The emails started to fly around yesterday in the late afternoon with the urgent subject line, "NARAL ENDORSES OBAMA!" In pained tones the senders, my circle of Hillary supporters, expressed their shock that one of the preeminent pro-choice organizations, one that they have supported in good times and bad, had double-crossed them in the eleventh hour of the presidential campaign.
I live in Westchester County, NY, this is Hillary country. I am an ardent Hillary supporter but nothing like many of my Hillary friends here who are often fifteen, twenty, thirty or more years older. They built the feminist movement in this country, and they fought for my right to choose, or what's left of it, today. Hillary's campaign is as much about them as it is about her, and today NARAL betrayed them as much as they did her.
One of the most frustrating and shocking aspects of the reporting of Hillary's campaign has been the cynical reporting of what Hillary means to her supporters. How is it possible that she raised so much money from small donors when she asked in March and April? The answer is simple, because they believe in her and in her campaign! In begrudging fairness to the media, Hillary's own campaign didn't seem to understand or appreciate the depth of these feelings either until it was too late. But the depth of pride and ownership that women across demographics feel for Hillary are very real. And now, here were my Hillary friends, with tens of their friends copied, surging into my inbox with their messages:
"Disgraceful!" Barbara
I want to crawl up in the fetal position but instead I have to go report as chair of the League of Women Voters Nominating Committee. I just tried calling NARAL and the office is closed." Alisa
"I will never give another penny or any support or advocacy to or for the organization." Hannah
In her announcement on Huffington Post yesterday, the president of NARAL, Nancy Keenan, wrote that the decision to announce their endorsement while the primary competition between two pro-choice candidates is ongoing is because, "for the sake of the reproductive-rights movement, we need to put any perceived differences behind us, and get to work putting Sen. Obama in the White House."
Really, the entire future of the pro-choice movement rests on spitting in the eye of the strongest woman candidate in the history of the country, rather than waiting three more weeks to put whatever organizational muscle it has left after today to work for Obama, that this sliver of times will make the difference between winning and losing in November? It is unimaginable that the NAACP would have pulled the rug out from under it's own constituency like this if the roles had been reversed. African American supporters of the NAACP have waited a lifetime for a presidential nominee who looks like them - and so have women.
Many last century membership organizations are in a panic as they watch their donor bases age and flail around trying to attract young people with newer causes to support. NARAL may be feeling this heat as well. I would be happy to tell you about far more graceful ways to enter the Connected Age than scorning your core constituency.
I am old enough to know that your fight is important but young enough not to have laid the cornerstone of organizations like yours - but I promise you that just as you're not there for me today, I won't be there for you tomorrow. My friends Hannah and Alisa and Barbara, their sisters, girlfriends, mothers, daughters and cousins have volunteered, donated money, made calls, marched, worn buttons, buttonholed their friends and family, fought valiantly against the relentless attacks of the far right, and are the constant stalwarts of every woman's right to choose, and they deserve so much more respect than this.
Republican Native American Woman for Obama.....
So if you want to talk about "finger in the eye", start there. It's the height of delerious, operatic gall for any of her partisans to expect the time of day from NARAL after that.
No male politician is going to be as ready to support feminist causes if the political reward is a female politician lying and calling him a misogynist anyway. Hillary's campaign ethics have done immense harm to the feminist cause.
Obama's supporters being accused of being cult worshippers by this lot? LOL!
As a male, I viewed Hillary Clintons gender to be a very important *positive* factor. I saw it, initially, to be a signal about how far liberal values and the women's cause had gotten in the US, and I was excited by the prospect of having a woman in the White House.
However, I found that the candidate itself was lacking. Clinton ran a fiscally unsound, strategically lame, visionary stale, and quite surprisingly destructive campaign which, compared to Obama's, simply seemed unworthy. And now, Clinton has all but lost. NARAL saw that and instead of following Clinton on her Quixotic quest they broke off and said "enough". Yes, enough.
I believe feminism is poorly served by electing a poorer candidate just because she is a woman -- affirmative action is a good thing in many cases, but hardly for President of the United States.
Why would rational people demand organizations put the nation ahead of Hillary? Like calling somebody a Judas for choosing to support the candidate he deemed the best option rather than letting his loyalty to Hillary override his better judgment, you make yourselves look petty and selfish every time you rail against those making decisions for valid political reasons rather than support a woman whose goals weren't as good for the nation.
If the NAACP supported Obama "just because he's black, and that is such a huge appeal in the eyes of our voters who think of him as their vicarious victory over our society's injustices that we don't dare cast our support for the best candidate", would you think that was a worthy reason?
So many Hillary supporters out there basically admit to emotional investment in her campaign--and how you don't think of her potential for being a successful president, but rather of her potential for being a successful victory of your little feminist agenda. It sounds just as stupid to say that the greatest criterion for presidency is the obove reason regarding women and feminism.
And that's why the rest of us consider Hillary's supporters brainwashed. We think them delusional because they deny facts they don't like.
No doubt, but pride goeth before the fall, as the saying goes.
