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The Gay Agenda: what should Hillary do now?VisibleVote08.com's Jay and John discuss the Hillary-Barack situation going into next Tuesday’s big Texas/Ohio/Vermont/Rhode Island primary. With Obama in the lead, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign put on some kind of death-watch by the mainstream press, should Hillary think about withdrawing?
And is it ultimately more radical to have a woman as President, or an African-American male? The Gay Agenda February 29, 2008
Submitted by on February 29, 2008 - 11:37am. |
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News, Reviews & Commentary on Lesbian and Bisexual women in Entertainment and the Media
It should also be mentioned
Nevertheless...
It could just be me, but I
You have a point...and...
It seems to me, if I
Of course I did...
However, that was much earlier in the campaign, and obviously I didn't dig particularly deep. I must admit, I was, as many are now, enthralled with Obama, so I just didn't do much homework on either candidate until closer to the caucus. At that point, I thought I should at least look at both Obama's and Clinton's current stances on many of the issues in which I was most interested. Although they were similar on most, I found Clinton's approach a bit more in depth. I also thought, and still think, that Clinton can hit the ground running, while I believe for Obama there will be a significant learning curve. So those reasons and my desire to see a competant WOMAN (yes I'm a tad biased about this) in office are what swung my vote. It didn't hurt that during the actual caucus, the two guys who spoke on behalf of Obama could only come up with "he's a great speaker" and he's for change. They really had an opportunity to be more persuasive. A man and a woman both spoke on behalf of Clinton and gave different takes. The man was more about wanting change with experience (pretty common argument and not much better than the Obama supporters comments), but the woman mentioned several of Clinton's core issues, summarized her approach, and ended saying that her experience as first lady and in the senate almost eliminates the learning curve that Obama will surely experience if elected president.
It's Not.
It's not, as long as one of those intelligent people is the Vice President. According to Article II of the Constitution, the Vice President is Hutch.
People forget that in order for Hillary Clinton to have accomplished what she did during her husband's eight years in office, Vice President Gore got pushed aside. The health care task force, for example, was handed to Hillary instead of Gore, much to the dismay and suprise of senior aides in the White House and the leaders on the Hill. That move--passing over an experienced and well-regarded former Senator to give leadership to the First Lady--probably did more to doom universal health care in 1993 than those closed door meetings Obama likes to talk about. The Clinton co-presidency emaciated Al Gore's political standing.
For me, it's an accountability issue...and with Bill Clinton as first spouse, it's a bit more worrisome because he has code word clearance (all former Presidents have it).
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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Hillary should not withdraw
Well
I think people asking Hillary to drop out are being premature, especially if John McCain's going to keep stealing her mantra:
But there's absolutely no doubt that if Barack Obama had lost 11 straight contests by an average of 33 points, the Party, the media and everyone else would trying to push him out of the race. Hell, I'd be trying to push him out of the race.
Comparatively speaking, by the way, John Edwards lost four contests by an average of 28.5 points...and not many of us were asking him to stay in the fight.
CNN's delegate scorecard has Obama up by 153 pledged delegates (or 102 delegates, if you include superdelegates). MSNBC has Obama up by 157 delegates. Because of the Democratic Party's system of proportional split of delegates, Clinton would have to win handily in many of the remaining states and seat Florida and Michigan's delegations at the convention.
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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Past margins don't matter
Hillary may have lost previous contests by large margins, but based on the polls, the TX and OH primaries will not be decided by point margins that are that big for EITHER candidate. Again, this indicates the party is split. Almost half of democrats still don't want him to be their candidate. I fail to see how this split should translate into Hillary stepping aside.
And it is clear that Hillary will not get the 2025 delegates needed to clinch the nomination... BUT NEITHER WILL OBAMA. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=ayraBSSaVF_w&refer=home)
I think this speaks volumes about Obama's supposed skill as a "uniter" when he won't be able to muster enough delegates to win the nomination outright and people still come out to vote for Hillary in great numbers.
Not So Much
I'm not sure how that's a response to anything I said...I didn't say anything about the Texas or Ohio primaries...the point I was making was pretty clear: if Obama had lost that many states by those large margins, he'd already be out of the race (just as John Edwards was).
But Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton and the same rules don't apply to her, which is why I noted that I don't think Hillary Clinton should step aside...yet.
As for the delegate race, you're right in noting that neither candidate will likely get the 2025 delegates required to clinch the nomination. But, at the rate it's going, it'd be difficult, if not impossible, for Clinton to tie or go ahead of Obama in the pledged delegates category. Marc Ambinder from The Atlantic has written a great post on the delegate math recently that explained this much better than I can.
I don't agree. I think your statement might accurate if you were talking about McCain and Huckabee, but not so much for Obama or Hillary.
