After his nomination, Obama shifted his rhetoric to the center on many issues dear to the heart of Democrats. This unexpected change of mind makes it imperative that the Democratic Party stick to its progressive principles by holding a roll-call vote with Senator Clinton on the ballot. Unless the egregious sexism aimed at Clinton in the fight for the nomination vanishes, however, it is unlikely that this will occur.
Politically, progressives usually identify with the Democratic Party, but it was during the journey to the New Hampshire primary that a peculiar aberration from party ideals became impossible to ignore. In the 160th year after the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York, an extraordinarily well-qualified female presidential candidate could not count on even minimal respect from otherwise progressive party officials, campaign staff, or the media.
On the January 7 PBS News Hour, Jim Lehrer smirked as he referred to Hillary Clinton's moment of "weakness" captured in a video clip at a meeting with supporters in a New Hampshire restaurant. Clinton's eyes welled up as she said "This is very personal for me. It's not just political; it's not just public. I see what's happening. We have to reverse it."
Lehrer's dismissive attitude was not all that remarkable. Week after week in his campaign analysis the supposedly progressive Mark Shields unabashedly fawned over Barack Obama, while failing to conceal his contempt for Senator Clinton.
On January 8, the day of the Granite State's primary, when the polls were nearly unanimous in predicting a double-digit win for Obama, he happily exclaimed that he was riding a wave. Even then, talking heads were wondering aloud when Clinton would drop out of the race.
Pundits would later avoid giving full credit to Senator Clinton for her New Hampshire win by calling it "miraculous." That very night, on the PBS News Hour, Mark Shields agreed with a comment by David Brooks chalking up Clinton's win to gender: "I think David's point about gender is crucial. Gender did not work for Hillary Clinton in Iowa. It worked for her in New Hampshire. We know what happened; we don't know why."
As pollsters and pundits scrambled to explain the New Hampshire upset, Jesse Jackson, Jr., national co-chair of Barack Obama's campaign, went on a rampage. The day after the primary, the grim-faced Jackson's spin on Clinton's emotional moment in the New Hampshire restaurant was extraordinarily sexist: he accused Clinton of using emotion to attract voters in the Granite State, emotion that she had failed to show over national catastrophes, such as Katrina. There was no immediate outcry from Democratic Party leaders or the mainstream media about these sexist remarks.
By then it was clear that Barack Obama owned the the left wing of the party, fired up by the netroots -- hundreds of thousands of political junkies swarming Internet message boards 24/7 in aggressive support of their idol.
The netroots, along with various social networking sites, redefined the progressive movement to suit its own purposes: any hint of racism, real or imagined, in the 2008 presidential campaign was taboo, but it was open season for the most atrocious misogyny.
In the meantime, sexist attacks against Hillary Clinton continued unabated. MSNBC suspended David Shuster for his on-air remark accusing the Clinton campaign of "pimping" Chelsea. Afterward many of Obama's online supporters jumped to Shuster's defense while verbally assaulting Clinton and her family.
By the time Barack Obama claimed the title of presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party on June 3 in St. Paul, Minnesota, he boasted only a narrow lead in delegates. Clinton led in the popular vote. Nevertheless, the same pundits who had been trying for months to force Clinton out of the race railed at her for taking the time to thank her supporters for her South Dakota win that night instead of immediately conceding the nomination to Obama.
It took feminist icon Gloria Steinem to tell the disheartening truth : "No candidate in history has been asked to step down by the media. She (Clinton) was."
After Clinton made her concession speech, and the dust from the primary had somewhat settled, Melissa McEwan and Maureen McCluskey published a two-part article titled Destroying Hillary Clinton . This article documented how the left, also known as the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, mined the right's smears from the '90s for its prolonged orgy of Hillary-bashing to secure the nomination for their favorite, Barack Obama.
Since first declaring himself the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party in early June, Obama has shifted from left to center on almost every major issue that once endeared him to progressives, including abortion, public financing, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), faith-based initiatives, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), gun control, the death penalty, tapping the nation's oil reserves, and offshore drilling. Obama's sudden shifts have disappointed formerly unwavering supporters.
Moreover, Obama has given his opponents the same ammunition they used so successfully against John Kerry in 2004. Here's how the conservative blog RedState described Obama's sudden betrayal of his left-wing base: "Once he won the Democratic nomination, though, Obama started moving so quickly to re-brand himself as a 'centrist' that you'd be forgiven getting whiplash watching him move."
By abandoning his earlier positions -- in the spirit of whatever it takes to win -- Barrack Obama, the party's presumptive standard bearer, effectively tossed aside the progressive banner, already soiled by the unrelenting sexism directed at Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, hopes grow dim for an open convention, conducted according to Democratic principles, that would require Clinton's name on the ballot and a roll-call vote. The outrageous sexism directed toward Clinton during the race for the nomination shows that this is unlikely to occur. Instead, Democrats are trampling the discarded progressive banner on their march to a carefully staged media event in Denver, expected to culminate with Obama's coronation before 75,000 onlookers at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium.