Why would any sane candidate pick a Number 2 who called him unready to take on the job,  inexperienced, elitist, condescending, and all talk and no substance? The first duties of a subordinate are respect for and loyalty to the boss. Plus she’s not ready to concede even now, leaving the party in tatters till the convention, and probably till the election.

Samantha Power was right.

My state’s feminist caucus endorsed Hillary Clinton even though half of the members were against Hillary.  In fact, they rammed the endorsement down everyone’s throats and alienated a lot of people in the process.  Now one of the strongest members of our caucus, one of the founding mothers actually, has gone on record saying she will never support or vote for Obama even if he becomes the official nominee.  There are other members of the caucus that feel the same way, which I just can’t wrap my head around. Not only is she a less than stellar candidate, she’s a less than stellar feminist candidate. She has, after all, said that the democratic party should move towards the center on pro choice policies, demonstrating once again that she’ll sell out whoever she has to to get elected.

So yes, unfortunatley there are many more Harriet Christians out there.

The stupidity of such a ticket is mind-boggling.  At a level of brilliance it is akin to suggesting open flame gas barbecues on hydrogen-fueled Zeppelins.  The fact that Neal wants such a ticket speaks profoundly ill of his judgment.

That said, the big question and Pam’s question remain: a) what does she do now, and b) what route is acceptable to her supporters?

Speaking of VP picks, I’m personally nervous about this one since he basically rolled over during the VP debates in 2004, but Neil Sinhababu (guest-blogging at Washington Monthly) claims that there are very strong poll numbers for an Obama/Edwards ticket.

How many people do you think she represents?

Not enough to matter in any state that will be close. However many of them are really out there who would actually, on further reflection, want to try to deliver the election to the not-exactly-pro-woman McCain (not many when push comes to shove, is my guess), these people are all in one of Obama’s core demographics- middle-class liberals, mostly in blue states where he’ll have a comfortable margin regardless. (You think he can’t win NY without the likes of Harriet Christian? Please.)

Clinton is the worst possible VP choice, for all of the reasons enumerated above. I’d like to see an Obama/Richardson ticket.  Richardson is fully in support of the ERA and women’s rights in general and is a wise and experienced leader. Obama/Edwards wouldn’t surprise me, but as Mnemosyne noted, he did kind of roll over and play dead in 2004.

My state’s feminist caucus endorsed Hillary Clinton even though half of the members were against Hillary.

This cuts my way. See, Clinton only had half of you even right from the start the start. And how many in the other half will really be as suicidal as your “founding mother” in November?

It’s like this whenever there’s been a hard-fought primary battle- lots of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Lots of pro-McCain Rethugs also said around this time in 2000 they’d never vote for Bush. Guess what actually happened?

I’d be perfectly OK with Clinton as VP if it were just her. But there’s a huge problem. The problem is named “Bill”.

100% correct.

The problem is that the Obama campaign and the Clinton campaign, even though the platforms were similar, the overall messages just are not compatible. At all. I think it would in the long run cause more than confusion, almost the impression of outright hypocrisy on both their parts. Not helpful.

I’m all for Clinton pushing for policy additions, in fact I like a lot of her policy concepts and thoughts through the campaign. I just don’t think that without the overall air of change, that she’ll be able to follow through on them.

If she distanced herself from the “insider” theme early on, she’d probably be a shoe-in for the VP slot. No, I take that back. If she did that she’d be the one looking for a VP right now.

Not that I think Obama is ‘cutting in line’ or anything, but it would seem to me that if black men got the vote before (white) women then Hillary would be the one ‘cutting in line’..

A Clinton supporter, here, but one who is content to see Obama as my second choice - and happy to see the primaries continue as they did, engaging new voters to register as Democrats, and letting many more people have a vote that counts.  If the Democrats aren’t the party that thinks that all the votes should count, where are we?  The idea that we need a fast decision, rather than one that counts all the votes, is what got us 2000.  It’s worth taking the time to do democracy properly.

