From a national women's media training to my local women's book club, from exchanges among long-time feminist activists to conversations with my feminist son, I hear a buzz about why so many feminists are deciding to vote for Barack Obama. Count me among them.
Almost without exception, we'd love to see a woman president. Anyone who thinks gender doesn't matter hasn't seen Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin or Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton before a room full of women hungry for solutions to low pay, unfair treatment and lack of time to pee, much less care for loved ones. To paraphrase Eleanor Holmes Norton, we're well aware that the under-representation of women in political positions has nothing to do with talent or merit. A woman in the highest job would inspire many more women to push against the barriers. And we're outraged at the sexist treatment of Hillary throughout the media.
But we know the Big Boys have also excluded people of color of both genders from the halls of power, and constructed a massive set of racial roadblocks and indignities. We won't allow ourselves to be pigeon-holed into choosing which matters more, sexism or racism. Both hurt women. Both profit the Big Boys and allow them to maintain the status quo. Justice matters.
In Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, voters have a choice between two smart, capable and energetic candidates, either of whom would be far preferable to the current occupier of the White House who has made our nation an occupier in Iraq. Both stand for many of the changes we want to see, including fair pay, living wages, workers' right to organize, and new standards like paid sick days and family leave insurance, so family values don't end at the workplace door.
So what's tipped so many feminists to Obama? For some, it was when the Clintons began treating him as women are treated -- patronizing him as merely a "good speaker," trivializing his accomplishments, minimizing the importance of his early judgment and risk-taking in opposing the war in Iraq, and using surrogates to demonize his morality.
For me and many others, the key attraction is Obama's vision that people need to be eager, desirous for and participants in the change we want to see (the very strength the Clintons either don't get or deliberately misstate). Barack Obama doesn't just make people feel hopeful about the possibility of change -- he inspires them to become part of that change, makes them feel it's the only way we'll get there. And in doing so, he's motivating the base, reaching independent and swing voters, and perhaps most important, inspiring young people and many undecided-whether-or-not-to-vote voters -- people most affected by injustice who often feel their votes, and their lives, don't matter in elections where money has so much sway.
This public mobilization is precisely what Hillary failed to do with health care reform in 1992. She owns that failure but not the reason for it.
As long as money determines elections, we won't have the perfect candidate. Many of us wish the two leading candidates took stronger stands, like Edwards and Kucinich have, against the role of lobbyists and corporate greed and the continuation of poverty. As activists, we know that whoever wins will be subject to huge pressure from the Big Boys and will go only so far as organized movements of people demand that they go. It may take a president to push through a law, but it takes a movement to say, "Ignore us at your peril."
I believe Barack Obama has the best chance of helping to galvanize that movement and to stay connected with it.
Ellen Bravo is a long-time feminist activist and author who teaches women's studies at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her most recent book is Taking on the Big Boys, or Why Feminism is Good for Families, Business and the Nation.
Yes, yes, he can do no wrong, she can do no right. He is a good and kindly leader, she is a heartless robot with no human feelings and no political will other than selfishness. He will lead us out of the wilderness, she just want to be one of the good ol boys.
That's still my view. I don't give a damn if a candidate is male, female or, for that matter, purple with pink polkadots. Thus, Hillary gets no credit from me for being of my sex, any more than Barack gets demerits for being of another color.
Based on his policies and passion for them, I was an Edwards supporter. Now that the media-contrived field is down to two essentially corporate Dems, we get to choose the guy with more money from Wall Street or the gal with more money from defense profiteers.
I'll vote tomorrow for Barack, being unable to support another Clinton after the first gave gave us NAFTA, PNTR for China, media conglomeration and the death of financial regulation. All Shrub had to do to complete the ruin of the middle class was squander trillions on imperial misadventures and further tax cuts for the ultra-rich.
Say anything, do anything to get elected...surprise! surprise!
Typical Washinton Politician.
Obama - 63 pledged delegates
Clinton - 48 pledged delegates
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http://www.wciv.com/news/stories/0108/491160.html
Clinton 28%
Obama 43%
Check out NY on the Fund race website and plug in a few zip codes, 14603, 11215,11109,10012,11205....
Look at all of the NY'ers supporting Obama. Gee. Isn't that HRC's "homestate"??
If Hillary becomes the first female President, the lesson young women will learn from this is that in order to get ahead in life, the most important thing to do is to pick the right husband.
It is much better for the cause of feminism if the first female President is one who gets there on her own.
He doesn't speak for me!
I stand for truth. And I am behind Hillary. Deep in my gut, I know without a doubt, that she is the most qualified, competent candidate we have to successfully govern our country.
Her administration would never have gone to war in Iraq. She thought that the threat of force was necessary for Saddam to comply with the weapon inspections.
I wish that she had voted against the war, but it is all so much more complicated than that.
The Clintons deserve much more respect, it is sickening how everyone blames them for everything and makes them their scapegoat.
Bill got too frustrated. He knows Hillary is much more qualified than Barack at this time. The Clintons know what it takes to run the country, and they know that Barack does not know how to at this time. Yet he gets away with saying that he would be perfect, but it is an illusion. Barack will make mistakes too, all leaders, and all Presidents do. An Obama administration would be slow and awkward getting to it's feet. They would have to learn all the ropes from scratch.
This is best demonstrated in the debates. Hillary is undeniably the most qualified and competent at this time. Obama doesn't really know what he's talking about too often. I have plenty of inspiration in my life. I don't want another inexperienced president. If there's anything I've learned in the last 7 years it's that speeches and rhetoric mean nothing, proven competence means everything.
Please see what is truly important. I would consider voting for Obama later, but he is not ready, or truly qualified to lead our country.
