Palin Power: Fresh Face Now More Popular Than Obama, McCain
This poll, taken just after the Palin acceptance speech, demonstrates how severely she has been underestimated. This story is from Yahoo News
Palin Power: Fresh Face Now More Popular Than Obama, McCain
rasmussenreports.com
Fri Sep 5, 12:04 PM ETA week ago, most Americans had never heard of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Now, following a Vice Presidential acceptance speech viewed live by more than 40 million people, Palin is viewed favorably by 58% of American voters. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 37% hold an unfavorable view of the self-described hockey mom.
The figures include 40% with a Very Favorable opinion of Palin and 18% with a Very Unfavorable view. Before her acceptance speech, Palin was viewed favorably by 52%. A week ago, 67% had never heard of her.
The new data also shows significant increases in the number who say McCain made the right choice and the number who say Palin is ready to be President. Generally, John McCain’s choice of Palin earns slightly better reviews than Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden.
Perhaps most stunning is the fact that Palin’s favorable ratings are now a point higher than either man at the top of the Presidential tickets this year. As of Friday morning, Obama and McCain are each viewed favorably by 57% of voters. Biden is viewed favorably by 48%.
There is a strong partisan gap when it comes to perceptions of Palin. Eighty-nine percent (89%) of Republicans give her favorable reviews along with 33% of Democrats and 59% of voters not affiliated with either major party.
She earns positive reviews from 65% of men and 52% of women. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows that Obama continues to lead McCain among women voters while McCain leads among men. The Friday morning update — the first to include interviews conducted after Palin’s speech–showed the beginning of a Republican convention bounce that may match Obama’s bounce from last week.
Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans believe that most reporters are trying to hurt Palin’s campaign, a fact that may enhance her own ratings.
The Palin pick has also improved perceptions of John McCain. A week ago, just before he introduced his running mate, just 42% of Republicans had a Very Favorable opinion of their party’s nominee. That figure jumped to 54% by this Friday morning. Among unaffiliated voters, favorable opinions of McCain have increased by eleven percentage points in a week from 54% before the Palin announcement to 65% today.
Although my opinion of McCain is as far from favorable as I can imagine, this bold move did improve my opinion of him. Not much, but for him to pick any woman after Obama declined that opportunity shows he is not as stuck on playing it safe. Jo Freeman wrote an interesting article thanking McCain for putting women back on the front burner.
Sarah Palin: A Risky Move and A Gift to the Women’s Movement
Thank you, John McCain!
Never thought I would say those words, but McCain’s selection of Alaska governor Sarah Palin was a godsend to the women’s movement.
With Hillary out of the picture, there was a serious possibility that women and women’s issues would be ignored in the 2008 election. After all, there are so many other concerns fighting for air time from the candidates. Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, housing, climate change, budget deficits ….the list goes on and on. The Bush Presidency has left us holding so many problems that “women” could well have dropped to the bottom of the list.
Not now.
Women have been roughly 60 percent of the Democratic base since 1980. Since anyone who looks at the platforms of the two parties knows that women’s interests (well … the feminist view of women’s interests) are best served by the Democrats, the Party has tended to take the women’s vote for granted.
There’s been a lot of talk in the last few years about how the Democrats need to appeal to men more, because white men are more likely to vote Republican. McCain’s selection of a woman as a running-mate puts the women’s vote into play.
His choice for VP indicates that he thinks he can shave off a piece of that population who are still unhappy with how Hillary was treated. It’s a small piece, but a small piece of a large population is still a lot of votes. It was a bold choice. A brilliant choice. A risky choice.
Like Hillary’s 2008 run for President, Ferraro’s 1984 run for the second spot brought all sorts of sexism out of the closet. It was an eye-opener for everyone. In the end, this bold, risky choice didn’t seem to affect the outcome. The exit polls showed that having a woman on the ticket was a prime concern for only a few. These voters about equally divided between those who told pollsters that they voted for a woman and those who said they voted against one.
Ferraro’s candidacy had a bigger effect on those who answered the annual polling question (in a different poll): Would you vote for “a well-qualified woman of your own party for President”? After Ferraro a party gap appeared. Republicans were 50 percent more likely than Democrats to answer “No.” Republicans have continued to say they would not vote for a well-qualified (but unnamed) woman for President at a much higher rate than Democrats.
Wonder what they will tell the pollsters this year?