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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Number in a row lost doesn't matter either
The number of primaries lost in a row is immaterial because Hillary's wins on Super Tuesday gave her enough of a cushion to hold her own during her dry spell. The more remarkable story is that Obama hasn't been able to truly put her away EVEN WITH all of those victories in a row. My only point is that he has persistent opposition.
Clinton will have difficulty pulling ahead of Obama in delegates, which is once again where those superdelegates will come into play. All of the press has said that "momentum" is going Obama's way and there have been may stories of individual superdelegates saying they will "go with the flow" (i.e. to Obama). My argument is that if the delegate count is close, then there's more of a trickle than an overwhelming tidal wave of support for him. Again, this trickle is enough for the press to write countless stories about how an Obama nomination is an inevitabilty? They need to tread carefully. We've seen how well that line of thought worked for Hillary.
If things go Hillary's way in OH and she has a good showing in TX, I think Obama will have to start answering questions about why he can't knock her out completely.
I thought about not
I thought about not responding--this back and forth gets a little tiresome, after all--but I wanted to set the record straight.
Unfortunately, that's just not true. Obama won more states (13 to 8), more delegates (847 to 834) and the overall popular vote on Super Tuesday.
And my point is that any other candidate, after sustaining this many losses by those large margins, would be out of the race. The media wouldn't be writing eulogies, they'd already be dead, buried and forgotten.
Again, to suggest that he has persistent opposition...I mean, Hillary Clinton's not Mike Huckabee; she's a former first lady with high name recognition, lots of money and longstanding ties to the Democratic establishment in every state. Of course, he's got competition. But what's also clear after Maine, Virginia and Wisconsin is that her base of support is fracturing and his is not.
Sidenote: It's worth taking at look at the poll tracking that's being done on pollster.com in Texas and Ohio and you'll see that Obama's managed to close a substantial gap in those states. Clinton was up substantially in both states and, as Obama's won and as he's spent more time in the state, the gap has closed.
We'll just agree to disagree on this point. I think if superdelegates decide this race, contrary to the popular will of the people, they'll doom the nominee in the general election, regardless of who it is.
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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Speaking of facts...
...if you are going to use Daniel Patrick Moynihan's great quote, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts", may I suggest that you make sure all of your own facts are correct and current? You chastised VoxDixit for her interpretation of Hillary's performance on Super Tuesday (Feb 5, '08):
VoxDixit wrote:
But then go ahead and quote incorrect results for Super Tuesday. "Unfortunately, that's just not true. Obama won more states (13 to 8), more delegates (847 to 834) and the overall popular vote on Super Tuesday."
In point of FACT if you refer to the following link: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/dates/#val=20080205
and believe that CNN is a reasonably reliable source, you will see that the most current results for Super Tuesday (a few states are still not 100% counted, even now), are that Obama won 13 states to Hillary's 9 states, won delegates by a slim margin of 16 delegates---that is: 840 for Obama vs. 824 for Hillary, and in fact, that Hillary WON the popular vote 7,690,879 to 7,604,993, a difference of 85,886 popular votes in her favor...
Let's not feed into the media's b.s. spin shall we?
The fact is that in a race as tight as this one for the Democratic nomination, anything can happen on the way to the convention in August in Denver. Although I'm inclined to agree with those (including Bill Clinton himself), who say that Hillary must do REALLY well in Ohio and Texas to continue to have a chance.
Well
I wouldn't call it buying into the media's BS spin.
I'll just say that the source that I referenced hadn't updated based on the outcome in New Mexico, which wasn't noted until much, much later. See, simple explanation, no conspiracy going on. You're right, I misspoke; I concede the point.
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"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Obama's media lovefest
Obama's media lovefest and all of his "momentum," just about half of the democrats still don't want him to be the nominee.
You realize this applies to Hillary too.
I don't think anyone should ask Hillary to drop out of the race, but be honest, if the situation was reversed everyone in the Democratic Party would be demanding that Obama drop out of the race. He doesn't have the relationships built up with the hierarchy of the party, so they wouldn't hesitate to put pressure on him to make him drop out. The same thing pretty much happened to John Edwards four years ago when the party cherry picked Kerry as the nominee.
And the only reason why people are saying that Hillary should drop out, and most of these people are the media not Obama supporters, is because people don't want a drawn out and negative campaign to hurt the democratic party. Even though I think the only thing that could hurt the party is super delegates not aligning themselves with the candidate who has the most pledged delegates. Which is also why some have been saying that Hillary should drop out if she doesn't do well in Texas and Ohio. No one wants to be in a position where the SD go against the majority of the people. If they do this, it will definitely tear the party apart. Most people agree that neither Hillary or Obama will have enough pledged delegates to win the nomination outright, so either someone will have to drop out, or the Super Delegates will have to get involved.
