It's Not Misogyny. Really It Isn't.

I don't read as many magazines as I used to. I've let all of my subscriptions run out and only occasionally do I make an effort to pull a few back issues of titles that interest me and check them out and bring them home to read. (Current issues of magazines can only be read in the library and may not be checked out.) So it is that I am a little late in reading and responding to Newsweek magazine's feature Hear Her Roar (Newsweek March 17, 2008).

I was saddened and frustrated when I learned in Tina Brown's lead essay that many middle aged women in Ohio had been drawn to work on Hillary's campaign because of the perceived misogyny, gender discrimination and "good old boys glass ceiling" they see in the opposition to Ms. Clinton's presidential ambitions. It feels a it like the old trick question "...and when did you stop beating your wife?". To make a point of publicly stating as I do here and now that I fully support gender equality and would definitely vote for a female candidate for President of the United States, were I satisfied with her record of achievements, her policies and priorities and her character and competence seems, to me, to give the impression that such a proclamation is merely pro-forma and intended as a fig leaf to legitimize the clear cut calls for misogyny and discrimination soon to come.

Hillary Clinton has a long history, as a lawyer, as a political spouse and power behind the throne and as a United States Senator of never failing to put the interests of Big Business over the interests of ordinary Americans, and indeed above all other interests save her political ambitions which to me seem so clearly the one high principle Ms. Cinton has always been consistently devoted to.

I oppose Sentaor Clinton's candidacy because of her strong financial ties to Wall Street, her insurance company enrichment program err failed National Health Care program and because I can clearly foresee a Hillary presidency netting us eight more years or paralytic partisan gridlock in Washington and a nightly replay of all new versions of all of the trumped up bullshit scandals of the Bill Clinton years. Near the beginning of this campaign I stated in this post that I believed that nominating Hillary was the only way the Democrats could possibly lose and nothing that has happened since then has caused me to reconsider that conclusion.

It seems to me perfectly reasonable to oppose Ms. Clinton's candidacy on the basis of her policies, past performance and enormous political baggage. And it occurs to me that we will be a lot further along the road to gender equality those Ohio women claim to want when it is safe to o without be regarded as anti-feminist trying to roll back the tide of gender equality.

Not The Oval I Was Expecting To Blacken

I find myself holding and examining my Washington state Primary Election Ballot with considerably more interest and hope than I would have anticipated feeling at this point in this election cycle. I had previously conceived and written of a plan to vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primary (see The Complex Calculus of One Man's Vote). I find that I can't do that.

One thing that many people I respect have agreed on is that what will be needed most in the next President is someone who can work across party and ideological lines to actually get the People's business done, something that just is Not generally happening in the current Administration. And I had been So afraid that the Terry McAwful wing of the Hackocracy was gonna succeed in pushing Hillary, the only Demo who could Lose in November on an Inveitablity path to the ticket, and am thrilled that Obama has staged a decisive Saturday Sweeps across a very diverse bunch of states and has the wind at his back going into the next rounds. And it
begins to look to me as though we may be shaping up to a November choice of Obama vs McCain, Either of whom is a zillion times more likely than any of the other choices in their respective parties to be able to unify the country and work with both sides to get things done.

Which brings me back to my Washington Primary ballot and my decision to blacken a different oval than the one I had decided upon back in October when I was trying to generate some political discussion and started a Ron Paul for President group, just to generate some discussion. And I had thought I would support a long shot candidate as a gesture to his onine supporters who all seemed new to political involvement and genuinely moved by their candidate to become actively involved in the political process, which I quite applaud, even while having great reservations about their candidate and being unpersuaded by their arguments in his favor.

Obama has secured two thirds of Washington's delegates to the Democratic National Convention and party officials have cleary announced that the upcoming primary election will NOT count for any delegates. Meanwhile McCain is leading Huckabee by a whisker and is expected to carry the state but the 18 delegates allocated by the caucus are split among four candidates, including Romney who has already dropped out of the race. The results of the Republican primary will be used to allocate 19 additional delegates and a win for McCain could be critical to his success.