If this Rasmussen poll is any indication, Republicans have closed that gap. Eight out of nine Republicans gave Palin favorable reviews after her speech. Democrats underestimate her at their peril. They may believe Bush is so unpopular that Obama will win by a landslide, but far more people do not view McCain as a Bush clone than Democrats would like to believe. McCain agrees with Bush on most issues, but Obama does not represent the kind of change his followers want to believe. On issues such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Georgia, Israel, Hamas, clean coal, nuclear power, agrofuels, the medical procedure so misleadingly termed partial-birth abortion, genetic engineering, free trade, it is not easy to distinguish Obama from Bush or McCain. Is that just a matter of strategy, or is that what Obama means by ending the partisan divide, working with Republicans?
September 11th, 2008 at 12:17 am
With so many issues to choose from, one strange insinuation making the rounds about Gov. Palin is that she favors abstinence-only sex education. In a debate during her gubernatorial campaign, she said otherwise. This is from the Los Angeles Times
It seems her position on sex education is not as far from that of Obama as Democrats would like to believe. He also supports abstinence education. The distortion seems to be a conflation of abstinence with abstinence-only. Democrats are going around saying Governor Palin opposes teaching children about contraception. Democrats need to get their facts straight, but they prefer to cast her as an extremist and deny that sexist attacks are being lavished on her. In some ways she is an extremist, but not on the issue of sex education, evidently. Those who doubt she is the subject of sexist attacks should read some of this thread I started at the Randi Rhodes Forum, Name Calling: Does it help your cause?, in response to Ms. Rhodes deriding Governor Palin as a bitch and a breeder. That was tame, compared to the revelry in sexism on that thread. One commenter wondered why there was a double standard, since racist remarks are grounds for banning, but sexism, hey, no problem. I warned them they risked turning off supporters of Senator Clinton, and that if they could not stick to the issues, they deserve to lose.
Edited to add, the original Eagle Forum questionnaire referenced above had been taken down, but has been reposted here.
September 16th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Votermoms.com is putting together a video to post on http://www.votermoms.com and on Youtube, “that features American moms (military moms, soccer moms, nervous-in-front-of-a-camera moms, ballet grandmoms, etc.) explaining their own reasons why they do not want Governor Palin one heartbeat away.” Cafe McMullen has posted an announcement on the Free Soil message board.
September 16th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Heart posted a comment on Hint: Sarah Palin is Not the Presidential Candidate, citing a damning CNN exclusive interview on YouTube of Trooper Mike Wooten, ex-brother-in-law of Governor Palin and the subject of the Troopergate investigation. As Heart says,
September 17th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Anonymous, presumably the same bunch of Internet hoodlums that forced this site off the Internet last summer, has hacked into personal email accounts of Governor Palin. Some of their gleanings were posted at wikileaks.org, though I have not been able to access that site, probably overloaded with traffic. Here is one story from the Washington Post
It is an illegal invasion of privacy, but hardly shocking to anyone familiar with Anonymous, which has let Palin off easy, at least so far.
September 19th, 2008 at 1:25 am
More interesting details have surfaced. This story is from the Channel Wire blog
Nothing incriminating could be found? Perhaps Governor Palin is extremist, but not a crook. What a concept! And she had good reasons for wanting Trooper Wooten fired! What a shock! And she favors sex education that includes information about contraception! Imagine that! I am being just a bit sarcastic here, if anyone is confused. The spite aimed at the governor from Obama partisans is so far beyond the pale, it makes one wonder how they can expect to be taken seriously.
September 19th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
The hacker has been almost certainly identified as the son of Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell. This story is from TG Daily
Talk about a prank gone awry. This clown is in big trouble, all for nothing. Some Obama fans claim this is more evidence of how incompetent Governor Palin is. It may be true that she should have expected this and made her account more difficult to hack, but Internet security is notoriously unreliable. Hackers from China have hacked into Pentagon computers. If the Pentagon cannot protect itself from determined hackers, how can this incident be blamed on carelessness or incompetence of Governor Palin? This just goes to show how low some Democrats will go to try to destroy her. Her popularity rating has come back down to earth. No mainstream politician deserves an ounce of credibility, so that does not surprise me at all, but some of the more vicious attackers are crowing over that, taking credit as if their attacks are carrying the day.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
One cheer for Sarah Palin, from an unexpected source, the editors of CounterPunch in the August 2008 newsletter. I do not think this is available on the CounterPunch site, though it is posted as an editorial at The Eureka Reporter and creators.com. It does demonstrate that some radical men can see through the hype of the Obama machine.
Interesting questions. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair are radical leftists, so their questioning of Democratic conventional wisdom is hardly unusual. They often call attention to Democratic hypocrisy on environmental issues. One ironic point is that, liberals attacking Palin on sex education vastly distort her position, not realizing how close that is to that of Obama. See above. The next issue of CounterPunch has articles reaming McCain on several fronts, one devoted to his absymal behavior towards the women in his life, so nobody should confuse this cheer for Palin with support for the Republican ticket. Likewise, nobody should confuse the defenses Heart and I have undertaken against the lies and sexist crap thrown at Palin with support for the Republican ticket.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Is Wooten a good trooper is an in depth investigation by the Anchorage Daily News published two months ago. Those who scream about Troopergate ought to find out a little about the man they think Governor Palin unfairly targeted. He should have been fired long ago, but apparently the union has stood behind him.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Another myth of the raving lunacy of Sarah Palin has been exploded by the latest installment of the interviews with Katie Couric. This is from the Washington Post
Another nail in the coffin of those clueless pontificators claiming the pregnancy of her daughter Bristol shows how well that abstinence-only belief works for the Palin family.
This is not a controversial position, and refutes the claim that her religious fervor would lead to creationism replacing evolution in schools. Perhaps the responsibility of being governor has moderated her stance.
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:43 am
I am sure the haters of Governor Palin will find some way to maintain their stance that she is a blithering idiot, but she held her own in the VP debate. Joe Biden had the audacity to claim he had always supported clean coal! He also denied Obama said he would meet with the President of Iran. I wonder why Democrats think they can rewrite history and get away with it.
Sandra Bernhard got cut from the annual benefit of Rosie’s Place, a Boston shelter for women, because of her recent comedy skit in which she warned that Gov. Palin would be “gang-raped by my big black brothers” if she visited Manhattan. This story was covered by the New York Daily News Gossip page two weeks ago. Now according to an AP story she is saying she was taken out of context, denying she used the words rape or gang rape. A likely story, about as likely as the allegation by Randi Rhodes that one cannot say anything about Gov. Palin without being called sexist. No, but nice try to obfuscate the rampant sexism directed against the governor.
October 4th, 2008 at 1:46 am
From the Randi Rhodes site
The page features a picture of a pit bull smeared with lipstick. Thanks, Ms. Rhodes, for showing how a smart liberal woman can suspend her own thinking to maintain her stance that Gov. Palin is a blithering idiot. As an attack dog, the governor has nothing on Ms. Rhodes. Same old BS, Republicans cannot think for themselves. Ms. Rhodes is capable of thinking for herself, but sometimes she sounds like a broken record parroting Democratic propaganda. Like Ms. Bernhard and Margaret Cho, Ms. Rhodes thinks because Palin is a political enemy, she deserves the worst they can throw at her, no matter how sexist. This gem from Ms. Cho takes the cake. She also posted this at her WordPress blog
This is supposed to be funny, and not at all sexist? Yeah, Ms. Cho, I have a bridge to nowhere to sell you. This is what a feminist looks like? These allegedly feminist crudely clever woman-bashers give feminism a bad name.
October 4th, 2008 at 5:26 am
The Anchorage Daily News reports on a student movement to mandate comprehensive sex education in high school.
So, if Governor Palin is so determined to enforce abstinence-only sex education, why does she leave it to individual school districts? If children grow up uninformed about contraception in Alaska, blaming it on the governor is blithering idiocy. Each school district has discretion, but apparently some teachers are too embarrassed or prudish to follow the guidelines of their school districts. Alaska has a history as a relatively freewheeling libertarian state, so it not surprising the state defers to local control on what kind of sex education will be taught. This may not be wise, but it would be up to the state legislature to mandate comprehensive sex education, as the state of Washington did last year. Unless the suggested program was too graphic for the governor, I somehow doubt she would hesitate to sign such legislation. I noted some clueless commenters on the Margaret Cho site proclaiming that same nonsense about Gov. Palin promoting abstinence-only and how well that worked out for her family. How easy it is for liberals to distort the convictions of a devout Christian Republican like the governor of Alaska. How easy it is for them to slip into grotesque misogyny, of which the comments on those posts of Margaret Cho I linked above are chock full. I am as skeptical of religion as anyone, but I know enough about it to know that the governor being a devout anti-choice fundamentalist Christian woman does not force her to be as foolish as the Pope. Even most Catholics ignore the opposition of Catholic dogma to birth control.