Lastly, I haven't read anyone on here say that Hillary should drop out now. I believe the question that was asked was what can Hillary do to change her circumstances around.
stop the race vs. gender wars!
Let me start off by saying no I don't think that Clinton should withdraw, I really don't think the race has reached that point yet. But what really bothers me is the way that so many people especially Clinton supporters act as if Race is not an issue anymore in this country and this race. Well it is an issue when they want to claim some mystical Black card that the Clintons supposedly got so many years ago.
Is it more radical to have a woman than an African American man? was the question you asked, well tell me this does Clinton have no race? Why does Barack get a racial qualifier and Clinton doesn't? Is her womanhood raceless? Does she have no racial privilege? Oh I'm sorry apparently white privilege doesn't exist anymore, only male privilege.
I don't really care about you being objective or not, but just as you accuse of the media of having a bias towards Obama and ignoring the sexism directed towards Clinton. You two are completely ignoring any racial implications involved in this race. Simply posing the question of is it more radical to have a woman or an African American male. Is building on the assumption that sex oppression is somehow worst than race based oppression. This thinking is what has led to the continued marginalization of Women of color.
"Power is never given back. When it's stolen, if you want it back, you have to take it." - M. Caballero
Journey2enlightenment.blogspot.com
preach on sista! I am so
preach on sista!
I am so sick of white women forgetting about us women of colour.
How can people support Hillary
How can people support Hillary and simultaneously support equality? I don’t get it. Hillary supports gay civil unions (with equal rights as "heterosexual" marriages). Her philosophy is separate but "equal" is acceptable; she supports a segregation! See the video on YouTube titled "Visible Vote Clinton Part 1":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMhPfG40VFs
Start at time 5:20 to see answer to gay marriage question. Clinton doesn't support gay marriage.
Also, she doesn’t support universal publicly insured healthcare. She wants to use public tax money to buy health insurance to people who can’t afford it. This is not sustainable. The greedy, heartless health insurance companies will drive up costs which will drive up your taxes.
Remember, Hillary supported the Iraq war. As well, I don’t hear her talking about environmental sustainability, the negative influence of the industrial military complex, the unequal distribution of wealth or anything else important.
I don’t know why anyone supports Hillary! I’m not a fan of Barack Obama either but at least Obama hasn’t had as many chances as Hillary to prove himself and let us all down.
If you feel the media shines the light more on Obama than Clinton it’s probably because we need to know more about Obama to make up our mind about him. But Hillary, we all know her and from what we know we shouldn’t like her.
How come no one talks about how the media ignored John Edwards and probably that’s why he didn’t do as well. What about Dennis Kucinich (who I support) or Mike Gravel? They were completely ignored and also they don’t have as much money as Clinton whose campaign probably spent the MOST MONEY! Why should someone with so much financial backing need any more attention? The public needs to learn more about Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and maybe John Edwards (I know he dropped out) not more Hillary propaganda!
And in my opinion, it’s much more radical and almost impossible to have a social democratic American President than it is to have either a woman or a black man. I try to judge people on their POLICIES, not on their race or gender as we all should! More important than having a woman president is having a president that supports women’s rights. More important than having a black president is having a president that supports racial equity (which is what leads to racial equality). This is why I support Dennis Kucinich.
(I posted this same comment on AfterElton.com. I wish there was a way to merge the comments so that people can view either site and see all the comments posted on any of the sites about the same video.)
Obama doesn't support gay marriage either
Obama's stance on gay marriage is the same as Hillary's--no support for gay marriage--so there goes your point.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/issues/issues.samesexmarriage.html
To your other points, there is consensus that Hillary's health care plan is better than Obama's:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/02/26/experts-to-obama-no-more-harry-and-louise.aspx.
And as for the war, Obama couldn't have voted for it because he's only been in the senate for three years (ahem, inexperience). I think the larger question is why a man who is supposedly so adamantly against the war continues to vote to fund it.
As I mentioned above
As I mentioned above I do not support Obama or Clinton! I support Dennis Kucinich! He and Mike Gravel have been the only candidates that full and consistently support gay marriage! They consistently showed their lack of support for the Iraq war BEFORE it even began. Kucinich's health care plan is a million times more just yet still sustainable. Kucinich also has a better environmental policy! Like I mentioned above, more radical than having a woman or a black president in america is having a true social democratic president!
To learn more about where Dennis Kucinich stands on the issues go to the following site:
http://www.dennis4president.com/go/issues/
I now know
Dennis Kucinich dropped out on January 24, 2008 apparently. But I still support his policies the most.
