campaign insider replied, 'We got what we needed to get out of it.'"

It's not as if Obama wasn't aware of McClurkin's virulently anti-gay views and vile rhetoric before the concert tour; even if Obama could feign ignorance prior to the announcement of the concert, he couldn't once the news hit the blogosphere, and certainly not after Human Rights Campaign head Joe Solmonese spoke directly with Obama to express (albeit with the HRC's usual cloying spinelessness) "our community's disappointment for his decision to continue to remain associated with Rev. McClurkin, an anti-gay preacher who states the need to 'break the curse of homosexuality.'"

What kind of hate speech did the misguided McClurkin articulate?

McClurkin has said that homosexuality is a choice and that he overcame homosexual desires through prayer, comments that drew fire from gay and lesbian activists and caught the Obama campaign, which has been using faith to reach out to African-American voters, off guard.

The Grammy-winning singer said Sunday his words had been “twisted.”

Anyone who thinks that being gay or lesbian is a choice and needs divine intervention, i.e., social acceptance of his or her community to overcome internalized homophobia is twisted. It's the triumph of superstition over science, the kind of dynamic one would expect from a right-wing authoritarian follower.

Donnie McClurkin, the rants of Rev. Wright, and now the hate-spewing Randi Rhodes.

Imagine what an Obama presidency would be like. He's not presidential. He's a fraud as a leader.

No Quarter has more with the video of Randi Rhodes' disgustingly hateful tirade.

UPDATE: From SusanUnPC at No Quarter, "I demand that Barack Obama remove all funds, if any, received from the Randi Rhodes event from his campaign treasury, and give those funds to charity. If the money collected at the door went into Barack Obama’s campaign fund — the money that came from the pro-Obama supporters who applauded, roared, and cheered while Ms. Rhodes uttered those vile, filthy, and profane words about Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro."

Amen, sister!

Gays, GOP, GOTV

The other day Avedon posted a nifty link from Open Left on A VERY Cheap Turnout-Boosting Method Democrats Need To Embrace from Paul Rosenberg. Kewl ideas.

The GOP, however, aims to pull out the ol' gay wedge issue among others to GOTV for the election November 4.

Reuters summarized (with emphasis):

FLORIDA - Amendment 2 asking Floridians to vote yes or no to a proposal to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman will be on the ballot. Florida is seen as a crucial swing state in the presidential election.

CALIFORNIA - Signatures are being gathered in California, another important state, to have a similar proposals on its ballot. The petition must have 700,000 signatures gathered by April 28 for the proposal to be placed on the ballot.

ARKANSAS - Signatures are being sought to propose a measure to change state law to ban unmarried couples from adopting or serving as foster parents. Gay rights activists say same-sex couples are the target of this initiative.

From 365Gay, the contentious battle in Florida has provoked the usual right-wing hate speech describing any union other than between a man and a woman as "aberrant."

The Washington Blade updated the latest news on Califorina's anti-gay ballot initiative today:

...proponents of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage are reporting that they have gathered 881,000 of the 1.1 million signatures needed, according to a report by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. The Equality for All campaign continues to fight the signature-gathering drive and has called on the gay community and other supportive Californians to help stop the initiative. The “protectmarriage.com” campaign called on volunteers and paid signature gatherers to turn in their petitions by Tuesday, but petitions can be turned in as late as April 21 and still count toward qualifying the amendment for the ballot. Because the proposed ballot initiative would change the state constitution, the legislature, which in 2005 and 2007 passed marriage bills Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed, would be prohibited from passing another bill in the future. And since constitutional amendments take precedence over legislation and limit the authority of courts, current cases that might lead to marriage would be stopped or reversed. The California Supreme Court is considering a same-sex marriage case.

In Pennsylvania, The Philadelphia Inquirer picked up Hillary's interview with the Philly Gay News:

She said she opposed a measure that would ban same-sex marriage in Pennsylvania. "I would be very distressed if Pennsylvania were to adopt that kind of mean-spirited referendum," she said.

Last week, The Phoenix Online wrote that "the state Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance a bill that would amend the state’s constitution to make both same-sex marriages and the 'functional equivalent' of marriage — such as civil unions — illegal in Pennsylvania. . . Before the bill can be put into effect, it must pass the Senate Appropriations Committee and two consecutive General Assembly sessions. . .Then state residents would vote on it in a referendum. "

Arizona attempted to amend its state constitution banning gay marriage, a measure that had passed the House. But smart maneuvering by Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Phoenix), who tacked on a provision "to grant certain rights to unmarried couples living together, whether gay or straight," a strategy that effectively "tied the two issues together as a single ballot question, meaning voters who want to make same-sex weddings unconstitutional would be voting for some constitutional rights for gay couples," caused AZ House Republicans to kill the bill. A similar bill in the AZ Senate will not come to the floor for a vote.

