...not that he ever started it.
Senator Barack Obama called for a stop to the name-calling and race-baiting that has come to mark this campaign. According to The Politico , Obama said :You have seen a tone on the Democrat[ic] side of the campaign that has been unfortunate. I want to stipulate a couple of things. I may disagree with Senator Clinton and Senator Edwards on how to get there, but we share the same goals. We all believe in civil rights. We all believe in equal rights. They are good people. They are patriots....
I don't want the campaign at this stage to degenerate to so much tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, that we lose sight of why we are doing this."
Obama also said "Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have historically been on the right side of civil rights issues. They care about the African American community.… That is something I am convinced of. I want Americans to know that is my assessment."
That's Barack: being Presidential.
Monday, January 14, 2008
One Feminist's Perspective on the 2008 Election
By all rights, I should be a Hillary Clinton supporter. I'm white, in my late 30's, mother of two, educated, pro-choice, and was, up until recently, a member of EMILY's List. I'm a soccer Mom, happily married, and live just about an hour south of DC. If forced, I declare myself Protestant, though I'm not a Sunday church go-er and consider myself more spiritual than religious. I was raised to believe that there is nothing a woman can't do and since I heard the word, I have categorized myself as a feminist.
When it became clear (and honestly, when wasn't it?) that Mrs. Clinton was going to run for President, I knew that I would support her. Come on, a woman as leader of the free world? What woman-like-me wouldn't go for that? My knee jerk reaction was, "Go, Hillary!" But there was something niggling at the back of my mind.
I hate to go backwards. I detest the idea that people running for President aren't allowed the mistakes of their pasts. And yet there are certain mistakes that belie candidates' internal compasses and these mistakes, I believe, are fair game. With Mrs. Clinton, her conduct during her husband's pecadillos is, for me, one of these watershed moments.
As arguably one of the most visible women in the world, Hillary Clinton had a choice when Bill screwed around. She could stand up for herself and, by extension, women around the world or she could stand by her man and essentially prove that women deserve to be treated with little or no respect. She chose the latter and sent a message to men everywhere that they could screw around and to their women that we have to take it and not only shut up, but vehemently defend them.
Several feminists and feminist organizations have looked past Mrs. Clinton's stand-by-your man example and into an endorsement of her campaign. I love that they looked past this traditional, "shut up and take it for the the good of the marriage" role, championed her as a feminist, as Gloria Steinem has done on the New York Times Op Ed page, and then refused to cry foul when Mrs. Clinton essentially won New Hampshire because she got weepy when discussing how hard it is to have perfect hair and stay perky on the campaign trail. In fact, when writing in the New York Times on January 8, Ms. Steinem made the case that, ". . . Hillary Clinton could (not) have used Mr. Obama's public style - or Bill Clinton's either - without being considered too emotional by Washington pundits." It is convenient to be able to make such a comment in print and then overlook the national hubbub over the "mist" that won New Hampshire.
My point here, of course, is that championing Mrs. Clinton as a feminist and then overlooking such blatantly un-feminist actions is, at best, hypocritical. I can hear the old guard now, scolding me because I didn't live through the 60's and was only a babe in the 70's when they were fighting for the equal rights I now enjoy. While I appreciate their vision, I think it has left them with blinders. My point is that we shouldn't support the wrong woman just because she is the only one running.
When I went shopping for a new feminist candidate, I found Barack Obama. Coincidentally, he has also been called a feminist by Gloria Steinem on the OpEd page of the New York Times. He has a stellar record on reproductive rights issues; a plan for addressing math and science education, which is an area of concern for girls; an economic plan with focuses on expanding child care tax credits, providing a living wage, and job training; and a platform of promoting responsible fatherhood.
So, thanks Gloria, et al., for your input, but I'll be voting for Barack in my state's primary. He's one man I can both stand by and endorse.
When it became clear (and honestly, when wasn't it?) that Mrs. Clinton was going to run for President, I knew that I would support her. Come on, a woman as leader of the free world? What woman-like-me wouldn't go for that? My knee jerk reaction was, "Go, Hillary!" But there was something niggling at the back of my mind.
I hate to go backwards. I detest the idea that people running for President aren't allowed the mistakes of their pasts. And yet there are certain mistakes that belie candidates' internal compasses and these mistakes, I believe, are fair game. With Mrs. Clinton, her conduct during her husband's pecadillos is, for me, one of these watershed moments.
As arguably one of the most visible women in the world, Hillary Clinton had a choice when Bill screwed around. She could stand up for herself and, by extension, women around the world or she could stand by her man and essentially prove that women deserve to be treated with little or no respect. She chose the latter and sent a message to men everywhere that they could screw around and to their women that we have to take it and not only shut up, but vehemently defend them.
Several feminists and feminist organizations have looked past Mrs. Clinton's stand-by-your man example and into an endorsement of her campaign. I love that they looked past this traditional, "shut up and take it for the the good of the marriage" role, championed her as a feminist, as Gloria Steinem has done on the New York Times Op Ed page, and then refused to cry foul when Mrs. Clinton essentially won New Hampshire because she got weepy when discussing how hard it is to have perfect hair and stay perky on the campaign trail. In fact, when writing in the New York Times on January 8, Ms. Steinem made the case that, ". . . Hillary Clinton could (not) have used Mr. Obama's public style - or Bill Clinton's either - without being considered too emotional by Washington pundits." It is convenient to be able to make such a comment in print and then overlook the national hubbub over the "mist" that won New Hampshire.
My point here, of course, is that championing Mrs. Clinton as a feminist and then overlooking such blatantly un-feminist actions is, at best, hypocritical. I can hear the old guard now, scolding me because I didn't live through the 60's and was only a babe in the 70's when they were fighting for the equal rights I now enjoy. While I appreciate their vision, I think it has left them with blinders. My point is that we shouldn't support the wrong woman just because she is the only one running.
When I went shopping for a new feminist candidate, I found Barack Obama. Coincidentally, he has also been called a feminist by Gloria Steinem on the OpEd page of the New York Times. He has a stellar record on reproductive rights issues; a plan for addressing math and science education, which is an area of concern for girls; an economic plan with focuses on expanding child care tax credits, providing a living wage, and job training; and a platform of promoting responsible fatherhood.
So, thanks Gloria, et al., for your input, but I'll be voting for Barack in my state's primary. He's one man I can both stand by and endorse.
Republicans Have More Sex Than Democrats - Playboy And UPI.Com
This is a test of the Sexual Broadcast System...
I'm serious. That's what the study reads and it means that Democrats, with all of the worries of the American World on their shoulders, just aren't as horny as they should be, whereas Republicans, carring only about bombing the enemy, have more time to get sexual.
Look, I'm a Democrat, but the study doesn't speak for me. Playboy commissioned the study, which also reports...
that it was done by pollster Frank Luntz, conducted exclusively for Playboy magazine, and found that 25 percent of all Republicans and 35 percent of all Democrats have had more than 10 sexual partners in their lifetime.
The survey of 900 registered U.S. voters between the ages of 18 and 65, all of whom are very likely to vote in the 2008 presidential election, also found, on average, Republicans say they were 18.4 years old when they first had sex, Independents say 17.6 and Democrats say 17.5, the survey said.
Fifty-five percent of people who attend church every week consider themselves to be "sexually adventurous," while 51 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats have watched pornography with their sexual partners.
Americans belonging to both parties say they are more turned on by intelligence than by physical appearance, yet 23 percent of all Republicans and 24 percent of all Democrats would "definitely" or "probably" say yes to a one-night stand in the oval office with a president they found physically and sexually attractive.
Now if you compare that with the recent (as of this writing) ABC polls showing women preferring Senator Obama over Senator Clinton for president -- even the person who made Clinton cry -- you can draw some obvious conclusions.
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