I’m not sure that Hillary would want to be VP.  She’s got a good spot in the Senate, she’s respected there, and in NY, and VP is a notoriously invisible role.  (“Does Lyndon, recalling when he was VP, say ‘I’ll do unto you as they did unto me!’ Do you dream about staging a coup?  Hubert what happened to you?”  Tom Lehrer.)  Plus, in the Senate, she’s her own politician, while as VP, she’d definitely be in the back seat.

There are, however, a lot of women in politics, many of whom would make fine VPs (as would Hillary, if she does want it.)  I would like to see a woman VP candidate, to balance the ticket, and to show respect for Hillary’s efforts. 

I can see where many feminists, particularly older women, are coming from, in saying it’s about time for woman President.  The idea that women, as feminists, were somehow distracting from the “bigger’ or “more important” issues of the civil rights movement and that anti-war movement was something that is their life experience, not just a historical quirk.  And the idea that women, as women, could demand proper treatment simply for our own sake, as opposed to doing so only when it benefited a larger cause, was and is revolutionary.  To say, without apology, I’m the woman I am, this is the issue that affects me, and I’ll work for it, even if it isn’t everyone’s issue.  (It’s the same thing that shows up on the Anti-Feminist Bingo card - the blogger is talking about the issue she cares about, and the troll goes off on how she’s ignoring the “real” issue.)

Plus, women who were in their 30s or 40s when feminism took off in the 1970s have to wonder what they’ll see in their lifetime.  If Obama wins, he’ll be running for reelection in 2012, and if he wins that, and has a man as VP, that man would run in 2016 - making it at least eight, possibly as long as 16 years before a woman has a chance again within the Democratic party. 

If she looses a full fight for the nomination, that’s one thing, but being pressured to quit, in favor of a man, burns, particularly since a male candidate likely wouldn’t face the same pressure to give up his goals.  Because, for a lot of women, it means greatly reducing the chances of achieving a dream they’ve had for much of their lives - to live to see a woman as President.

For what Obama can/should do, and how to resolve this?

1.  Privately offer Hillary the VP spot, and ask her what she wants.
2.  If she wants it, great, give it to her.
3.  If she doesn’t want it, ask her to suggest other women as possible VPs, and ask her to introduce or otherwise publicly endorse that choice for VP.  Making it clear that Obama respects Hillary enough to have her input on the choice, and that she’s in support of the Democratic nominee, after giving her best possible effort to winning it.

What Mnemosyne said about the 2004 debates.  Edwards was worse, worse, worse than useless.  Forget him, quickly.  Give him a cabinet post dealing with social justice but NOT anything he has to electorally fight for.

“particularly since a male candidate likely wouldn’t face the same pressure to give up his goals. “

I don’t know about that, Ursula.  Were the situations exactly reversed I think that Obama would have been pressured out long before this.  Hilary hasn’t been really leaned on yet simply because she and the Big Dog are so damned powerful in the party.

Again, Hillary as VP would be fine- if not for the existence of Bill. If you want Hillary as VP, find a way to send Bill to an undisclosed location and keep him there until the 2016 presidential election is over. Bill CANNOT be wandering around acting out during either an Obama/Clinton campaign or an Obama/Clinton administration. He’s a ticking time bomb.

Obama has campaigned on changing DC; Clinton represents everything that’s wrong with business as usual in Washington.

Put another way: Obama is a naive idealist; Clinton actually has a clue how to get things done in the real world of politics.

Or, if you like, we can both stop compartmentalizing the candidates as Good vs. Evil, and consider what they might have to offer each other on a joint ticket. Personally, I think it’s the best chance the Democrats have.

The disaffected Hillary supporters who would cast their vote for McCain before Obama should not be dismissed, but what kind of commitment do they have to party principles if they are willing to throw away Roe v. Wade, for example, in their anger?