And there are those other "hot button" issues that Reuters reported (with emphasis and edited for brevity):

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION/CIVIL RIGHTS--COLORADO - A proposed constitutional amendment will be on the November ballot in Colorado that says: "The state shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to any group or individual on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public contracting or public education." ...Attempts are under way to get similar proposals on the ballot in Arizona, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Missouri. Initiatives are spearheaded by the American Civil Rights Institute.

Critics say they are aimed to end affirmative action and get conservative Republicans out to vote.

ABORTION: CALIFORNIA - Signatures are being gathered for a ballot proposal requiring parental notification before a minor can get an abortion.

SOUTH DAKOTA - Signatures are being gathered for a proposal to ban abortion except in cases of rape, incest or if the pregnancy threatens the mother's health or life. The signatures must be submitted by April and 16,776 must be collected.

Enthusiasm to GOTV for McCain needs an extra special wingnut ingredient, n'est-ce pas?

I'm proud of Hillary's stand against these anti-gay measures. My kind of candidate for president.

If you know of other ballot initiatives, send me an email or leave your comments and I'll update accordingly. Thanks!

Onward Hillary

Using my artistic skills, some gratuitous favoritism for my preferred candidate, Sen. Hillary Clinton, via a montage of photos with the centerpiece from “Solutions for the Pennsylvania Economy” Events in Erie and Wilkes-Barre. Main photo by Barbara Kinney.

It's time to turn the chapter (and our backs) on Bush's disastrous presidency and Hillary's the one to clean up the mess. Obama? Hmmmm... m'no, not so much. McCain? Not a chance. He's Bush III.

On another topic dear to my Lesbianati heart, Lambert at Corrente posted about Hillary's interview with the Philadelphia Gay News. Both McCain and Obama declined the invitation.

Of course, McCain would decline, and after the whole Donnie McLurkin thing, it’s only natural that Obama would bow out, too. Guess there’s just some kinds of people that Unity doesn’t apply to. Whatever. Hillary in PGN...

Go visit Corrente's Lambert--one of teh best bloggers--to read the Philadelphia Gay News interview with Hillary.

POSTSCRIPT: The Unity icon is unique to Corrente, clever bloggers that they are.

Lou Dobbs on the Democratic race

As Susie Madrak cleverly noticed, "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while."



Watch the video for the full megillah. Transcript. Just a partial excerpt:

DOBBS: I mean this has reached a silly, silly proportion. And the reason it has reached this silly, silly position right now in my opinion is because we in the national media have played along with this pro Obama nonsense for a very long time.

SCHNEIDER: Well, I think the national media has calculated here and I've done this calculation, is it's difficult to see how Senator Clinton can overtake Obama in either pledged delegates or popular votes. The calculation I did shows that in order to overtake his delegate lead, pledged delegates, he's behind in super delegates.

She would have to win about two-thirds of the remaining pledged delegates. That's very tough for her to do. And in popular votes, she would have to win about 56 percent of the remaining voters. She's done that in only a few primaries, so it just looks a very difficult thing for her to accomplish. Some people in the Obama camp say well if it's so tough, why doesn't she just get out now and spare us all the battle.

DOBBS: If I may say, you have got some broccoli, some onions and some apples in all of that. Bill, let me ask you this. As an Independent and I've got no view one way or the other on the Republican or the Democratic side of this thing. But what you said was she can't win the nomination. Neither can Senator Obama.

(CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: The fact is they're separated by just about 130 delegate votes.

SCHNEIDER: That's exactly right.

DOBBS: And she has the lead in super delegate votes, so why in the world is there this compulsion, this absolute insistence in the national media to talk about the fact she can't win the nomination? Neither can Senator Obama. And I have never seen in my career greater favoritism being applied in the national media broadly speaking than in this campaign in behalf of Senator Obama and against Senator Clinton.

SCHNEIDER: Well you're exactly right that neither one of the two candidates is likely to be able to win a majority of the delegates before the convention. The super delegates is going to make one or the other of them finally the nominee. Closure is going reach -- be reached by the super delegates. (CROSSTALK). . .

. . .DOBBS: But Bill, this is going on without challenge in too many quarters in the national media and I'm talking about major broadcasts, news organizations, major cable news organizations, major newspapers and magazines and it's going on unchallenged. And it's absolutely to me obscene. Have you ever seen anything like it? . . .

. . .Well and the very idea that this should not go to convention, that this should not be decided by the super delegates, could we put forward this headline for everyone in the national media supporting either Obama or Clinton? This race, unless there is something amazing in terms of a development unforeseen here, will be decided by the super delegates. Is that a correct statement?