October 4th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Hillary Clinton showed some class commenting on the VP debate. She was quoted by the ABC News Political Radar blog
According to the London Times Online
According to the Long Beach Report, Governor Palin appeared at a rally in Carson, California this afternoon, introduced by Shelley Mandel, President of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Organization for Women, though apparently she was speaking for herself, as the national leadership of NOW has endorsed Obama.
There has been speculation that the Clintons want McCain to win so Hillary can run next time around. No doubt her lukewarm praise of Gov. Palin will fuel that speculation. Some people just do not know when to quit harping on nonsense. The ire directed at both Palin and Clinton has been so far out of proportion, denying the misogyny in it is laughable.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:50 am
Todd Palin and seven aides who had been contesting subpoenas in the Troopergate investigation have agreed to testify. This story is from Reuters
Obama partisans have been screaming for blood over this supposed scandal. It is peculiar what kind of man they rally to defend, as if he has been wronged by the governor. It must be the enemy of my enemy is my friend mentality. Mike Wooten is certainly far from a shining example of a police officer. Whoever stood in the way of firing him should be fired. Whoever thinks Gov. Palin should be ashamed of her actions in this matter should be ashamed of themselves.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Today Mr. Kernell was indicted for hacking the email account of Gov. Palin. This story is from Reuters
Five years in prison? This does not seem like such a lulzy prank now, does it?
Last month NOW President Kim Gandy wrote an interesting comparison between the sexist attacks on Gov. Palin and Sen. Clinton.
This is a reasonably balanced view. I applaud Ms. Gandy for keeping some sense of perspective. NOW has made a rare endorsement in this election, however, deciding it was important to endorse Obama/Biden. Robin Morgan and Starhawk have also endorsed the Democratic ticket, but their arguments were far less balanced.
October 17th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
The Sarah Palin Is A Cunt T-shirt is making the rounds. The New Agenda posted pictures of proud wearers of this trash, one of whom decorating a profile at barackobama.com (since removed). Allegedly none of these people are Democrats.
Then there is the Drill Baby Drill T-shirt on sale at various sites, for instance Threadpit. This is supposedly a parody. This is humor? No, just same old misogyny. If McCain had picked Mitt Romney, would there be T-shirts for sale saying Mitt Romney is a prick, or showing McCain screwing Romney?
Not to be outdone, the Huffington Post ran an uncritical advertisement for a porn spoof of Palin, titled “’Nailin’ Paylin’ Photos: Pictures from the Set of The Palin Inspired Porn”.
Anything goes to put down Governor Palin, apparently.
October 20th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
The BUST Magazine blog is promoting a mock baby shower for Bristol Palin, all donations to be given to Planned Parenthood of Alaska in the name of the governor. This is supposedly to make a point about how abstinence-only sex education does not work. A few commenters on that blog entry pointed out that the governor favors contraception, but the majority were having none of that, no inconvenient truth could be allowed to mess up their merriment.
Heart uncovered a disgusting video also on the BUST blog called La Pequeña Sarah Palin.
It is not funny or creative, just more asinine misogynist trash posing as political parody. There is plenty more where that came from.
October 25th, 2008 at 3:56 am
This video, Sarah Palin Family Meeting, might be the most disgusting I have seen so far. Was that supposed to be funny? That was one of the companion videos to the relatively tame spoof The Real Sarah Palin, played by Obama Girl, posted by the co-editor of CounterPunch, Jeffrey St. Clair.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Some clowns in West Hollywood have created a Halloween display of a mannequin dressed to look like Governor Palin, hanging by a noose around her neck. The creator defends this tasteless display as art befitting the Halloween season. He says there is not a comparable charge on a white woman hanging as there would be on a black man. It may be true lynchings were not as far in the past as the Inquisition, but otherwise that is trivializing all the horrors men have subjected women to throughout history.
October 30th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Hey Aletha,
I just wanted to drop by and say “hi.” It seems this election really shows how important it is for women to work together on political and social issues.
Does Free Soil have plans for the future?
Hopefully we can get a dialogue started; there are so many great articles posted and pieces of writing here!
October 30th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
This election certainly shows how hard it is for women to work together. As usual, men play us off against each other. When will women call that bluff? Plans, you ask? Much depends on developments, but the general plan I see is to get some radical women into Congress. I think Obama will win, but when people realize he represents politics as usual, he and his party will become nearly as unpopular as Republicans are now.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Some supporters of Hillary Clinton are not at all pleased with the latest Obama ad
These are some comments from Hillary Clinton supporters:
Several Obama supporters commented, saying they saw nothing sexist or unfair about the spot. People will see what they want to see. The attacks on Palin are sexist? Perish the thought! Palin deserves no respect, and there is nothing sexist about saying so! As if the attackers dismissing her as a vapid Caribou Barbie are really attacking her on the issues. Give me a break.