Though I don’t fit this bill (and I actually think, although there ARE a few such folks out there, that these wanton Roe-v.-Wade-chucking Hillary loyalists are fast becoming the strawvoters of the so-called progressives), I would suggest that a more critical examination of “party principles” is in order. The Democratic party ceased to represent my liberal lesbian self a long, long time ago, and Obama, for all his encouraging qualities, hasn’t given me one whit of hope that that’s going to change. Finger-wagging appeals to my “party loyalty” these days ring pretty damned hollow.

This is a power struggle between two major factions in the party. It needs to be resolved if we are to win the election.

Putting Clinton on the ticket would be horrible.  He can’t have as his running mate somebody who endorsed his opponent, race baited at every opportunity, attacked his character so visciously, embodies everything he’s been campaigning against, and mused about his assassination.

There are a number of VP choices I’d be happy with, but Clinton would signal a serious lack of judgement.

Put another way: Obama is a naive idealist; Clinton actually has a clue how to get things done in the real world of politics.

Is that why he beat her for the nomination despite her enormous upfront advantages? (Not to mention, is that why she got health care “done” so well in 1993?) Please don’t insult our intelligence.

Fact is, she’s really not a very good politician. Certainly not even close to the same league as Bill. And if she hadn’t married Bill I don’t believe she’d ever have gone into politics at all. She’d have been a top achiever in her real profession- the law- as partner at a major firm or professor at a major law school.

Put another way: Obama is a naive idealist; Clinton actually has a clue how to get things done in the real world of politics.

This is a vicious, racist lie and I’m sick of seeing it perpetuated.

This is a vicious, racist lie

1) Racist? Really? In Obama I see a gifted young politician whose lack of experience, among other things,  concerns me. I spend as much time examining my privilege as anyone I’ve ever met, but if you can show me that that’s a racist statement, I’ll tip my hat to you.

2) As I said in my next paragraph, my whole point was that this kind of stark compartmentalizing is useless if our goal is to build a winning ticket. Snarky references to Clinton’s “obvious sense of entitlement” and her representation of “everything that’s wrong with business as usual in Washington” aren’t what I used to expect of the critical thinkers at Pandagon, and they’re why I don’t come here much anymore. It makes me sad.

It’s not racist. Simply a dumb, reality-challenged claim when compared to anything Hillary has actually accomplished. Namely, not a hell of a lot. There are hundreds of prominent women politicians far more deserving of our respect. Start at the top, with Speaker Pelosi, and continue with some of our accomplished governors who have been expanding the Democratic map, like Sebelius.

Seeker6079, I was thinking more about in the press and in the public mind, than by the party itself.  There was talk about her needing to drop out from way back during Iowa and New Hampshire - when the Republicans still had multiple candidates, and the Democrats had other men running, and no one was talking about any of them needing to get out of the way. 

And I’m more concerned about the emotional effect - a woman being told to give up her dreams, for the sake of the larger cause, (politics, family, her husband’s job, etc.) is a real hot-button issue for a lot of feminists, so that it would be wise to handle the situation carefully, to make it clear that Obama won a fair nomination process, rather than any type of prioritizing of causes.

Never again will most women voters in this upcoming Election have an opportunity to
choose a WOMAN as a Presidential Nominee, with a chance to be PRESIDENT!

There are a few options that follow from this, and all are pretty crappy.

1.  “Most women voters” in the USA are in their 80’s, and will not be likely to see another presidential election.

2.  The only women voters who count are well past middle age.  Even if you’re 50, you could easily have another 7 or 8 presidential elections left in you.

3.  No other woman will EVER be able to run for president at the level Hillary has.  At least for any of our lifetimes (which, considering that plenty of women in their 20’s and 30’s vote, we could be talking about 60 or 70 years at least).

