A political moment for which women have waited

[question everything]

A political moment for which women have waited

The gender card might be a winner in Minnesota for Hillary Clinton -- and others.

By LORI STURDEVANT, Star Tribune

Last update: January 13, 2008

(snip)

The story was that one longtime Republican backer of womenwinning (which at the time was called the Minnesota Women's Campaign Fund) phoned another to announce that she was organizing a Republicans for Choice rally at next September's GOP national convention in St. Paul. It was the sort of thing the two of them used to love to do 25 or 30 years ago -- back when there was something called the GOP Feminist Caucus and when Minnesota's Republican leadership had not yet alienated or exiled almost all of its backers of legal abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment.

"Can I count on your support?" Sally Pillsbury asked Marilyn Bryant.

"I'm sorry," replied Bryant, "but I'm supporting Hillary."

So is womenwinning. The still officially multipartisan state organization sends money only to candidates who are female, prochoice and viable, and this year found itself able to endorse a candidate for president for the first time. Bryant, a womenwinning founder, explained her choice last week: "I've seen women move into the professions -- business, law, medicine -- with great success. But in politics, it's been a terribly slow process. I'd love to have the opportunity to vote for a woman for president, especially a woman who's as articulate, smart and qualified as Hillary Clinton is." That longing among female voters -- some of them former Republicans like Bryant -- is getting much credit for Clinton's resurgent victory Tuesday.

(snip)

To keep women's votes coming the way they did in New Hampshire, Clinton has to make sure they see her the way Bryant does: articulate, smart, qualified, and a woman to boot -- and not the way her opponents cast her in Iowa: too calculating, cautious, controlling and connected to a certain previous administration. Clinton emerged from New Hampshire as both the establishment and the feminist candidate. That's a complex and somewhat contradictory dual identity that no previous major presidential contender has borne. She's traversing uncharted territory. A lot of politically ambitious women are watching her for a lesson in how to do it -- or, if she fails, how not to.

(snip)



Find this article at:
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/13718316.html?pt=y

[dkf]

1. She has offended me so badly I don't even feel a connection based on gender.

I don't have anything in common with her. Blech.

How's about I see her as unethical and dirty?

[Rageneau]

6. You see her as "unethical and dirty" because you've been told to.

Hillary, like her husband, is one of the most scrupulously honest politicians to every rise to national prominence. That has been proven by the fact that every aspect of their lives has been thoroughly looked into and found free of any ethical lapse.

Venomous namtional media outlets like the NY(w)T and the W(w)P spent fortunes trying to dig up dirt on them. Wildly partisan Congressional Committees pried directly into their personal and business affairs extending back more than a decade. Corrupt political prosecutors (the kind who put Don Seligman in prison) spent many years and many MILLIONS of dollars trying to find the least thing they could charge them with and make stick. The hand-selected wingnut assassin, Ken Starr, had open-ended authority to find any crime he could, and 100 million dollars and over 100 FBI agents to assist in his "investigations" -- and still couldn't find anything that EITHER Clinton had ever done wrong. Except, of course, a few unauthorized Bjs.

But despite all that, there are still slanderous people who call Bill "crooked and dirty." But it isn't HE who is morally lacking; THEY are.

Same thing applies to Hillary. She is one of the most investigated -- and most exonerated -- human beings to ever aspire to the office of President. Anybody who tells you different is lying to you for their own selfish (or hateful) reason.

[question everything]

11. Thank you. What a wonderful post (nt)

[AX10]

2. I'm with her.

[question everything]

5. An interesting observation

In the United States, black men were given the vote 50 years before women. It certainly isn't far-fetched to believe that sexism is behind at least some of the anti-Hillary sentiment.

[AX10]

9. It most certainly is.

[emilyg]

3. I'm with Hillary.

[tavalon]

4. My vagina

is not yearning for Hillary. Please.

[question everything]

12. Thankfully, many voters, especailly on DU, one hopes

vote with their hearts and their brains, not with their reproductive organs.

At least, this is something that we often associate with threatened conservative males.

[troubleinwinter]

7. January 25, 1972

In 1964 Chisholm ran for a state assembly seat. She won and served in the New York General Assembly from 1964 to 1968. During her tenure in the legislature, she proposed a bill to provide state aid to day-care centers and voted to increase funding for schools on a per-pupil basis. In 1968, After finishing her term in the legislature, Chisholm campaigned to represent New York's Twelfth Congressional District. Her campaign slogan was "Fighting Shirley Chisholm--Unbought and Unbossed." She won the election and became the first African American woman elected to Congress.

During her first term in Congress, Chisholm hired an all-female staff and spoke out for civil rights, women's rights, the poor and against the Vietnam War. In 1970, she was elected to a second term. She was a sought-after public speaker and cofounder of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She remarked that, "Women in this country must become revolutionaries. We must refuse to accept the old, the traditional roles and stereotypes."

On January 25, 1972, Chisholm announced her candidacy for president. She stood before the cameras and in the beginning of her speech she said,

"I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States. I am not the candidate of black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I am equally proud of that. I am not the candidate of any political bosses or special interests. I am the candidate of the people."

The 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami was the first major convention in which any woman was considered for the presidential nomination. Although she did not win the nomination, she received 151 of the delegates' votes.

I voted for Shirley in the first election I was old enough to vote in. I don't understand why people act like Hillary is the first woman to run for president.

[flashl]

8. Thank you!!

American revisionist history in plain sight.

Shirley Chilsom. "UnBought and UnBossed"

[juno jones]

10. I would vote for Ms Shirley in a New York minute.

Unbought, unbossed.

[ursi]

13. I've been waiting for an honest president who gives a crap about the middle class

I could care less if it is a man or a woman or what color or ethnic group.