One Democratic candidate has insisted this presidential campaign is not about race or gender. The other has insisted that it very much is. And her palpable insinuation is, “Girls, you know what you must do.” The results have been pretty predictable. The candidate who reaches across the racial chasm, across the gender gap and across party and regional lines is starting to see that he can attract voters of all races, all genders, all ages and all stripes. Today in Virginia exit polling, he’s even shown that he can reach that most narrow-minded and stubborn of niches: the left wing female baby boomer. The group who have fought their whole life for equal opportunity, equal pay and a sort of equal consequences for reproductive activities. The group who came into this political cycle believing that the 2008 election was about crashing through the glass ceiling and putting someone with ovaries in the Oval Office. But then something happened. These feminist stalwarts––these pioneers of female liberation–– got over the initial euphoria, the momentary giddiness, of knowing they had a bona fide, qualified, sure-thing candidate and looked at a bigger world torn apart by sectarian hatred and a country torn apart by partisan bickering. They looked at how a planet where every group thinks only in terms of their own race, their own clan, their own class and their own creed ultimately implodes upon itself. And maybe they recognized that it is that sort of thinking that is root of the problem. And certainly not the solution. And perhaps, they looked at the last seven years of a narrow-minded administration and realized that this is not the time for more narrow thinking and mindless, lockstep solidarity. It is time that all good women do what all good women have always done best: Set aside their personal agenda and effect the greater good.
3 Comments
Sure, step aside again for the men! Don’t support Hillary because she is a woman; support her because she really has solutions for real people. Not just nice rhetoric.
Afraid Obama not tested enough for big time in November –and the partisan bickering isn’t Hillary’s – it comes from the Republicans who are gleeful at the chance to have a go at Barack in the fall.
We don’t need Ohio, Texas, D.C., Maryland, or Virginia to get to the White House. The Hillary campaign has run a hard race to the White House and we don’t intend to let Ohio or Texas or any minority states stand in our way regardless of their vote. We have already won the big states and we intend to invoke hole heartedly the votes of Florida. We tried to win the supporters of John Edwards. Unfortunately we did not win the supporters of John Edwards, but as you can see we didn’t need them to win the big states and we will not need them in the future to win the White House. The Clinton campaign started this race as winners, favored to be in the white house because we are not trying to change the face of america nor it’s foundation our pass leaders worked so hard to establish. We know what our opponent is trying to do and we can not let this happen. America is not broken, just our leadership. Everyone in america has been treated fair for over two hundred years and if they are unhappy with their current status or the economy then I’m sure they can find pleasure in being in america. When Senator Clinton is elected president she will address all issues of concern.
According to the demographics, I should be voting for Hillary Clinton: I’m a white, 60-year-old, highly educated woman from the Northeast. But I’m voting for Obama. I’ve waited all my life for a viable woman candidate for the presidency, but this is not the right woman. I want a woman of the highest ability and virtue, who would serve as a glorious role model to all young women. Hillary Clinton is not that woman.
She rode into power with her husband, and together they’ve acquired a long and seriously flawed history of self-serving and secretive financial and political dealings. The most cursory research will prove that true. She started out her political life supporting the racist Barry Goldwater. She is as comfortable with deception and trickery as George Bush. When I hear woman saying, “Oh, but that’s how you get things done in Washington,” I literally cringe.
I am passionately supporting Barack Obama. He can beat the Republicans; she cannot. Obama has attracted Independents and even Republicans to his camp, and in a general election they would vote for him, but not for Clinton. Clinton voted for the war, and has never apologized for it. Obama has spoken out against it from the beginning. Obama brings us hope–and not just that. Take a serious look at his ideas and experience.
Please, I beg of you, Sisters young and old: wait for the right woman. Then we can be proud.
Diane Wald