Seriously, I have a certain bit of patientce for the idea that there aren’t a whole lot of liberal feminist women politicians waiting in the wings, ready to run for president in the next couple of elections.  (especially if Obama wins and 2012 is out of the picture on the Dem side).  But the idea that no woman voting today is EVER going to see a woman president in her lifetime ?  Come ON.  I don’t even think anybody in ‘92 or ‘96 could have predicted that we’d see a strong female contender in ‘08, so why does the fact that there is no obvious successor to Hillary mean that there CAN NEVER BE another?

In HRC, I see a traditional politician whose lack of judgment—all through this campaign, and most of all, supporting our move into the Iraq quagmire—among other things, concerns me. As Einstein said, “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”

In HRC, I see a traditional politician whose lack of judgment—all through this campaign, and most of all, supporting our move into the Iraq quagmire—among other things, concerns me.

I don’t entirely disagree, Hector B., and I’m not a wholehearted or blindly loyal HRC supporter. But just as you phrased your concern in terms that had nothing to do with her gender, I phrased mine in terms that had nothing to do with his ethnicity, and the reflexive accusation of racism was unfounded.

Simply a dumb, reality-challenged claim when compared to anything Hillary has actually accomplished. Namely, not a hell of a lot.

If Hillary were called a naive idealist, it would sure as hell be sexist.

Again, Auguste, my point (which you’re helping to prove) was that such blanket statements are useless, divisive, and best avoided.

I think Obama and Clinton could, with some hard work, constitute a viable and formidable partnership. But I also think it’s curious that some of the same bloggers who use scare tactics (usually invoking Roe v. Wade) to forge a nominal party “unity” are so quick to damn Clinton with pointed and often unfounded smears when it’s suggested that she might share White House space with Obama.

Actually, Lizard, I do apologize. I blame my half-attention, despite you trying to explain it to me again twice, and the fact that I’ve been reading No Quarter for some unknown reason. Your statement, the one I thought you were making, is quite common over there, and worse.

When is somebody going to address the Bill in the living room? He’s the the one I don’t want sharing White House space.

No worries, Auguste. I’m as sick as you are of the bullshit. I’d like to see this party unite over common ground, rather than common enemies, but maybe that makes ME the naive idealist.

What I don’t understand, and honestly would like to hear from people about this, is why so much of the anger is directed at Obama and/or the DNC (for the MI/FL on Sat.)? Obama has led this race since Super Tuesday, playing by all the rules that all of the candidates and the party agreed to at the outset. Why is the anger not focused on the people behind the Clinton campaign who ran it into the ground, despite the merits of the candidate herself?

I have to say, I don’t really understand this, either.  In 2004, I thought that Kerry was a great candidate (even though Dean was my first choice) but that his campaign was VERY poorly run, and I saw a lot of the same problems with Clinton’s campaign as there were with Kerry’s campaign.  Obama, on the other hand, has run a great campaign and David Plouffe has out-maneuvered Mark Penn at every turn.

That may be it, though—Obama is winning/has won by running a great campaign, not “on the merits” by having a distinctly different platform that people clearly picked over Clinton’s platform.

The instant-runoff voting interface for that poll is interesting, but I wish there was space for write-in candidates.

(It would also be interesting to consider cross party tickets.  Obama-Paul?  Obama-Powell?  Obama-Bartlett?  Probably a crazy idea, but still, wonder how some of those would fare…)

No, I don’t want to see an Obama/Clinton ticket.

I’ve had enough of Clinton and her slipshod campaign.  Especially her bending over-backwards to pour accolades on McCain.

I wouldn’t have always thought so, I was a Clinton supporter in the beginning.

That may be it, though—Obama is winning/has won by running a great campaign, not “on the merits” by having a distinctly different platform that people clearly picked over Clinton’s platform.

Ummmm…..

How is this a problem??????

As for Obama being the less polarizing candidate, at this point, given all the deranged hate spewing going on in the church he attended for 20 years it seems that he’s as though he’s as polarizing as Clinton, if not more so.

