Showing posts with label barak obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label barak obama. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Out of the Candidate Closet
Salon's "Let the Voting Begin" has some interesting endorsements. I hadn't been coy or undecided previously, but rather had refrained from lining up with a candidate because I thought that was better for my opinion writing. Seems no one cares and it felt like time to me personally. So there you are.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Why Oprah and Hillary are in this election together
12/12/07, 11:12 am--I filed this on Huffington Post just now. It should get posted later today. This time I am leaving in the HTML for the links in case you want to see them from this version. But if you go to read it at HuffPo, it will not only look nicer, you'll be able to leave your comment there and if you are so moved, to sign up to be notified when I have posted a HuffPo commentary, which is more or less weekly.
I want to expand on the Hillary-Oprah connection and would love to hear your thoughts on that. Here's today's post:
Her exquisitely lacquered red nails clasp the lever confidently, six fashion-
statement gold bangles punctuating her slender wrist. Though you can't see the
rest of her, if you read women's fashion magazines, you might guess this is
the smart, sophisticated Marie Claire http://www.marieclaire.com
woman.
There's a good reason why the word "voting" is clearly painted under the lever, with an arrow pointing to it. This woman might well be one of the 35 million eligible women who didn't vote in the 2004 presidential election. And single women http://www.wvwv.org , we are told by the article, are less likely to vote than their married counterparts.
Marie Claire's "Election '08" articles, of which this is the start, are joined
with a larger nonpartisan effort called “Every Woman Counts” that is spearheaded by Lifetime TV and two other Hearst magazines--CosmoGirl! and Redbook--plus a coalition of dozens of other organizations working to elevate the women's vote in 2008 http://www.mylifetime.com/community/my-lifetime-commitment/every-woman-counts ,and to increase women’s participation in the political process in general. (Disclosure, I've signed on to the campaign as an individual, www.gloriafeldt.com.)
The whole political activist world seems to know, even if the word still hasn't
permeated the consciousness of those 35 million eligible-but-not-voting women, that women are the key to the outcome of the 2008 elections, not just at the presidential level but all up and down the ticket. Especially telling is that women in the typically “red” Midwestern states are more likely to vote than women in the typically “blue” states. One must wonder whether this translates to higher voting rates for conservative women than for centrist, progressive and liberal women.
These facts are precisely the reason why Oprah http://www2.oprah.com/index.jhtml
and Hillary http://www.hillaryclinton.com/?splash=1, not Barak http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/semr?source=SEM-register-google-obama-search-national and Hillary, and are currently the leading players in the presidential campaign.
As the crawl at bottom of one Marie Claire pages tells us without needing to
explain its application to 2008: "If more single women had voted in the swing states in 2000, Al Gore http://www.algore.com would have won the election."
And the rest, as they say, would have been a very different history for our country.
I want to expand on the Hillary-Oprah connection and would love to hear your thoughts on that. Here's today's post:
Her exquisitely lacquered red nails clasp the lever confidently, six fashion-
statement gold bangles punctuating her slender wrist. Though you can't see the
rest of her, if you read women's fashion magazines, you might guess this is
the smart, sophisticated Marie Claire http://www.marieclaire.com
woman.
There's a good reason why the word "voting" is clearly painted under the lever, with an arrow pointing to it. This woman might well be one of the 35 million eligible women who didn't vote in the 2004 presidential election. And single women http://www.wvwv.org , we are told by the article, are less likely to vote than their married counterparts.
Marie Claire's "Election '08" articles, of which this is the start, are joined
with a larger nonpartisan effort called “Every Woman Counts” that is spearheaded by Lifetime TV and two other Hearst magazines--CosmoGirl! and Redbook--plus a coalition of dozens of other organizations working to elevate the women's vote in 2008 http://www.mylifetime.com/community/my-lifetime-commitment/every-woman-counts ,and to increase women’s participation in the political process in general. (Disclosure, I've signed on to the campaign as an individual, www.gloriafeldt.com.)
The whole political activist world seems to know, even if the word still hasn't
permeated the consciousness of those 35 million eligible-but-not-voting women, that women are the key to the outcome of the 2008 elections, not just at the presidential level but all up and down the ticket. Especially telling is that women in the typically “red” Midwestern states are more likely to vote than women in the typically “blue” states. One must wonder whether this translates to higher voting rates for conservative women than for centrist, progressive and liberal women.
