Donna Darko

The backlash against the misogyny picks up steam. (h/t Tennessee Guerilla Women)

59% of Clinton supporters will not vote for Obama in the general while 45% of Obama supporters will not vote for Clinton. If Obama gets the nod, 36% of Clinton supporters will vote for Obama and if Clinton gets the nod, 51% of Obama supporters will vote for Clinton.

Hillary is getting 55% of the female vote, 45% of the male, and the reverse is true for Obama, so the difference between those who will and will not vote for each candidate, 14-15%, is related to sexism not racism. The 45% who will not vote for Clinton is also related to sexism because West Virginians are mostly white and probably wouldn’t not support Clinton for racial reasons.

Taylor Marsh:

WomenCount PAC plans to run the following full-page, front section “open letter” in USA Today and other newspapers in the coming days, and they need your support. To make this full-page placement a reality, they need your support today and through the end of this week. Please see nycvoter’s post for more information on what you can do to help get this message out.

Not So Fast…
Hillary’s Voice is OUR Voice,
And She’s Speaking for All of Us

We are the women of this nation. We are rich and poor, young and old, married with kids, married without kids, single moms, gay, straight, and widowed. We are every color. We are of every religion. We are from all political parties.

We love our country. Now more than ever, so much of what we cherish is at risk – our homes and our health, our safety and our planet, our children and our values. We raise our voices, in one glorious, defiant chorus, to tell the world that these times demand strength, courage and vision.

And that is why we stand united in our unwavering support for Hillary Clinton.

As Senator Clinton campaigns, she speaks with our voice. She carries our hopes, dreams and aspirations with her and transforms them into policies that can make our nation great again.

We know that Hillary will not rest until every American has health insurance, every child can start school ready to learn, every young person has a chance to attend college, every worker will have a safe job at decent wages. She will not rest until our men and women in the military receive the care they deserve and America foreign policy is grounded in human rights and military strength.

We know this because we have seen her do this — at home and around the world.

We cannot stand by as a cacophony of voices demand that she step aside to smooth the road for another.

Women risked all they held dear to make this country great. They put their lives on the line in all our quests for justice – from Abigail Adams to Sojourner Truth to Susan B. Anthony to Eleanor Roosevelt to Fannie Lou Hamer to Barbara Jordan to Dolores Huerta to Hillary herself.

We know that when women vote, Democrats win. Now it is the responsibility of our party to hear our voices and count all our votes.

We want Hillary to stay in this race until every vote is cast, every vote is counted, and we are convinced our voices are heard.

WE SUPPORT HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT

Riverdaughter: Tuesday: Look over there!

Speaking of US, it turns out that 64% of us want Clinton to hang in there. I interpret that to mean that voters want to have options. Maybe they are hoping that Oregon sets the record straight and stops Obama. Maybe the Obamagic is wearing off and Clinton is looking like a great candidate. Even John Edwards said as much. That reminds me of something else that Taylor mentioned: Republicans are looking on this with awe because they can’t believe that we are giving them the weakest candidate this fall. She mentions Rush Limbaugh specifically at being astonished at how the Democratic party is about to self destruct by passing up the stronger candidate. I don’t have much to add to that correct assessment except that there is no way I could ever contemplate voting for Clinton as Obama’s VP. If there has to be a unity ticket, she must be at the top. It looks more and more like there will have to be a unity ticket as much as I hate the idea. That would get him the experience he needs and he can run in 2016. It’s the only viable option and would be a killer ticket. Any other combination of Obama on the ticket is a deal breaker. But the concept is so sensible that we can expect Donna and Nancy to shoot it down.

So, let’s cheer her on to finish out the primary season strongly. The media won’t be satisfied unless she wins 90% of the voters in West Viginia but I suspect that the supers will be happy if she just does very well.

Dear Supers: The party has no one to blame but itself

There is no way for Obama to win this fall. *HE* has successfully thrown most of the base under the bus and many of us want nothing to do with him. Let me repeat that: HE and his campaign surrogates have disowned us. Not the media. Obama. He is the very epitome of a failed politician when he alienates the voters he needs the most. I don’t hear Hillary doing anything so suicidal.

Don’t go trying to pin this one on Hillary. She’s doing what she is entitled to do, what no one would deny Ted Kennedy, which is why you guys exist in the first place. And her case is much stronger than Kennedy’s in 1980. With FL and MI, they are essentially tied. It is her right and obligation to the voters, especially in Florida and Michigan, to take this fight as far as it will go. If it tears the party apart, she will not be the cause of that. You can’t suppress 2.3 million voters and expect everyone to kiss and make up.

You know and we know what will happen this fall. The AA voters will get diluted, as always. The states that Obama won by caucus will go Republican, as always. And the states that you desperately needed, like Florida and Michigan will probably also fall into Republican hands. Now, I don’t know what’s going on in the party behind closed doors but if you have a choice. You can grow a pair and tell the Deaniacs to stick it where the sun don’t shine or you can face the voters this fall and have a weakling at the top of the ticket. And if he goes down, he may take the rest of you with him.