SCHNEIDER: That is correct.

Miscarriage of justice

Echidne noted an AP story via the NYTimes about a teen girl who had a miscarriage. Note the language used by the AP (with emphasis):

Police in Houston say a 14-year-old girl who delivered a stillborn fetus in an airliner restroom on her way back from a middle-school field trip will not be charged with any wrongdoing.

Gee, that's a relief. But why did the AP fail to call the "delivery" a miscarriage?

Homicide investigators say they interviewed both the girl and a 14-year-old boy believed to be the father.

Police say that prosecutors decided not to pursue charges against the girl. The fetus was found in a waste can on a Continental Airlines flight that landed at Houston after a flight from New York.

Authorities say the girl told police she didn't know she was pregnant. Preliminary autopsy results indicated the fetus was stillborn and not viable.

Echidne's righteous response:

Homicide investigators???? The fetus was stillborn and not viable, and in any case it was a fetus. What wrongdoing could she possibly have been charged with? Leaving a dead fetus in a waist can, perhaps, rather than wrapping it up carefully and taking it home to show to her parents?

In a patriarchal system, the autonomy of a female's bodily functions and her privacy are always in question, in need of review, approval, and control. Now miscarriages--miscarriages, people!--attract the scrutiny of law enforcement. The damn AP story couldn't use the proper term because of why? While Houston homicide wasted time investigating the teen girl's miscarriage, how many bona fide murder investigations cooled off? Screwed-up, ya think?

A few years ago in Virginia, state legislator John Cosgrove (R-Chesapeake) introduced a poorly-written bill "requir[ing] any woman who experiences 'fetal death' without a doctor’s assistance to report this to the local law-enforcement agency within twelve hours of the miscarriage. Failure to do so is punishable as a Class 1 Misdemeanor." The penalty for failing to report? "[C]onfinement in jail for not more than 12 months and a fine of not more than $2500, either or both.” Cosgrove was inundated by outraged emails so that he amended the language. Mighty nice of the incompetent twit.

Misogyny is pervasive and oppressive. Don't ever forget it... although political news and pundits remind us constantly.

Murdoch fundraiser for Obama

The Guardian reports:

The Murdoch family are used to people trying to decode their political stance and its implications from their public actions. Now Elisabeth Murdoch, Rupert's daughter who runs a large independent production company, has thrown them a curveball by hosting a London fundraiser for Barack Obama.

In the most high-profile example yet of glitzy fundraising bashes for the US presidential hopefuls spreading across the Atlantic, a string of notable US ex-pats with jobs in media, the arts and finance will gather at the Notting Hill home Murdoch shares with her husband, PR guru Matthew Freud.

[snip]

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp media empire includes the rightwing Fox News, alongside a host of other properties including the New York Post, the News International stable of UK newspapers including the Sun and the Times, Twentieth Century Fox, BSkyB and the Wall Street Journal.

Murdoch's backing is assiduously courted by politicians around the world, with his choices often decided by expediency, and last year he donated $2,300 to Hillary Clinton's campaign fund.

Prompted by his son James, now head of all News Corp's European and Asian operations, he has also endorsed former vice-president Al Gore's environmental campaign.

Ahem! Strange bedfellows elections make, ay, mate? Cha-ching!

(H/t Petulant)

Misogyny kitsch of Christopher Hitchens

Someone cut the crap. A decision-making dolt thought this graphic for the column of the same title was probably cute, apropos, without fathoming its dark humorless kitsch. Probably didn't think twice about the usage of the B word, an insidious denigration of women.

Hey, it rhymes. Oh, goodie!

Yet one more example of misogyny , not just for women anymore exhibited in the media complete with a wild-eyed, snarling Christopher Hitchens feigning hysterical rage. Get it?

I'm not a fan of Hitchens and I let my Vanity Fair subscription lapse years ago. Glad I did.

Best thing about VF is James Wolcott.

Hillary leads in swing state polls

The results of the latest Quinnipiac University Poll (with emphasis):

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton holds a 50 - 41 percent lead over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama among likely Pennsylvania Democratic primary voters and runs better against Arizona Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 53 - 41 percent lead in a March 18 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. In general election match ups of the three largest and most important swing states in the Electoral College, the survey finds.

• Florida: Clinton 44 percent - McCain 42 percent; McCain beats Obama 46 - 37 percent;

• Ohio: Clinton beats McCain 48 - 39 percent; Obama gets 43 percent to McCain's 42 percent;

• Pennsylvania: Clinton tops McCain 48 - 40 percent; Obama leads McCain 43 - 39 percent.