Obama, like Hillary and
Obama, like Hillary and everyone else in the Congress continues to fund the war because without the funds the soldiers wouldn't have what they need to fight and remainn safe. Cutting the funding will not lead to Dubya bringing the troops home. He will keep them in Iraq regardless. This is the same president who did give the troops body armor, or provide as many troops as the generals said were needed. And he like the others keeps funding the war because the situation is very different now than it was when war was declared. Now, unlike then, terrorist cells have set up camp in Iraq. Now, the government isn't stable, and troops are needed to make sure the terrorists don't take over.
A few years extra experience didn't stop Hillary and the others from making the worse mistake in this country's history, of course most of these people just agreed to the war because they didn't want to be viewed as unpatriotic, or have their dissent used against them during re-election. Not having experience didn't stop Obama from knowing that the war was a bad idea. Nor did it stop him from speaking out against the war.
Many people have said that they like Obama's healthcare plan, including a former Clinton aid and Ted Kennedy. And let's not forget that Hillary's plan is just the same plan that Mitt Romney instituted in Massachusetts, and that plan is causing a lot of problems there.
I agree
Fight To The Bitter End
This is the first race I've seen where just looking at a Candidates eyes you can tell how much they both want it. Neither is going to back down until the Convention. I wouldn't want them to. They are both giving this country something to think about as far as gender and race (and covertly religion).
I'm an Obama stan but I would be crazy not to see the media's sexist potrayal of Hilary. I've heard women tell me that Hilary gets too emotional like women are. Bitch, please. Hilary is as emotional as Barack -the emotion being passion. She is passionate about this race and leading her country. The sexist talk aggravates me and makes me want to vote for Hilary just to spite ignorant people like that.
I think the current media love affair with Obama will be over the second the race is between McCain and Obama. They're going to tear him apart. We're seeing little things now. "Obama/Osama" mispronounciations on major news outlets. Use of his middle name, Hussein. The fact that he has a Muslim background on his father's side.
I was actually a Joe Bidden supporter.
I personally wouldn't mind either Barack or Hilary. Hell, a part of me wouldn't really mind McCain.
Don't forget about charm!
I know its easy to land on the reason for the media's supposed "love-fest" for Barrack being that Hillary is a woman and they are all fundamentally sexist!
So lets say that its not because Barrack has won more states than Hillary, nor is it that he has more delegates and is getting more cross-over voters than Hillary...lets even forget that he is less likely to "whine" publicly than Hillary about negative campaigning - which is a tried and true, "experienced" method of trying to get ahead in the political race mess!
But people, did you ever think about "charm"? Being charming goes a long way - much further in the media. Unfortunately for Hillary, Barrack is much more charming. Hands down - I'd be surprised if Hillary supporters disagree. So one bit of advise for her - if she doesn't want to have to drop out of the race. You can be good at what you do, and still be charming - she should work on that! Its not a characteristic that only exists in males - I've met many a charming lady - Hillary just seems to be missing this very important quality - her hubby had it, Kerry didn't have it, Gore didn't have it, Elizabeth Dole has it...I'd say Bush didn't have it either - but they had to pick somebody! McCain definitely doesn't have it - but he has the "I feel sorry for you cause you've been around the block too many times" quality - which can beat Charming on a good day. Hey - it wins people Emmys!
And to answer the question - is it ultimately more radical to have a woman as President, or an African-American male?
Please don't make this a gender only or race only issue. Women of all races and african-americans of all genders have and are currently experiencing sexism and racism every day, have had to fight for equal rights, and continuously have to fight stereotypes every day. However, on the flip side, there have been some female leaders in countries around the world(with a good male/female population mix), whereas there haven't been leaders from the african diaspora who have led a country made up predominantly of another race. I think no offense to the vloggers, its probably easier to view the selection of Hillary as President as more "radical" over a man with african descent, if the only lens you're looking through is as a white person or as a white woman. And the reverse is true - as an african descent male - they'd probably say picking Barrack is more radical. Please note - I'm severely generalizing - there'll be some in both camps who think the other is the more radical choice!
But as a woman of african descent, the choice is not so simple for me. I could explain further, but I've written too much already! I just think its important to make that point. Until you've walked in someone elses shoes, don't make a judgement about how "radical" it is to be that person.
On a soft note - Is it only me - one of the vloggers reminds me of a converseation I had with an aunt who tried to tell me how great sex was, if I was ready for a whole lot of pain!!! The blatantly cloaked digs at Obama are a bit too much!!
Love never loses its way home. Remember...its about the journey, not the destination
There's a new...
... episode of The Gay Agenda posted at VisibleVote08.com discussing results of the Texas/Ohio primaries and recent media coverage of Obama. I just love this vlog!
On another note, has anyone else heard the opinion that Bill Clinton's comments about having to win Texas and Ohio, far from putting Hillary's campaign on life support, actually served to unite voters around her as the underdog? I don't know if he's a brilliant pollitician, or just lucky. Probably both!