And so with an eye towards a new President who can work with both sides and get things done, I have darkened the oval next to Sen. John McCain--R on my Republican primary ballot. I will drop it off at city hall on my way to work once they are open to receive them next week. And will be anxiously continuing to follow the results. And I will do so, feeling much more hopeful about the future than I had expected to feel at this point.

And So It Begins

Iowa has spoken and the Presidential campaign now kicks into high gear. With the primaries so front loaded we may well be discussing the actual nominees and debating the general before Spring is sprung, and I find I am once again interested in writing about politics.

Those who've read my previous posts already know that I am at heart an Edwards man, though due to a peculiarity in the political process I am planning to take a Republican ballot in the primary and vote for Ron Paul, whom I don't actually support and would Never vote for in the general. (If this is confusing to you click here.) The media seem to be trying to spin Edwards' second place finish in Iowa as the death knell of his campaign (even though he placed ahead of the horrid Hillary whom they are not rushing to write off). But the fat lady isn't even warming up yet so clearly the media is per usual being premature in an attempt to sway the race to their corporate keepers' benefit and I continue to hold out hope of darkening an oval for John in November. But if Obama succeeds in using his bounce from Iowa to win again in New Hampshire, I may well jump right onto his bandwagon and begin flogging him like mad.

As for Huckabee, I will only say that I hope he continues to win and becomes the R's nominee since I am 101% certain that Americans are NOT under any circumstances whatsoever going to elect another Arkansas governor, let alone a frickin' Baptist preacher.

And all of this discussion of the early race quite fails to address what the real end game will be. Yesterday on Blog Catalog, for the first time in ages we had an interesting political thread when momoftwingirls posed the question "Do you think GWB will cancel the election and declare martial law?"

Few if any respondents considered this a likely scenario, but the question did lead us to consider the final outcome of the election. MadameX said that she had actually expected the 'cancel the election and declare martial law'-trick to be pulled last time and that she had not considered the possibility this time around as she is much less interested in the outcome of this one. I replied:

I did expect it in the last election and was not surprised that Ohio turned into another Florida instead. Who knows which state will be the surprise place it all turns out to hinge on but in my observation of the current ruling regime, they seem very much dedicated to the "stick to what worked before" school or totalitarian government. I personally will be shocked if we do Not have another outcome that boils down to The Supremes singing their classic hit "The Republicans Really Won Again" to the tune "Here He Comes Again" in the key of Rove.

And that's the real question, isn't it? Not 'whom will the voters select?' but rather 'how will the powers that be rig the outcome this time?' Since my political interest has been re-awakened I will probably be posting regularly about the horse race on this blog. But honestly, I will be shocked if the person actually selected by the majority of US voters takes the oath next January and moves to Pennsylvania Avenue. That hasn't actually happened in more than a decade.

Will they drink the Koolaid?

The media, which is to say Big Business seems to be doing its damndest to make Hillary Inc. seem inevitable, as no doubt is Terry MacAwful's plan. I have been trying to ignore politics and keep reminding myself that the front runner Last time was dead in the water before New Hampshire and we really won't know until the votes start coming in who they will actually be for. But it does seem like enough Democrats may drink the Koolaid that we will end up following Hillary off a cliff giving us 4 or 8 more years of who knows what awfullness.

But while I have been ignoring political news and blogs, our carnival on The Biggest Obstacle To Electing The Right Presidential Candidate has had a number of entries:


CapitaL eLs

It's Not Ron Paul and It's Not Hillary Clinton

capitalels.blogspot.com/2007/11/its-not-ron-paul-and-its-not-hillary.html


Techfun

Political Gossip Clouds The Issues

blog.techfun.org/political-gossip-clouds-the-issues


What's Wrong Around Us?

wherein Tiffany decries the media culture and voter ignorance


whatswrongaroundus.blogspot.com/2007/11/biggest-obstacle-to-electing-right....

The Thin Red Line

I reply to Tiffany's post

blog.libdrone.org/2007/11/librarians-as-anti-dote-for-media.html

Catholic Inside

Is "voting your faith" even a meaningful concept in today's political climate?

catholicinside.blogspot.com/2007/11/voting-your-faith-is-it-possible-in.htm...