The primary vote between Obama and Clinton splits sharply along racial lines, with her advantage coming from stronger support in every contest from white voters. For example, Clinton leads 59 - 34 percent among white Pennsylvania likely primary voters, while Obama leads 73 - 11 percent among black Democrats.

"When it comes to November, Sen. Hillary Clinton's strength is a big edge over Sen. Barack Obama among white voters, who have not given a majority of their votes to a Democratic presidential nominee since Lyndon Johnson in 1964," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute."

More than a third of voters in the three states think Obama's race is an advantage, more than twice the number who think it is a disadvantage. By contrast, roughly a quarter of voters say Clinton's gender is an advantage, and about the same number think it is a disadvantage.

"Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro's assertion that Obama's race has helped his candidacy finds some support among the electorate," said Brown.

"At least for now, Sen. Clinton's argument that she is the better general election candidate in these key battleground states appears to have some validity," said Brown. "In this survey, her strength among white voters is why she runs better against Sen. McCain than does Sen. Obama.

"Roughly one in five Democrats in the three states say they will vote for McCain against Obama, but less than 10 percent say they would vote for McCain over Clinton. Among white Democrats, 23 percent defect to McCain in a matchup with Obama, but only 11 percent defect when Clinton is the Democratic candidate." Pennsylvania

Among Pennsylvania Democrats, Clinton leads 54 - 37 percent with women, and ties Obama 46 - 46 percent with men. Obama leads 51 - 42 percent among voters under 45 years old, while Clinton leads 54 - 37 percent among voters over 45.

By a 48 - 42 percent margin, Pennsylvania registered voters have a favorable opinion of Clinton. Obama gets a 49 - 31 percent favorability and McCain gets 47 - 31 percent.

"Sen. Clinton's imaginary snipers, Rev. Wright, Geraldine Ferraro, these events have taken only a small toll on Sen. Clinton's lead in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary," said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

"Her strength is her clear advantage among white voters - blue collar whites, less educated whites, economically hurting whites, that group known famously as Reagan Democrats in the Keystone State. Obama is marshalling all his forces, but despite his eloquent dialogue on the race issue, Pennsylvania Democrats are unmoved. So Far."

The economy is the most important issue in their vote, 46 percent of voters say, followed by 23 percent who list the war in Iraq and 14 percent who cite health care.

Looking at the most important quality in a candidate, 30 percent want a strong leader and 26 percent want someone who is trustworthy.

Being black is an advantage for Obama, 32 percent say, while 15 percent say it's a disadvantage and 47 percent say it makes no difference.

Being a woman is an advantage for Clinton, 26 percent say, with 25 percent saying it's a disadvantage and 45 percent saying it makes no difference.

For further details, click the link to the full analysis.

Obama on Hardball?

Found this promo at the Orange Sippy Cup.

For all the bluster about Sen. Hillary Clinton, Rupert Murdoch, and Richard Mellon Scaife, I wonder how the Boy Blogz will reconcile Obama's appearance on Tweety's horribly misogynistic show.

Oh, it's Clinton-bashing programming so no big deal.

Obama Rules exempt Barry.

IOKIYAO.

UPDATE: Hardball transcript

The two faces of Kos

Before Kos descended into CDS madness (emphasis added in red sometimes in red boldface):

Who is playing to win?

Winning is important. The last thing we can afford as a country is another 4-8 years of continued Republican rule. If nothing else, Justice Stevens is not long on the bench, and losing his vote in the Supreme Court would inflict the nation with a solid conservative majority for generations. So who is doing everything possible to win?

Hillary Clinton, by far. She's not limiting her campaign's ability to raise money (nor her supporters' to give it) by accepting public financing. Obama has opted out for the primary, but has said he'd accept it for the general if the Republican did so as well. Why give Republicans veto power over what the Democrats do? Given our better ability to raise money this cycle, why would Obama willingly surrender that advantage to the Republicans? That's not playing to win. Edwards is the opposite, saying he could opt out of public financing for the general, but already opted in for the primary. That means that unless he's opposite a similarly limited Republican (i.e. McCain), he'll be at a gross disadvantage all summer as he has less than $20 million left to spend until September.

What's more, Clinton was the only top-tier candidate to refuse the ultimate Iowa and New Hampshire pander by removing her name from the Michigan ballot. That makes her essentially the de facto winner since Edwards and Obama, caving to the cry babies in Iowa and New Hampshire, took their name off Michigan's ballot. Sure, the DNC has stripped Michigan of its delegates, but that won't last through the convention. The last thing Democrats can afford is to alienate swing states like Michigan and Florida by refusing to seat their delegates.

So while Obama and Edwards kneecap their chances of winning, Clinton is single-mindedly focused on the goal.

Who is tested against the Right Wing smear machine?