I could never in my life, ever be proud of anyone, male or female, who voted to let George Bush invade Iraq. When I think of the thousands of young Americans, god knows what the number is now, who died and who are maimed for the rest of their lives---when I think of the hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of Iraqi human beings killed---geez, what is the matter with people? That they would so adaantly support this slaughter and killing, that they would so adamantly also support a candidate who blithly declared she would annhilate Iran , with nukes, to protect Israel, when she voted to let Bush do it again in Iran if he chose---have Hillary supporters become a national movement of psychopathic, warmongering followers who cannot sit down and reflect upon what it means, in their name , to kill and murder and destroy another country on lies and that their candidate voted to let it happen and to make it worse, fully supported George Bush's war folly for two or more years after that until it was evident it was going awry.
What has happened to humanity that they can so casually put that slaughter out of their minds..., while teaching their daughters about the first woman president?
Hearts, souls gone missing.
This seems, once again, to point up the likelihood that Hillary's supporters are utterly disconnected from issues and utterly disconnected from the Democratic party and its values and goals. They are ONLY connected to Hillary. When HIllary smiles, they smile. When Hillary is cross, they are cross. And when Hillary is victimized, they are victimaized.
It must be sad to be a member of a personality cult that constantly places you in a state of victimhood.
It will be interesting to see the consequences of the revenge which they appear to be plotting. Like all other supporters of Senator Clinton who are promising November mischief, it seems that they are willing to relinquish all of the rights and all of the issues that they have claimed to stand for and support for the sake of throwing some sort of pre-adolescent temper tantrum.
I hope that display of temper is satisfying enough to them that when they lose their reproductive rights, and lose access to contraception, and when the babies they are being forced to have are growing up and being drafted into the GOP's 100-year Pan-Islamic Crusade, that they can look back with a sense of true pride on their actions.
And it would be the **ultimate** selfishness for women who no longer have a personal concern with that issue to threaten the rest of us.
Anyone who would do that puts a lie to any claim of feminism. Or decent humanity.
.
I regret the time I have spent ensuring my sons have a healthy, partnership view of women as their colleagues, friends, lovers and equal human beings. Pardon me, boys; I hadn't realized this was all-out-war and that you are the sworn enemy.
Do not support women's rights, my sons! Your engagement in the cause is not welcome. You made the horrible, fatal mistake of being born with penises--you are flawed and unworthy.
Hillary supporters should remember that it is hard to respect their rabid and destructive perspective.
I haven't given to NARAL in years (I haven't liked their pushy phone calls), but now I will!!! Perhaps NARAL will have more support than ever!!!
(I am curious about one thing: how do Hillary supporters continue to respect Hillary after her blatant lies about her Bosnia trip? CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN THIS? ALLISON FINE??)
There is SO MUCH wrong with this statement, where to begin?
This endorsement is NOT about women vs. men, nor is it about white vs. black. It is about which candidate NARAL felt was going to be the democratic nominee. It is clear to anyone who is not deluded that Obama will be that person. And as he is also an unequivocal supporter of women's reproductive rights, NARAL was "spitting in the eye" of no one.
NARAL =/= the NAACP. However, if both candidates had almost identical records with respect to the issues that the NAACP hlds dear, and it was clear that Clinton would be nominee, there would be no issue in them supporting her at any time after this became clear.
Your statement is anti-feminist in the extreme.
"Many last century membership organizations are in a panic as they watch their donor bases age and flail around trying to attract young people with newer causes to support. NARAL may be feeling this heat as well. I would be happy to tell you about far more graceful ways to enter the Connected Age than scorning your core constituency."
And if their core constituency were a little more limber in the core and willing to be flexible, they could see this. If they don't, they won't be around much longer. They'll be replaced or made extinct.
"Really, the entire future of the pro-choice movement rests on squabbling about vote counts in Florida and changing rules and moving goal posts until the entire party is in disarray. Let Hillary continue to mount her losing campaign right up to the convention and then host a harmonizing floor fight for the nomination.
Please. Feminism doesn't mean only voting for a female. Sometimes it means building a coalition that includes EVERYONE.
Even the headline of this article is designed to promote hard feelings.
Your argument is fundamentally flawed but you are absolutely correct. AMERICA deserve a president who will wear the mantle of leadership with grace, wisdom. judgement, and dignity.
As a Black woman, if Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson were running for president (as they have), should I support them simply because they are Black? (I didn't).
In addition, many of the comments here make me sad to be a Democrat and a feminist - since when did personal attacks become the weapon of choice for the left. I'll leave that to Rush and his crowd.
BUT, even more to the point, what if it were a pro-choice woman with whom you didn't agree? Is the feminist party line to stand with my sisters right or wrong??
Condi Rice is pro-choice. If it were Condi vs Obama, let's have a show of posts, where would you stand?
It just so happens that Obama is a man of color who black people feel will best represent their interests for the next 8 years.
And there are loads of white people, women, young people, old people, rich people, and poor people who feel exactly the same way.
Because when you stop supporting a non-profit, guess who suffers? The people the non-profit hopes to help.