I know a lot of Democrats who are going to hold their noses and vote McCain if/when Obama takes the ticket. You wonder who it is that the Clinton-lovers pictured above represent –it’s pretty obvious I think. This blog represents young feminists, but what about the feminists of the 1960’s to whom we owe so much? These women can’t stand Obama. They see him as another big-talk-no-action Jimmy Carter. They’ve seen this kind of hot-air blowing before and they’re wary of anyone who promises to be America’s “savior.” Maybe us young’ns would be better off asking our mothers’ advice and learning from their mistakes.

This blog represents young feminists, but what about the feminists of the 1960’s to whom we owe so much? These women can’t stand Obama.

Well, if they can’t stand him so bad they’re willing to vote McCain, I don’t care how hard they worked for anything 30 years ago, because THEY ARE NOT FUCKING FEMINISTS ANYMORE.

As for Obama being the less polarizing candidate, at this point, given all the deranged hate spewing going on in the church he attended for 20 years it seems that he’s as though he’s as polarizing as Clinton, if not more so.

It seems that way to you because you’re ill-informed. In fact there are a lot of signs of independent and moderate Republican support for Obama (even hundreds of donors who gave to Bush in ‘04). This support would be instantly killed by the stupid idea of putting Clinton on the ticket.

The soreheaded boomer feminists you’re talking about are, to put it brutally, a totally unimportant voting block. As I pointed out earlier, they’re concentrated in states Obama will win anyway. Pandering to them would simply be political suicide.

This blog represents young feminists, but what about the feminists of the 1960’s to whom we owe so much? These women can’t stand Obama. They see him as another big-talk-no-action Jimmy Carter.

Yes, because voting for Reagan over Carter worked out so fucking well for the country in general and for women in particular.  Ronnie Reagan—now there was a feminist hero.

If you’re trying to make a case that the women you’re referring to are much more politically savvy than us young’uns, you’re not exactly succeeding.

They see him as another big-talk-no-action Jimmy Carter.

“Having everything constructive you did reversed by Ronald Reagan” is not the same as “big talk no action”, and certainly provides yet another repudiation of those so-called feminists who would consider repeating the mistakes of 1980.

As for Obama being the less polarizing candidate, at this point, given all the deranged hate spewing going on in the church he attended for 20 years it seems that he’s as though he’s as polarizing as Clinton, if not more so.

Don’t spend much time in the black community, do you?

By the way, anybody who thinks Jeremiah Wright “spewed deranged hate” is anything but a progressive.
(Personally, I prefer Wright to Obama. I’m sick of the “acceptable” range of discourse being center-right to far right.)

Sorry, I don’t take my advice from head-up-arse DLC types or from Repuglican ratfskers.

How many people do I think she represents?  Very, very few.

As a so-called feminist who was old enough to vote for Carter, let me list Jimmy’s accomplishments.

He welcomed the Ayatollah to Iran and was totally unprepared for the hostage taking which lasted 444 days.

He allowed the Russians into Afghanistan with impunity.

With double digit inflation the word “stagflation” was invented for his presidency.

His solution for high gas prices was to allow people to purchase gas only every other day depending on the last digit of their license plate.

He made the country so depressed that they jumped for Reagan’s “Morning in America.”

The operative word of his campaign was “trust”. (Sound familiar? Hope? Change?)

He was elected because people had had it with Watergate and business as usual, so voted for a Washington outsider who campaigned for human rights. It sounded great before the fact. The reality was that he was probably the worst president of the 20th century.

The last thing you young ‘uns need is another 4 years like 1976-1980. His candidacy sounded like a good idea but I lived through it and trust me it sucked.

It is time for the DNC to help unite the party. 18 million Americans, some only half need the DNC to justify their clever conclusion of the Michigan delegate count and what reasoning they used to give someone a portion who was not even on the ballot. Did voters write a name in on their ballots?
18 million are angry and this could cost the dems the next four years.
TAKE IT TO DENVER HILLARY