Edwards earned valuable campaign experience in 2004. It makes me wonder why he'd go through it all again a second time, but still, it's something. Clinton, by far. No one has taken more shit from the VRWC, not by a long shot.Obama has never had a competitive race against a Republican. His best experiences comes from winning primaries. But he's never been in the crossfires of the GOP. Maybe that's why he can pretend that he can move beyond partisanship. Because he's never had to run a partisan race.

Who is the best defender of progressive ideals?

Edwards, by a landslide. Not the 2004 edition, but the new and improved 2008 model. From a rhetorical standpoint, no one has come close to articulating the nation's ills and why progressive solutions are the best salve. This is important -- Democrats have been poor at branding their ideology, thus ceding that ground to demonizing conservatives. Long term, our movement cannot survive another Bill Clinton -- someone more interested in making David Broder and Joe Klein happy with triangulating rhetoric that undermines rather than bolsters progressive values and policies.

Clinton isn't horrible on this front, but Obama has made a cottage industry out of attacking the dirty fucking hippies on the left, from labor unions, to Paul Krugman, to Gore and Kerry, to social security, and so on. People think I was being ticky tack with the Gore thing, and in isolation it would've been but a minor non-event. But it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me, yet another in a pattern of attacks against Democrats and their constituencies. [Obama] is the return of Bill Clinton-style triangulating personified. Now I'm willing to consider that this is all a front, and that he'd govern as progressively as Bush governed conservatively after his 2000 bullshit about being a "uniter" and "compassionate". He can even pull a Bush, I suppose, and claim a "mandate" on policies he blurred or ignored on the campaign. But we've seen how a lack of true mandate has crushed Bush's presidency and made him the most unpopular and least effective president in history. I'd rather have our candidate elected promising progressive reform, especially in a year where the American people seem to crave such solutions.

Then again, I do like that Obama has frozen out Fox "News" (as has Edwards, I think). I wish Clinton would do so as well, but her weird flirtation with Rupert Murdoch apparently precludes that.

The "Story" and likability?

I actually like all the candidates, even Hillary. I don't like the people she surrounds herself with, like the union-busting Mark Penn, but I like her personally. And I like Obama and his story, and I like Edwards and his story. I like the fact that being a white male puts Edwards at a disadvantage. It shows we're progressing and that people are craving a more tangible symbol of that progress -- a woman or African American president. As a Latino, I was desperately hoping I could get behind Bill Richardson's campaign, but that one came up short in so many different areas that it wasn't to be. But I like Richardson as well. Politicians rarely get this high by being public assholes, at least on the Democratic side.

In other words, I'd have a beer with any of them. But I do love the idea of breaking a new barrier this year, whether it's by having a woman president or an African American one.

Bottom line?

Given the minor differences in policy, and the vast gap between them and the chamber of horrors the GOP has put forth, I'll be satisfied with any of these candidates as my nominee. None of them rock my world, there are no true people-powered candidates in our field (the only one is Ron Paul, on the other side). So what's the fault line? The desire to win (important) and the ability and willingness to unapologetically articulate progressive solutions to our nation's problems. Hillary wins the former, and Edwards the latter. I'd love to see a barrier broken, to provide a tangible sign of our progress as a society (even Pakistan has had a woman prime minister).

By jennies! What a reversal of fortunes. Kos has transformed into the head cheerleader of the Obamasphere overcome with Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

Today, Kos shows us how unhinged and shallow he's become in his rebuttal of a NYTimes article criticizing Howard Dean of the DNC:

Indeed, 24 hours after he made his remarks, Mrs. Clinton said she intended to keep fighting for the nomination through the summer, if necessary. It was an unmistakable rebuke to Mr. Dean, who has never had good relations with the Clintons.

Clinton's remarks may have been a rebuke to Dean, but who cares? . . .

Dean has been very clear about Michigan and Florida: the rules are the rules. That doesn't make the Clinton partisans happy, but that's not from a lack of leadership on it, but because of his leadership on fighting for the rules that the party agreed on. Let's not forget that Clinton pitbull Harold Ickes was on the committee that voted for the sanctions.

Oh, Ickes did indeed vote for sanctions but as "a DNC member and a Clinton adviser in charge of delegate counting," how would it have been perceived if he had voted against it? Not so impartial perhaps? Damned if he did, damned if he didn't. But, oh, Ickes is evil working for that Clinton woman!

Dean made the DNC's position very clear to [Hillary] before the primaries started. She ignored him while Florida Democrats openly mocked him. Now she wants him to get her out of her own mess? Hilarious. . .

No, a nitwit thinks a Democrat presidential nominee can win the general election with a 48-state strategy. Here's Dean 'splaining on CNN last night (with emphasis):

DEAN: I would very much like to have Florida and Michigan seated. Because of the circumstances under which they held their elections, essentially which were not valid elections, they aren't going to be seated the same way that everybody else is.

They can be seated in one of two ways. One, they can be seated by agreement between the two campaigns if there is no clear winner, or, two, they will be seated I suspect by whoever does win the nomination. Whoever wins the nomination will control the credentials committee, which will control the seating. And I strongly believe our nominee is going to want Florida and Michigan in the hall. Under which rules, that will depend. The nominee will set the rules.

Whoa! Stellar leadership! If one thinks that seating the FL and MI delegates after the nominee has been decided will endear those states' voters to the Democrat in November, just put down the wacky tobaccy and step away from the bong. But kookiness abounds:

You have to be a frakin' moron to pretend Dean has shown no leadership. So here it is, in bullet points for the addled and their journalist friends:

• Florida and Michigan violated DNC rules. Their contests don't matter. The DNC rules committee can re-evaluate at the appropriate time.

• Florida and Michigan are more than free to hold sanctioned contests if they want.

• Dean thinks the process should play out. And once the final contest is in the books, in June, the super delegates should declare their preferences.

I didn't have to do research to jot those three bullet points down. They are self-evident and have been repeated a billion times in every interview Dean does. They are studiously non-partisan at a time when the most zealous supporters parse every utterance for evidence of bias.

The emperor of the Kossacks wears no clothes and maybe should have done more research into the full story of the Dean's part in the DNC's cock-up and GOP machinations impacting the Florida and Michigan primaries. Since Kos is so big on the rules, riddle this:

The DNC and the MSM appear to have simultaneously concluded that even Clinton's 300,000-vote win in Florida, where both candidates competed on a level playing field, shouldn't be counted in the popular vote tally, a calculation that appears nowhere in DNC rules and turns 1.7 million Democratic voters into ghosts.

More inflammatory, the DNC exempted Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina for moving their primaries up before February but Dean meted out the worst punishment to Michigan and Florida. How dumb is that? Click the link for inquiring minds. I'll ask again as I did yesterday: Does anyone recall a presidential election in the past few decades that turned on the Electoral College counts of either New Hampshire, Iowa or South Carolina?

Kos, however, has made up his Obama-partisan mind and stamped his little foot. Da rules! Da rules! Waaaah! Harumphity-waaaah! Sweetie darling, have you read the DNC rules? Or are you using them selectively for your OFB?

Riverdaughter expounds further related to another Kos psychotic episode on how "Hillary [is] ripping the Democratic party asunder," a specious piece of propaganda:

Let that sink in a sec, Kos. The RULZ as presently dictated, not only disenfranchise FL and MI but every other big state and swing state that voted for her- decisively. I would hate to piss us off if I were Barry, because that would be very divisive, in a rather huge and unpleasant way. I’d much rather piss off Wyoming and Utah. . .

...If I were Kos, this is precisely the scenario I would want if I wanted to win in the fall. The strongest candidate at the time of the convention would be the nominee. That’s not divisive, Kos. That’s saving your bacon from being the dimwitted blogger you turned out to be.

As for divisions, this can be solved rather easily: 1.) seat the delegates from FL and MI as is. That will make the voters of these states hate the Democrats less. 2.) Stop being the anti-Clinton supporters. That will make the rest of US not want to put your nuts in a vice. And 3.) Get behind Hillary because she’s the best qualified candidate, unlike Barry who has nothing going for him right now except for the fair weather friends in the media. That should be the only criteria for nomination, who is the best presidential material.

And stop trying to rush things. Your strategy is obvious and irritating and it makes you look pathetic.

Yes, in-deed-y.

Misogyny, not just for women anymore

Zuzu at Feministe is right again. She examined Joe Scarborough's denigration of Obama's "dainty" bowling skills:

Like I said in my earlier post, it’s important to call out misogyny because misogyny hurts all women. Here’s an example of misogyny hurting men — because the ultimate put-down of a man is to equate him to a woman. If we fight the idea that being a woman is not something to be sneered at, we not only raise women, but we deprive bullies of one of the most powerful weapons in their arsenal against men.

The issue of manliness is a perennial one in Presidential politics, particularly for the Democratic candidate. Republicans are presumptively manly, but Democrats, being of the “mommy party,” face an uphill battle on this score. And so you get a lot of photo-ops of Democratic candidates playing sports (Hillary Clinton, it should be noted, has already been deemed Not A Woman Because She’s Trying Too Hard To Be A Man, so she would probably be exempt from this nonsense).

Not to mention, you also get a lot of chest-beating from Democrats who think that the only way the Dems can win is to put up more macho candidates like Jim Webb, ignoring the fact that he’s not all that popular in the party and would never have gotten elected had it not been for George Allen’s “Macaca Moment.”