Techfun

Single issue voters are a big part of the problem. This is partly in response to Tiffany's "Too many voters" point.

blog.techfun.org/sacrifice-your-issues

Along the Grey Path

Where have all the investigative journalists gone?

greytheory.blogspot.com/2007/11/he-who-asks-questions-answers-questions.htm...

Sub Lumen

A very in depth analysis of the question

www.sublumen.com/2007/11/biggest-obstacle-to-electing-right.html


After much discussion and much consideration, it has been decided to continue the carnival through the end of the year and plan to do publicity in early January. So if you have a political or personal blog, please do a post with Your take on The Biggest Obstacle and add your link to the thread or email it to me-- libdrone at gmail dot com.

It's Not Ron Paul and It's Not Hillary Clinton

When rockstories suggested we try something different and each blog our own take on

The Biggest Obstacle To Electing The Right Presidential Candidate

I figured this would be another slam-dunk kind of post to write. My first temptation of course is to name Ron Paul as the biggest obstacle. (Ron Paul is THE crack cocaine for authors of political blogs these days; the mere inclusion of the man's name in a post title practically guarantees a blogger a slew of new readers, a bunch of Diggs and a slew of comments both on the blog itself and on Digg and I am as susceptible as the next hack to the temptation to "give 'em what they want" and draw all those eyeballs to my words and ads.) But try as I might, I can not fashion a cogent argument that the Gentleman from Texas is any obstacle at all. America is not going to elect a Libertarian running as a Republican, no matter how many genuinely committed and Internet savvy supporters he can muster.

IMHO, the real effect of the Ron Paul campaign will be the political awakening and activation of those supporters, some of whom will no doubt go on to become involved with other more successful campaigns and perhaps become political players in their own right, in the manner of several currently prominent liberal bloggers who got their starts in the Howard Dean campaign.

My second thought was to cast Hillary Clinton as the biggest obstacle to electing the right President. I quite agree with techfun who has argued that electing Hillary would insure we have another four or eight years of deeply divided government that is primarily focused on political in-fighting and incapable of effectively addressing the myriad real problems we face as a nation. And I yield to no one in the depth and strength of my disdain for Mrs. Clinton. But if I am to be honest, I do not believe that Hillary is electable, and for all the copy she generates and all of the passions she arouses, both negative and positive, I can't honestly say I believe that Hillary is our biggest problem. (She is at most a symptom of the problem or obstacle rather than the obstacle itself.)

So having ruled out the easy and obvious answers, I'm forced to look deeper. I gaze into the mirror over the sink in my bathroom and realize the obstacle is staring me back in the face. The real obstacle to electing the right President lies with the citizens who will cast their votes this week next year rather than with any of the candidates they will blacken an oval or pull a lever for. The real obstacle I believe is that we Americans by and large have lost the ability to speak with and more importantly Listen To people we disagree with.

Whether we listen to Rush Limbaugh or Air America, watch Fox News or PBS, read The Nation or The New Republic and get our political news and world view from Red State or daily Kos, most of our political intelligentsia preach only to the choir and most Americans who care about politics pay attention mostly or exclusively to media (both old and new) that reinforce and re-affirm their convictions and beliefs and actively urge, if not outright require, that they see their political opponents only as enemies, to be fought and battled against and vanquished rather than as fellow citizens who care as deeply as they do about the country we all share and claim to love and want what's best for.

Whether Ron Paul or Hillary Clinton (or any of the other candidates) would make a great President or a terrible President is a question for another debate. But to my thinking it really isn't debatable that we will never be able to agree upon and elect the Right President until we learn again to talk civilly and substantively with people we strongly disagree with and learn to see again that all of us-- liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, red state-ers or blue-- are first and foremost Americans. Our inability to see that and use it as a starting point for trying to understand each other and find a common ground we can share is the biggest obstacle to electing the right Presidential candidate.

Al-Jazeera

Amid the universal refusal by all of the candidates we are told are "electable" to commit to ending the Iraq War debacle as a solid majority of Americans want them to do and the daily positioning and finger pointing and scandal du jour that has too often dominated so much political discourse of late, including I have to admit at times my own, that sometimes those of us who think and write politics lose sight of big picture issues.

