When people write, "Is America ready for a female president?" they need to know how insulting that is to women. These are the doubt planters. Tell 'em to go to hell. They're not asking, they're undermining. If you want to make someone feel unwell, don't say, "You look terrible", because he'll immediately bounce back with, "I feel fine!" But if you ASK, if you say, "Do you feel all right?" the doubt sets right in. "Why? Why do you ask? What's wrong?" That's what they're doing. "Is America READY for a woman president?" "Why? What's going to happen??"

Is America ready? The rest of the world probably reads that and shakes its head in bemusement, or incredulity, plain confusion, or maybe even sadness. Is America ready for sliced bread, covered wagons, indoor plumbing, math, the wheel, air travel, computers? Duh. You're so cute.

I've ranted on this before, but for my own peace of mind I can't rant enough on this damned question (at least until they stop asking the stupid thing!). Ms. Boosler just puts in perspective just how freaking backwards we are. You know that cousin you pretend you're not related to? The racist, sexist cousin who watches Fox News and donates to Focus on the Family?

Well, to the rest of the World, that's us right now.

On imperfect but serviceable Wikipedia there's a long list of women who tried, starting with Victoria Woodhull (and the doubts about whether or not she counts) in 1872. All third-party candidates. And vice presidential candidates. Aside from Geraldine Ferraro, all third-party. It doesn't list the many Democratic and Republican hopefuls who didn't make it past the primaries (Elizabeth Dole in 2000, Carol Moseley Braun in 2004). Ferraro was historic mainly because she came so damned close by being on a major party's ballot.

I can't find a similar list of black candidates (it would be nice to try and get one together), but its reasonable to imagine there's a similar problem. If Victorian Woodhull counts, then so does Frederick Douglass as her running mate. For primary hopefuls I know Shirley Chisholm tried, and last year Al Sharpton and Carol Braun tried. I think Jesse Jackson made the attempt a few elections ago.

No one on the ballot of a major party past the primary.

So its not because no one's tried or wanted to make history. Its because the majority of the country wasn't willing to take the chance on it. They went with the safe candidate. The one who looked like the other guy.

That's where we get into the interesting part about this election. The Republican Party now has almost a uniform platform, and its the same platform its had for the last 13 years. With that platform, the party has messed up so badly that its considered impossible for a Republican to win in 2008 even when they do apply the attractive "Maverick" modifer to their candidate.

Its considered a given that next year will be a Democratic win unless the Democrats run an exceptionally weak candidate. The two frontrunners are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a black man and a white woman, followed closely by John Edwards. These three are popular enough that really they just have to get past the primaries and avoid doing anything monumentally stupid to be in the White House.

That has to have the racists and the sexists in the country sweating. Here's where the prejudice inherent in the questions "Would America vote for a woman President" and "Would America vote for a black man?" come out.

Those questions don't make a bit of difference in the general election. With the general election in our cursed two-party system, its this bum or that bum. The lesser of two evils, and if it looks likely that the greater of two evils will win you go out of your way to make sure your vote gets counted.

The problem is the primaries. That's the most wickedly effective place to sew doubt about electability. Many of the Democrats in the United States are currently, if you'll excuse the vernacular, pinging. They are bouncing off the walls, scared to death that somehow they are going to screw this up and get 8 more years of a Republican White House. All of the Republicans know this, and they know the two strongest candidates are the white woman and the black man. All of the closet racists and sexists know this too, and they are more terrified of a woman or a black man in the White House than anything else.

So, on television, they drop the question. "Are we ready for a woman?" "Are we ready for a black man?" It plays on the fears of the Democratic voters that they will do the one thing that could screw up this perfect setup by suggesting that the one thing that could screw up this setup is take a chance on a woman or a black man.

Now, for the traditional disclaimer in posts like this (lest someone answer that I want people to vote for a woman or a black just to vote for a woman or a black man) -- Its one thing to go with Edwards or Dodd because you trust, like, and agree with them. It's another thing entirely to be attuned politically to Obama or Clinton, then go and vote Edwards because you think someone will cancel your vote over race or gender. That's what that question wants you to do. They figure if they ask it enough, everyone will ask that as they go to the ballot box and some people who would otherwise vote for one candidate will vote for another.

No one asks this if they think that a candidate will win solely on race or gender. They ask this because they are afraid that the candidate in question is too strong to attack on any other grounds, so they chip away at race and gender and play on our subtle prejudices and our fear of others prejudices.

Its a really, really dirty trick, designed to trick Democrats into choosing the safe (and ideally the weak) candidate and prevent making any further progress on civil rights in the United States. Its also becoming really damned obvious they don't have any more stable ground for attack when they ask this inane question.