Be sure to watch the video or at least read the transcript [link] for an example of the kind of anxious masculinity display we can expect in the general election should Obama become the nominee....

Digby itemized a list of mocking Democratic men (and Hillary) by using distorted gender stereotypes:

Al Gore needed to be taught how to be an "alpha male." He doesn't "know who he is."
John Kerry "flip-flops" like a flaccid penis.
John Edwards is "the Breck girl."
Howard Dean was "hysterical."
Barack Obama is "Obambi."
Bill Clinton was "a pervert."
Hillary Clinton is a lesbian.

The underlying premise of the modern conservative movement is that the entire Democratic party consists of a bunch of fags and dykes who are both too effeminate and too masculine to properly lead the nation. Coulter says it out loud. Dowd hints at it broadly....

For further edification, Glenn Greenwald has commented repeatedly on the idealization of warped masculinity--a hyper-masculinity--which, in the mind of sexists is superior to all things feminine, or in Limbaugh-speak, those "feminazis":

• On Fred Thompson's tough guy-ness with honorable mentions for Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich

• Chris Matthews gushing over Thompson's sexiness and smells

• The right-wing cult of contrived masculinity

Remember Der Arnold's girly men? Or John McCain's manly indifference to the question, “How do we beat the b*tch?”

Explore the archives of The Daily Howler, and you can unearth a ton of misogynistic smears used to attack liberal men and women. Snips from one Bob Somerby post, WIKIDOWDIA! Dowd is a cleaned-up version of Coulter...

On Friday, at a major conservative political gathering in DC, [Ann Coulter] called John Edwards a “f*ggot.”...

Coulter called Al Gore a “total fag” on Hardball. Chris Matthews—an endless Gore-trasher himself—didn’t utter a peep of protest....

...In Dowd’s work, John Edwards is routinely “the Breck Girl”(five times so far—and counting), and Gore is “so feminized that he’s practically lactating.” Indeed, two days before we voted in November 2000, Dowd devoted her entire column, for the sixth time, to an imaginary conversation between Gore and his bald spot. “I feel pretty,” her headline said (pretending to quote Gore’s inner thoughts).That was the image this idiot wanted you carrying off to the voting booth with you!...

And now, in the spirit of fair play and brotherhood, she is extending this type of “analysis” to Barack Obama. In the past few weeks, she has described Obama as “legally blonde” (in her headline); as “Scarlett O’Hara” (in her next column); as a “Dreamboy,” as “Obambi,” and now, in her latest absurd piece, as a “schoolboy” (text below). Do you get the feeling that Dowd may have a few race-and-gender issues floating around in her inane, tortured mind? But this sort of thing is nothing new for the comptesse. Indeed, such imagery almost defines the work of this loathsome, inane Antoinette.

What's also depressing has been the level of misogyny emanating from liberal quarters attacking Hillary:

...Jesse Jackson Jr., ramped up the misogyny, unforgivably mocking Hillary's tears (video)... Then Barry the Magnificent himself disparaged Hillary's emotions...

Obama's foreign policy advisor Gen. Merrill McPeak, who later apologized, clobbered Hillary with an ugly smear saying, Obama "doesn’t go on television and have crying fits; he isn’t discovering his voice at the age of 60." Aren't these acts an anathema to Change We Can Believe In?

Unfortunately, you find sexually-twisted bashing in the form of f*ggot, b*tch, d*ke, sissy, and wussy (derivative of the "p" word) in the wingnutsphere and at A-list blogs.

Misogyny in any form is destructive and it has been infused into our body politic, affecting the attitudes of the electorate.

Shame on conservatives, who have used it as a political weapon, which, perhaps latent or less prevasive, has now reached full-blown usage in the Left blogosphere.

Shame on us all for giving misogyny a pass whether exploited by men or women directed at women or men.

Stuck on stupid

Why did I do it? Oh, why did I click on the headline in the sidebar at HuffPost that read, Hooked on Hillary? When, wham! Ugh! Eeeeeek! Ooooooh! Nora Ephron's self-indulgent pining appeared before me:

I would like to put myself among the growing chorus of people demanding that Hillary Clinton withdraw from the election. I don't really think it's fair to ask her to withdraw, and I certainly don't believe she's going to; she'll hang in there till the last dog dies, or till she runs out of money, whichever comes first. I'm not asking her to withdraw because I prefer Obama, and I don't think she should withdraw "for the sake of party unity," or whatever current bromide is being flung at her to get her to pull out. I think she should withdraw because I'm losing my mind. [Emphasis added.]

Sweetie, darling, you have already lost your mind.