Time to speak up.

ABC:

64 percent of Democrats in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say Clinton should remain in the race. Even among Obama’s supporters, 42 percent say so.

It reflects a rejection of the notion that the drawn-out contest will hurt the party’s prospects. Seventy-one percent think it’ll either make no difference in November (56 percent) or actually help the party (15 percent).

Listen to the voters.

LA Times:

Futurist and former Clinton spiritual advisor Jean Houston says Clinton wasn’t feminine enough. That she failed to master the female approach.

If you ever doubted there was sexism in ‘08:

Women in Politics: The Same As It Ever Was

Women in Politics: Supposedly Liberal Blogger Edition

I haven’t watched this yet but a scan looked good:

by Geeklove!

by Katha Pollitt, The Nation

Tell me the backlash against feminism isn’t crackling up a storm. I try to keep my eye on the big picture and the bottom line: education, employment, autonomy, power.

But sometimes I think we’re truly going backward, as Republican hegemony, conservative Christianity and anti-feminist media propaganda take their cumulative toll. All those judges, all that money, all that shock jockery, all those magazines obsessively following stars’ weight and baby bumps: it would be strange if they had no effect.

It was Rush Limbaugh in the 90s and the women who believed him.

Yes, women are still making gains in education and–slowly–in politics and other areas. But longstanding feminist gains are eroding: battered women’s shelters, for example, are closing for lack of funds. And the advances haven’t made the difference once hoped for. Culturally, there’s misogyny wherever you look. Feminism, please call home!

MyDD:

Hey guess what? WV, KY, PR- they matter!

That’s right- they matter. They will put Hillary over the top in the popular vote if we give her the help that she needs and if we don’t give up on her. She isn’t going anywhere and neither should we. This is not over until Puerto Rico sings and every last super delegate has had their say- this last bit happens in August, btw!

Give her some bread (made from dough) so she doesn’t have to run home and bake it herself!

Call her friends, we know she has a lot of them and girls sure do love to talk….

Stand with her!

She IS going to be the next president of the United States!

READ THE WHOLE THING

Democratic presidential hopeful and US Senator Hillary Clinton and daughter Chelsea Clinton at a Mother’s Day celebration on May 10, 2008 in New York. (Daylife)

To Obama supporters who don’t read any Clinton blogs besides mine, I posted Millions and other recent posts to show you what’s out there. You have no idea and Republicans will be 100x worse. Obama supporters should read outside of Obama sources.

Just asking…

Interestingly, though, Obama’s saturating WV with teebee ads, although not deigning to actually campaign in the state.

–Lambert

O. reminds me too much of W.

h/t Red Queen

Echidne of the Snakes:

Couldn’t someone say Obama divided feminists because he appeals to some and not others? You can’t have a rift unless you had unity before. Anyone who thinks the feminist movement ever marched in lock step needs to read some history. Reed doesn’t blame Obama or his supporters for any of the campaign’s sexism.

She makes the point, as have many others, that people should not say one form of oppression is worse than another. But I don’t see the people who say this trashing those who think racism is worse than sexism. Shouldn’t it work both ways?

If Reed is wrong, then she and other Obama supporters are the ones creating harmful divisions in feminism and the Democratic Party. For the sake of argument, however, let’s say she’s right. If one oppression is no worse than another, why would racist attacks on Obama be worse than sexist attacks on Clinton? One answer is that racism is trickier, according to Reed. Is it not possible that coded, insidious, tricky sexism exists, too? Why should we assume all sexism is out in the open?

Lack of nuance:

So much is crystalizing in my mind about the concepts of media reform and media justice. So much that I want to say a corrupt system cannot be reformed. Yeah, I know I’ve talked about my opinion about corrupt systems before (and about how you can’t “reform” Islam because there’s nothing wrong with it to begin with).

This kind of statement is embraced by third wave feminism but you’d never see the following on Pandagon:

So much is crystalizing in my mind about the concepts of media reform and media justice. So much that I want to say a corrupt system cannot be reformed. Yeah, I know I’ve talked about my opinion about corrupt systems before (and about how you can’t “reform” Catholicism because there’s nothing wrong with it to begin with).

Sewere who I love said something to the effect I wasn’t an ally BUT NO ONE’S BEEN MY ALLY in the anti-racism blogosphere for 2.5 years. Anti-racism is stunningly one-sided and blindered. Race trumps everything in the election, media, netroots, feminism and anti-racism and we could lose the election over it. Ironically, POC and WOC would suffer most. Misogyny is completely overlooked so MILLIONS OF WOMEN WON’T VOTE FOR OBAMA UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. THEY REALLY WON’T VOTE FOR HIM and would rather sit it out, write in Hillary, write in McKinney, or vote for McCain.

Nothing trumps anything.

Riverdaughter:

I know what abuse feels like and I won’t take it from a party. They have to get right with me not the other way around. The Dean Democrats are on their own. Good luck to them.

Here are Riverdaughter’s suggestions for fighting back:

1. If you live in a state that has already voted, re-register as an “unaffiliated” voter. Tear up your current voter’s registration card and mail it to the DNC with a little note to tell them that if they don’t resolve the FL and MI delegation issue immediately, they can not count on your vote now or in the future. Also, encourage them to push Hillary and Obama to form a joint ticket with Hillary on top as this is the only viable option for averting an electoral disaster in November. They created this rift in the party. It’s their responsibility to unify it. Not ours.

2. Have a news moratorium for the next two weeks. For the next week, turn off every network and cable news program and catch up on your gardening. Watch only C-Span. If you have TiVo or a DVR, the cable and satellite companies do disk diagnostics every night to determine what you’ve watched and they pass this info onto the networks for ad sales purposes. You will make an impact if you abstain for the next week.

3. Save your breakfast, lunch and dinner money and send it to Hillary. She can use the money to buy ads in the remaining states. The Big Boyz have been very effective in discouraging people from donating and volunteering for her. If you send in $10 and everyone reading this does the same, we can help refill her coffers. Also, one day of fasting will give you presence of mind and remind you of what is so important here. There are millions of Americans who are one paycheck away from insolvency, who have to use a food pantry every month to feed their families and these people are going to get written off by the “new coalition”.

4. Volunteer for Hillary in West Virginia and Kentucky if you live in one of those states or one of the surrounding states. Hell, you don’t even need to do much. Just go there and stand at the side of the road with a sign. If you can’t be there, make phone calls for her. Let the country know that you aren’t going down without a fight.

Obama is the weakest candidate that we could field this year and the Republicans are licking their chops that the Democrats are going to commit political suicide to appease snobby yuppies and AA voters who make up roughly 12% of the US population and whose strength as a voting block will be seriously diluted in November. If the Democratic party wants to play a stupid game of chicken with the women, working class, elderly, hispanic, gay voters and the REAL creative class voters that have been its loyal base, it had better be prepared to lose in November. Even with all of us onboard, Obama will lose. But maybe the party will learn something from this.

One final thing, Conflucians, there will be a lot of guilt tripping and meanness directed our way in the next couple of days. Don’t give in. Now is the time to “choose something like a star to stay our minds on”. The counter haka only works if everyone sticks together. This is real unity.

because Clinton carries the swing states and blue states and Obama cannot.

Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) walks onto her campaign plane May 9, 2008 in Portland, Oregon. (Daylife)

Actually, she looks like the girl who plays Hillary in the Hillary rap videos.

Hillary Clinton Rallies in the Rain in McKeesport, Pa., April 19, 2008

by Ellen Malcolm, Emily’s List

Which brings us to Hillary Clinton running for president. This brilliant woman believes that she can compete for the most powerful office in the world. She believes that she can do a better job than any of the men running to lead our country through these challenging times. And millions of Americans, women and men, believe that she is correct.

Yet over and over again the media and her opponents have claimed that she is defeated — it’s over, she can’t win, she’s a loser. And over and over again — in New Hampshire, on Super Tuesday, in Texas and Ohio, in Pennsylvania last month, and in Indiana this week — female voters poured out of their homes to cast their ballots for her. They know that women can compete, and they want to make sure that women, especially this woman, can win.

It’s not surprising that low-income working women are the cornerstone of Hillary’s success. Many of these women live on the edge of disaster. A pink slip, a family member’s illness, a parent who can no longer live alone, a car that won’t start or a mortgage rate that goes up — all are threats that could devastate the family. And yet these women do what women have done for ages. They put on a confident face, feed their children breakfast and get them off to school. They don’t quit. They suck it up and fight back against whatever life throws their way.

Why on earth should one candidate quit before the contest is finished? Democrats need not be so fainthearted. Both of the party’s remaining candidates have raised tens of millions of dollars. Both have the respect of Democrats nationwide. Each has a progressive agenda that stands in stark contrast to Sen. John McCain and his adherence to Bush administration policies.

So why are some Democrats so afraid? We simply need to count every vote, let the remaining states have their say and see the process through to its conclusion.

Hillary Clinton certainly has the right to compete till the end. But I believe Hillary also has a responsibility to play the game to its conclusion. For the women of my generation who learned to find and channel their competitiveness, for the working women who never falter in the face of pressure, for the younger women who still believe women can do anything, Hillary is a champion. She’s shown us over and over that winners never quit and that quitters never win. We’ll cheer her on until the game is over. And we hope that when the final whistle blows, we will have elected the first female president and the best president our country has ever had.

by Flineo

What do McGovern, Kennedy, Brazile, Gore, Kerry, Edwards, Dean and Pelosi have in common? They’re losers who endorsed Obama.

Bill Clinton is the only winner. He endorsed Hillary who’s fighting for the very soul of the Democratic Party. Most Clinton supporters are.