These facts are precisely the reason why Oprah http://www2.oprah.com/index.jhtml
and Hillary http://www.hillaryclinton.com/?splash=1, not Barak http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/semr?source=SEM-register-google-obama-search-national and Hillary, and are currently the leading players in the presidential campaign.
As the crawl at bottom of one Marie Claire pages tells us without needing to
explain its application to 2008: "If more single women had voted in the swing states in 2000, Al Gore http://www.algore.com would have won the election."
And the rest, as they say, would have been a very different history for our country.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Clinton, Couric, and Chris Matthews’ Sexist Spin
When it comes to Chris Matthews’s interpretation of Hillary Clinton’s words—any of her words—she’s damned if she yeas and damned if she nays.
After gloating that a new poll found Hillary losing in a matchup with any one of five Republican presidential candidates, Matthews later in the same program spun her November 26 interview with Katie Couric, in which--like any candidate with half a brain and a quarter of a spine--Clinton showed confidence in her ability to win the Democratic nomination.
Later, Couric asked whether she has considered the possibility she won't be the nominee. "No, I haven't," Clinton said.
Matthews played clips of the interview on his November 27 show and ranted: “Hillary thinks she’s got it sewed up.” As though there were anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld http://www.sonypictures.com/tv/shows/seinfeld/
would say.
Does Chris expect a anyone running for public office to enter a race assuming he or she is going to lose? If Hillary were Henry, would Matthews judge him negatively for asserting confidence? Just the opposite I suspect. In a man, such confidence would be applauded. Or more likely, the question would never even be asked.
Clinton told Couric she would stand behind any other Democratic nominee, if it came to that. “We're going to have unified party, behind whoever we nominate.” That’s showing the humility and loyalty constituents expect from a candidate. Matthews failed to mention this. And dollars to doughnuts, if she had answered, “Yes I can imagine a scenario where I don’t win.” he would have pounced on her for not being strong enough for the gloves-off political game.
Eric Alterman wrote in The Nation about Chris’s many “man crushes”. Watching Hardball over time, you see him become enamored of candidate after candidate, from John McCain (who, trust me, is not a nice man) to Barak Obama, depending on their level of ascendancy in the media mashup of the day.
But from Day One, Matthews has found so many ways to trash Hillary Clinton that many of his own journalistic colleagues have accused him of picking on her.
You can leave Chris your comment about this on or send your thoughts to MSNBC.
11/28/07 © Gloria Feldt www.gloriafeldt.com
After gloating that a new poll found Hillary losing in a matchup with any one of five Republican presidential candidates, Matthews later in the same program spun her November 26 interview with Katie Couric, in which--like any candidate with half a brain and a quarter of a spine--Clinton showed confidence in her ability to win the Democratic nomination.
Couric: If it's not you, how disappointed will you be?"
Clinton: “Well, it will be me.”
Later, Couric asked whether she has considered the possibility she won't be the nominee. "No, I haven't," Clinton said.
Matthews played clips of the interview on his November 27 show and ranted: “Hillary thinks she’s got it sewed up.” As though there were anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld http://www.sonypictures.com/tv/shows/seinfeld/
would say.
Does Chris expect a anyone running for public office to enter a race assuming he or she is going to lose? If Hillary were Henry, would Matthews judge him negatively for asserting confidence? Just the opposite I suspect. In a man, such confidence would be applauded. Or more likely, the question would never even be asked.
Clinton told Couric she would stand behind any other Democratic nominee, if it came to that. “We're going to have unified party, behind whoever we nominate.” That’s showing the humility and loyalty constituents expect from a candidate. Matthews failed to mention this. And dollars to doughnuts, if she had answered, “Yes I can imagine a scenario where I don’t win.” he would have pounced on her for not being strong enough for the gloves-off political game.
Eric Alterman wrote in The Nation about Chris’s many “man crushes”. Watching Hardball over time, you see him become enamored of candidate after candidate, from John McCain (who, trust me, is not a nice man) to Barak Obama, depending on their level of ascendancy in the media mashup of the day.
But from Day One, Matthews has found so many ways to trash Hillary Clinton that many of his own journalistic colleagues have accused him of picking on her.
You can leave Chris your comment about this on or send your thoughts to MSNBC.
11/28/07 © Gloria Feldt www.gloriafeldt.com
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