Three female members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus accused the organization's male leaders Thursday of treating women unfairly. Rep. Loretta Sanchez said the caucus chairman called her a "whore."

Rep. Joe Baca denied uttering the insult, which Sanchez cited among grievances that led her to announce this week she was quitting the group.

"Let me be clear: Her comments are categorically untrue," said Baca, who like Sanchez is a California Democrat.

"He said it. For him to deny it is just a silly thing," Sanchez said in an interview.

This is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better, isn't it?

Read the whole thing.

“I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

He also misrepresented Senator Obama's Iraq platform:

But—and the “but” was clearly inevitable—he doubts whether American voters are going to elect “a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate,” and added: “I don’t recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic.”

(After the interview with Mr. Biden and shortly before press time, Mr. Obama proposed legislation that would require all American combat brigades to be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of March 2008.)

I could swear Sen. Obama's been one of the voices for phased withdrawl since at least November. This article has him voicing that plan at the beginning fo January. Either Biden is lying or he has simply been ignoring a member of the Foreign Relations Committee that he chairs.

This is what Ive been saying leftists for years. Democrats are seen as too wimpy. Theres too much talk about gay stuff, feminism,... and being to anti-military. This is what the DLC has been saying too. Voters want someone strong as commander in chief, not some feminised, left-wing male, and maybe not a woman (Hillary) either.

]]> http://firstwoman.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/she-has-cooties/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 03:38:54 +0000 Ragnell http://firstwoman.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/she-has-cooties/ This has been one hell of a day for blogging. I think Media Matters has found the dumbest story yet:

SULLIVAN: Well, I just think as a candidate, he's so fresher than Hillary, that she harkens back to the '90s. I think she's been a very sensible senator. I think, in fact, it's hard to disagree with her on the war. But when I see her again, all my -- all the cootie vibes --

[laughter]

SULLIVAN: -- sort of resurrect themselves.

FINEMAN: That's a technical term, by the way.

SULLIVAN: I just -- I'm sorry I must --

FINEMAN: We in politics --

SULLIVAN: -- represent a lot of people. I actually find her positions appealing in many ways. I just can't stand her. I'm sorry about that.

How old do you have to be to go on television as a political expert?

]]> http://firstwoman.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/political-blogging-made-easy/ Tue, 30 Jan 2007 00:42:03 +0000 Ragnell http://firstwoman.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/political-blogging-made-easy/ I've only posted for a week or so, and mostly on middle-ground and left of center sources. That's mainly because everytime I take a look at the Far Right side of the internet, I come across the following vile quote by Ann Coulter:

As long as we have revived the practice of celebrating multicultural milestones (briefly suspended when Condoleezza Rice became the first black female to be Secretary of State), let us pause to note that Mrs. Clinton, if elected, would be the first woman to become president after her husband had sex with an intern in the Oval Office... Mrs. Clinton is probably the real front-runner based on: (1) the multiple millions of dollars she has raised, and (2) the fact that her leading Democratic opponent is named ‘Barack Hussein Obama.’ Or, as he’s known at CNN, ‘Osama.’ Or, as he’s known on the Clinton campaign, ‘The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations.’ Mrs. Clinton’s acolytes are floating the idea of Hillary as another Margaret Thatcher to get past the question, ‘Can a woman be elected president?’ This is based on the many, many things Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher have in common, such as the lack of a Y chromosome and... hmmm, you know, I think that’s it. Girl-power feminists who got where they are by marrying men with money or power—Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Arianna Huffington and John Kerry—love to complain about how hard it is for a woman to be taken seriously.

I don't know where she said it yet, but I've seen it attributed to her on at least three journals today on a "Hillary Clinton" blogsearch.

I'd analyze the depth of misogyny found in this quote, but I can't get past the idea that she seems to think that Margaret Thatcher is someone a Democratic candidate would actually want to resemble.

Also, I could have sworn Dr. Rice's appointment was treated as a proper milestone in gender and race advancement, but it has been several years. Perhaps my own recollection of history is foggier than that of a person who remembers Joe McCarthy as a persecuted patriotic hero.

]]> http://firstwoman.wordpress.com/2007/01/29/must-i-comment-on-this/ Mon, 29 Jan 2007 23:22:23 +0000 Ragnell http://firstwoman.wordpress.com/2007/01/29/must-i-comment-on-this/ Parodying the Clinton campaign with a fake Oprah show:

Yes, to warm up your image, humanize you, make you accessible. That's what your aides said, and I said, 'You go, girl.' We're in the middle of a war, and the first woman with a shot at the White House doesn't have to prove she's tough enough. She's got to warm up her image. People already know the girl's cold-blooded enough. We've come a long way bay-bay, is what I say. (Audience clapping).

Found through Blue Oregon.

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