Nora goes on and on...oh, the dizziness... about how "I used to love [Hillary] and I no longer do, but unlike what usually happens when love dies, I still think about her far too much." The pathos, "the Rorschach process," the obsession, like Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle only without the happy ending.

Why, oh, why did I click on that damn headline?! I blame BDBlue! It's your fault! Damn you! May the plagues of a thou... Nah, just kidding.

Actually, I was reading an excellent article at HuffPost by Wayne Barrett thanks to BDBlue who posted on a hot subject last evening, Gullible Democrats: How the GOP Rigged MI & FL:

For a depressing treatise on how to lose a general election with a 48-state strategy designed by the opposing party, go read Wayne Barrett.

And do read Barrett's deep-into-the-history of the MI and FL primary nightmare, which plunges into the DNC cock-up and Howard Dean's finagling followed by the hazing of the Democrats by the Republicans in Michigan and Florida. We know the GOP does not have the Dems' best interests at heart so WTF were they thinking? One of many Democratic kickers of the self-injurious kind, unforgivable really:

The Democratic national committeeman who introduced the motion on the party's Rules Committee to deprive Florida of all its delegates -- a precursor to the Michigan decision a few months later -- was Ralph Dawson, a New York lawyer who was Howard Dean's Yale roommate and an advisor to Dean's 2004 campaign. Dawson's role was seen as a signal of Dean's appetite for a kick-ass rebuke.

As much as the DNC tries to pretend otherwise, it had choices. In fact, it later showed understandable leniency to three other states who changed their primary dates--New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina -- seating all their delegates. The tough love treatment was reserved for Michigan and Florida.

Does anyone recall a presidential election in the past few decades that turned on the Electoral College counts of either New Hampshire, Iowa or South Carolina? Ahem.

The national party had tried -- before New Hampshire's case wound up on its docket -- to leave the impression that zero tolerance was automatic once violations of the schedule occur. Back in June, a DNC spokeswoman, for example, told the Associated Press that neither Dean nor the Rules Committee "has the power to waive the rules for any state," explaining that "these rules can be changed only by the full DNC." Yet a few months later, on the same day that the Rules Committee stripped Michigan of its delegates, it waived the rules for New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina, each of which had also moved up their primaries.

Barrett offers gracious plenty more analysis and facts that could make your hair set afire.

But if you head over to read Barrett's report--and I highly recommend that you do--don't click on "Hooked on Hillary." I played an April Fools' joke on myself. Spare yourself.

UPDATE: I refreshed the Wayne Barrett link to an archived copy of his HuffPo article at Common Dreams.

Obama slogan

Yuk, yuk, yuk! Hey, wait a minute! According to Snopes, the fictional slogan is of urban legend. I received this errant message yesterday via email, which seems to have come into circulation again. Mark Steyn posted it The Corner, National Review Online, back in January as a joke. So...

Happy April Fools' Day!

Check the well-known pranks at Wikipedia to add more fun to your day.

Maya Angelou for Hillary

Maya Angelou's poem plague near the City Lights Bookstore
in San Francisco Chinatown. Photo credit.

Wow. Maya Angelou, one of my heroines and a constant fount of inspiration, shows her support for Hillary with poetic verse in honor of Women's History Month:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

This is not the first time you have seen Hillary Clinton seemingly at her wits end, but she has always risen, always risen, much to the dismay of her adversaries and the delight of her friends.

Hillary Clinton will not give up on you and all she asks of you is that you do not give up on her.

There is a world of difference between being a woman and being an old female. If you’re born a girl, grow up, and live long enough, you can become an old female. But, to become a woman is a serious matter. A woman takes responsibility for the time she takes up and the space she occupies.

Hillary Clinton is a woman. She has been there and done that and has still risen. She is in this race for the long haul. She intends to make a difference in our country.

She is the prayer of every woman and man who long for fair play, healthy families, good schools, and a balanced economy. . .

She means to rise.

She means to help our country rise. Don’t give up on her, ever.

In fact, if you help her to rise, you will rise with her and help her make this country a wonderful, wonderful place where every man and every woman can live freely without sanctimonious piety, without crippling fear.

Rise Hillary.

Rise.

Goosebump scale: 10.

Found at TalkLeft, where Jeralyn also offered details from Newsweek about an Obama oil ad that's misleading and running in PA and other states. Funny thing. Barry says in the ad:

I don't take money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists, and I won't let them block change anymore. They'll pay a penalty on windfall profits. We'll invest in alternative energy, create jobs and free ourselves from foreign oil.

But he's raked in "more than $213,000 from individuals who work for companies in the oil and gas industry and their spouses." More details of contributions from oil companies via OpenSecrets.org. Click to TalkLeft for the scoop.

When are people going to realize Obama's talk is talk?

Rise, Hillary rise!