A Note on Voting
As our readership grows, many disgruntled commenters - in response to the protest mobilization of Clinton supporters - have left the familiar accusations here:
a) Sen. Clinton, and/or her supporters, are ruining the Democratic Party. (Seriously…if she is this powerful, shouldn’t she be President?)
b) If registered voters - especially Democrats - are considering voting for McCain over Obama (whether in protest or due to preference), they’re attacking women’s rights - such that they might be solely or collectively responsible for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
c) Because Sen. Obama is married to a working woman and is the father of two daughters, it is not possible for him to be sexist.
d) Yes, there has been sexism and misogyny leveled at Clinton, but OMG! Racism! Please note that charges of racism are often linked to the Clinton campaign, or just thrown around without attribution.
Before you lodge one of these familiar tirades against Clinton supporters here and elsewhere, please consider the following:
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1) Voting is a personal and political act. It is a fundamental demonstration in this country of our individual liberty (or lack thereof) to register our satisfaction, dissatisfaction, support or resistance to our political leaders and system. For more enlightenment on this issue, please read this. Here at H1K, we don’t tell anyone how to cast their vote, though we have personal preferences for - and examined the options of - voting for Obama, writing in Clinton, and voting for Cynthia McKinney. This post explains why not to vote for McCain. See the ABOUT page for more information on this blog’s stance on voting, as well as our blogging, comments and links policies.
2a) Misogyny leveled at Sen. Clinton is an attack on all women, and frankly, men too. For those who think it’s not possible for Sen. Obama to be sexist by virtue of his marital and parental status, please review the male privilege checklist here.
2b) As for the issue of racism, please check out this alternative scenario, as well as this vote breakdown by race (and the numerous available posts around the web about the Oppression Olympics.) Somewhere in our white/African-American (re-)narrowing of the definition of the word “race,” we’ve erased Latinos, Asians, foreign-born blacks, and other persons of color from the voter debate. Furthermore, discussions of race and ethnicity without considerations of class, gender and geography superficially conceal the real and myriad issues of power and privilege on display in this contest.
3) On Roe v. Wade and reproductive rights, BDBlue at Corrente sums it up nicely:
“So I don’t want to hear about the Supreme Court. There’s already a check on McCain’s power to stack it. And if the Democrats won’t use that power to protect a fundamental freedom of more than half of their base, then the answer is not to vote for Obama, it’s to find people who will.”
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This is a working response to the comments that regurgitate the same old, same old charges that women, racial/ethnic minorities, working-class folks, LGBTQ, and our allies should get in-line, wait our turn, and stop with the angry radical b.s. I could go on and on, but fortunately the web does that for me. The links are endless. The arguments and perspectives are endless. Please take this page as a guide for constructively critiquing the passion on display here by your fellow voters for their candidate, their rights, and the inequities they’ve witnessed during this campaign.
I am a loyal backer of Hillary Clintons and have sent money, made calls and knocked on doors on her behalf. The Country cannot afford to put an inexperienced man in the White House we need results from day one!! I have refused to send money to the DNC who in my opinion has exhibited the good old boys syndrom. The media in my opinion are nothing but rag magazines you can buy in the grocery store. They need to be put in their place by going after the worst offenders like Jack Cafferty, Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, Olberman, that unprofessional thing on morning joe Meeka whatever and several others. A list should be compiled of their sponsors and notified with thousands of signatures that their products are not coming into our homes until these unprofessional talking heads are fired! We need to wield power for Women only! Please let me know what I can do to help Obama lose!!! I will never vote for him!
I applaud the efforts to make the media more aware of their actions, and hit them where it hurts - advertising, sponsors, ratings, their collective wallets.
I am missing the leap here, however, from sexist media to Barack Obama being a sexist. Ok, I will give you the ’sweetie’ remark, but what else is there? I am obviously out of the loop.
Why didn’t Hillary fight this issue throughout the campaign, rather than waiting until the end?
I want to be on board with this if I can get there, but I just don’t understand the rancor.
Susan, I’m starting to think you’re a troll, or at the very least a one hit wonder…please see this post about Obama campaign sexism, and stop asking the same damn question over and over!
http://hillary1000.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/for-visitors-wondering-about-sexism-from-the-obama-campaign/
It breaks my heart that the Democratic party seems intent on forcing us into a poition of having to choose between possibly assuring the election of yet another Republican or abiding by democratic principle. I must choose principle over party, however. I was in Memphis on elction night in 2000 — at the Gore victory celebration — in the rain and cold. I agonized over every vote not counted. I cannot condone this happening in any party — especially when the outcome can result in another illegitimately elected candidate. If Hillary is on the ticket I will support it. Otherwise I expect to be writing her in. Thank you all for this grass roots campaign!
I just don’t get it. Hillary Clinton wins overwhelming victories in West Virginia and Kentucky and the press is all focused on Obama hitting some delegate count that does not really mean anything and requires that you ignore Michigan and Florida to even assign symbolic significance.
As to whether Obama himself is sexist, he certainly has not done anything to reign in the continuous stream of really insulting comments by his bloggers.
First to Liz W…wow are u ever right! I have those very same names of tv “journalists” written down to protest! They make me sick, and Fox had a female co host on the day they super-imposed HRC face on a Risque photo of another woman..and the female co-host guffwed right along with the sexist good ole boys! If anything like that had been done to Obama be it in a racist or any other way…we would still be putting out the fires of rebellion.
35 years of giving her all to civil rights, the poor, the children and the Democratic Party and all HRC gets is a knife in the back and has to sit back and watch a man who has done NOTHING for our country and has gotten much personal gain. And he wants to say SHE has a sense of entitlement…nahhh He’s the one who thinks the world owes him a living..and so far he and his wife have done quite well…affrimative action got them into great universities and Rezco and the money from the huge Trinity Church have lined his pockets. He makes me sick and we need to fight his nomination with out last breaths.
Ther were states like Ohio,SO.Carolina,New Hampshire that voted ahead of time. But their citizens were not punished. The fact is that if all the states were counted Hillary would win both the popular and the electoral votes.What are we going to do? We need someone with a wokable plan of action before the nomihation.