I am inspired by the person who is truly qualified, and who has been so unfairly mistreated.
Hillary inspires me! True Proven Competency!
I just hope that truth and justice prevail, and we will not once again lose to an inaccurate understanding of the truth.
Bush should just let everyone know he's picked Hillary as his successor & notified the Diebold company & network of corrupt delegates to make it happen already. Save everybody some time & money. Those lobbyists. So successful in their methods to boost corrupt politicians to the top. Edwards didn't have a shot.
The only hope for Obama is to make sure it's an undisputed landslide in all of the other states not participating in the cheat machine and to make sure every polling site in the "questionable" states are watched carefully by both camps' representatives.
Don't think it can happen here folks? It did, and it does, and this election is no exception. In this election though, the opportunity to catch it has never been higher. We should all take it.
Electability is no longer an issue. HRC now appears to be electable to all sides. I give her a thumbs up for getting history's greatest cheaters to help her in pulling it off. Legitimacy of the electoral process? That's the cancer that has eroded our democracy from the beginning. We now have a shot to truly elect the majority choice against cheats. If we don't take it now we might as well give democracy it's RIP, and call us what we really are, United Corporations of America.
Don't believe she's part of the Republican power machine? Ask NY rank & file democrats, or Ann Coulter.
Because so much that has transpired has gone like this:
"well lady - you are woman - and now that it looks like you've been vetted for 20 years (because for a woman it has to be like this) - and have the credentials of a First Lady (will use this as White House experience) - AND your husband was President (this will give you credentials)- and it looks like you can hold a political seat, like NY (we've put you in a place where your husband has high approval ratings) - well lady you just might be worthy of running as a viable female Presidential candidate"
WOW, talk about how sexist is this?? And women are following along with this thinking, picking the good part - her time as Bill Clinton's wife as reason to vote for her, and forgetting to look at the big picture of HOW she got from Point A to Point D.
If I was a woman, I'd feel humiliated, as man I feel manipulated. And that is the key MANIPULATION - that's on the tip of many people's tongue. Manipulator in Chief, yeah those "women are manipulator" . I really don't want people in the Pentagon saying or thinking this in a time of WAR.
Now, as a man, I look at Kathleen Siebelious, Governor of Kansas, and say too myself, this is a viable Woman Presidential candidate someday. This is a woman in whose actions and history, Hillary should have been. There are many woman out their that stand apart, because they stand alone. Men have had to stand alone as President, why shouldn't we expect the same from a woman.
http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com
It is clear that most Democrats understand that Senator Obama is the one candidate that can beat any of the Republicans because of his stand against the war.
Say whatever you want but this illegal war is going to be the deciding factor for the Republicans, and to send someone to run against them that also voted to give Bush the power and authority, to send our young people to hell is plain crazy and if you think they are not going to use it, you really are.
Thank you MoveOn, for having the courage to stand tall in our greatest hour of need.
To elect Barack Obama is to choose a new direction, set a new course - to steer America toward a better place, better for women as well as men, better for us all.
Rory Kennedy, a documentary filmmaker, won an Emmy for her production and direction of "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib."
Times are far too dark, the price of failure too steep and the road ahead too perilous for us to vote on identity politics. I would love to see a woman be president. I would love to see an African American be president. But right now, what I would love most is to elect the best person for the job.
I believe that person is Sen. Barack Obama. As a leader, he has inspired generations of Americans to look beyond reductive categories like gender or race. Instead, he calls on us to think past our own individual interests, to envision a world that is better for every person in it.
Like Senator Clinton, I have no doubt of Senator Obama's commitment to the issues I care about. But, his unique ability to unify this country and transcend partisan gridlock means that we can finally get something done.
In my years making documentaries, I have traveled to remote regions, from small villages in South America, to townships in South Africa, to the hollows of Appalachia. Every trip, every film, I meet people who still keep photographs of my family on their walls. They cry when they meet me, simply because they were touched by my father, Robert Kennedy. In part, this is because my father supported policies and legislation that helped the disenfranchised. But it is also, and perhaps more importantly, because they felt that my father understood their pain. Senator Obama has that quality too. He has an open heart and an energizing spirit.
Recently, my mother, Ethel Kennedy, said of Obama: "I think he feels it. He feels it just like Bobby did. He has the passion in his heart. He's not selling you. It's just him."
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Two fine choices, one clear decision - Obama
Last Monday, I was very moved to see my uncle, Sen. Edward Kennedy, and my cousin, Caroline Kennedy, publicly endorse Sen. Barack Obama. I thought their statements of support were brave, intelligent and responsible. Given the importance of this election, and the remarkable strength of our candidates, it's not an easy decision for anyone looking to cast a vote for a new direction in this country.
Sen. Hillary Clinton is a truly remarkable leader. She has given an enormous amount to our country as a public servant and to my family as a friend. Not only does she stand ready to be president, but she would be the first woman to hold the highest office in the land.
All that makes her very appealing. As a woman, a mother, and feminist, I can fully appreciate the symbolic power of a woman in the Oval Office. I have dedicated my life to making documentaries, many of which focus on women's issues. I would love to have my daughters see a female president in our lifetimes. And still, that is not enough of a reason for me to vote for Senator Clinton.
I empathize with Senator Clinton. In her run for president, she has been forced to walk a difficult line. She is scrutinized not only for her political positions, but also for her clothing, hair and make-up. When she is tough, she is called cold, when she is emotional, she is labeled weak. It can't be easy. I have an enormous amount of respect for the way she has handled this near-impossible balancing act. And still, that is not enough of a reason for me to vote for her.
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