Like the fact that 9/11 was caused by Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and not by Iraq and Saddam Hussein. And that the Arab world remains a very troubled and troubling place and one which we Americans seem to pay insufficient attention to, busy as we are desparately defending civil liberties, watching our jobs and incomes off-shored and just trying to survive in Fortress America that the flurry of attention once gained by the then upstart Arabic cable news network Al-Jazeera has largely faded and much foreign affairs coverage related mostly to the posturing of politicians in Washington and Arab global neighbors ignored or treated as a football in the politicos' own complicated game plans.

Which made this 2005 history of the Al-Jazeera news channel that passed under my scanner today timely. A reminder that while we are making a mess of things in Iraq we have made pitifully little progress at coming to understand the huge chunk of the world for whom Al-Jazeera is a primary source of information, a base understanding which I believe is pre-requisite to any serious discussion of addressing the terrorism issue, which would benefit enormously by losing the hyperbolic "War" rhetoric and a shift to focus on effective law enforcement, reasonable rather than excessive security measures, and a serious effort at brokering a workable and lasting peace among the the diverse peoples of the Arabic world and their global neighbors.

It is worth pointing out that had the security measures that were in place and on the books on 9/11/2001 actually been followed, none of the four hijackings would have been successful. The fact that boarding an airplane is now very nearly as invasive and unpleasant an experience as being booked in to jail has made us no safer than had we merely followed the procedures we already had in place. But I will likely be accused of treason for saying so, and never mind that it is an obvious fact.

If you do not speak Arabic, there is an English language version of Al-Jazeera, although I was unable to find specifics about cable/satellite system availability and pricing. There is also an English language version of Al-Jazeera online. It is worth checking out from time to time so as to be aware of how global events are perceived and reported in the Arabic world. For similar reasons I also strongly recommend reading news of the United States in the International coverage of the UK Guardian.

The Corpse Is Still Breathing

To hear the talk around the political blogosphere today you'd think that Barrack Obama had dropped out of the Presidential race and conceded the nomination to Hillary. The postmortems are thick on the ground though a quick check of the Obama 08 site suggests that the campaign is still in business.

Perhaps today's best post comes from blogger Kyle E. Moore on the blog Comments from Left Field. Why Obama Won't Win is an in-depth analysis of the Democratic Presidential Primary. Moore argues that Obama's gift for seeking consensus, finding middle ground and finding ways to work with political opponents would make him an ideal general election candidate with an excellent chance of beating any of the Republicans in November. Unfortunately, Moore also believes that Barrack has zero percent chance of getting the nomination since the partisans who vote in Democratic primaries are furious after 7 years of being ignored and will be hungry for red meat and not conciliation. I honestly don't know how much credence to give this theory, but if Moore is correct Obama is toast.

Blogger Talk Left is also quite pessimistic about Obama, though for very different reasons. The Problem With Obama, according to this blogger is that he is not a fighter. He

refuses to fight for Democratic and progressive values. He holds them of course. But he does not fight for them. He believes in finding "common ground" and, in the process, simply does not fight. He does not work to persuade the persuadable. As a politician fighting for issues, he fails (while perhaps succeeding in burnishing his own image.) If you are committed to Obama, you can be pleased with his political style. If you are committed to Democratic and progressive values, I think you can not be satisfied.

That's a pretty strong condemnation and one I find hard to rebut. And finally, just one more example of today's eulogizing for Barrack, Mike Lux in an excellent diary at Open Left argues the problem with the campaign is that a unique candidate with a great message and new campaigning style is being badly managed by the same old hapless Democratic campaign managers who are So intently running the same old hapless Democratic campaign that they completely fail to utilize their candidate's assets and abilities.

I think I would agree with Lux and Talk Left that Obama desperately needs better management and a campaign that comes out swinging against Hillary, Inc. But I fear that Mr. Moore's analysis is the one that will prevail-- Barrack is just too conciliatory to win the Democratic primary this time out.