This is from an editorial from the Philadelphia Inquirer
This editorial got many hostile comments from Obama supporters who see nothing sexist in the attacks on Governor Palin, not realizing how they made her point about misogyny being so endemic it cannot be recognized. The selection of Palin is such an insult, she must be insulted in the basest terms to prove how insulting her candidacy is? Politics is a nasty business, but if racist slams are beyond the pale, why are sexist slams acceptable?
At least the hanging effigy of Governor Palin has been taken down. The mayor of West Hollywood appealed to Mr. Morrisette, who realized things had gotten out of hand.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:40 am
Yup, women have to call one another out on this crap. I’m not sure how women can really deny that certain things they are saying are sexist, but they do! Really amazing! It’s a way for men’s values to seep in and split us apart, even in all-women groups.
The way both conservatives and many people on the left are playing up the possible Obama presidency, well, I’m just surprised they don’t know better. I do hope you are right, and it gets people, especially women, thinking out of this rigged two-party system.
BTW, the essay from the Philadelphia Inquiry is absolutely excellent; I forwarded it to some women who have been sending out the usual anti-Palin nonsense.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:29 pm
After reading thru the above, is there nothing about Palin’s stances that concern you as women?
October 31st, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Wordsmith, could you possibly ask a stupider question? I doubt it. There is hardly anything about her stances that does not concern me, but what concerns me more than what I would expect from any Republican, at least for the purposes of this thread, are the distortions, lies, hatred, and sexist nonsense directed her way by people who claim to care about feminist ideals. The Free Soil Party is a feminist revolutionary party, about as far removed from the stances of Palin, McCain, Obama, and Biden as one could imagine. A pox on all their warmongering greenwashing pseudo-feminist houses.
Laur, why are you surprised people do not know better? People have pinned their best hopes or worst fears on Obama. The truth is somewhere in between. He is a centrist, so most of those hopes and fears are not well founded. The system tends to blow everything out of proportion, so a candidate is portrayed as either a demon or a saint. I think Obama is a lot like Bill Clinton, a slick charmer and master triangulator.
It seems Governor Palin scares many women, so they think she is fair game for putdowns. When a woman is insulted, it is easy to slip into sexist language without realizing it, since that language is so heavily entrenched into the culture. It is much easier to throw sexist taunts at Palin than to stick to the issues. Though there is no shortage of issues with her stances to argue about intelligently, that takes thought, unlike sexist taunts, or stretching her stances into the worst extremes one can imagine. The lie that she opposes contraception is a good example of that. Explicit sex education apparently means something to her she finds objectionable, but whatever it is, it has nothing to do with contraception. People jumped all over that, assuming she meant she opposes contraception, like the Pope.
November 1st, 2008 at 10:01 am
Wordsmith, could you possibly ask a stupider question? I doubt it.
No, now – don’t be too sure. Gimme time.
November 1st, 2008 at 9:52 pm
I doubt it because you do not seem to be a stupid person likely to so completely miss the point. I suppose if you only read this thread, you might get the idea I like Palin Power. I think it is an interesting paradox, but many of the reactions have been disgusting, reminding me progressives can be as sexist as anyone. I do insist she deserves respect, and that she is not some dimwit freak from the worst hells of fundamentalism. This does not mean I agree with her policies, though I find some of her observations amusing or ironic, for example her idea of the Bush doctrine, which was closer to the requirements of international law than the Bush doctrine. If only the Bush doctrine were like that, there would be no war on Iraq. If she meant and understood what she said, that war did not qualify. There is irony in that, in my eyes. Neither war Bush started met the requirements of international law. 9/11 changed everything, so Bush said, and Democrats, for the most part, went along for the ride.
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:25 pm
The Alaskan State Personnel Board has reversed the earlier finding that Gov. Palin violated ethics rules in the Troopergate matter. This story is from the Washington Post
This is all a matter of interpretation, but I still find it unbelievable that Governor Palin has been raked over the coals for trying to fire Mike Wooten, who clearly does not belong on the police force, and might be dangerous to his ex-wife. Palin has enemies in the legislature, and the State Personnel Board was picked by her, so it seems likely the results of both investigations were skewed by political considerations. Regardless, Troopergate was much ado over nothing. The real scandal is why Mike Wooten is still a state trooper.
November 6th, 2008 at 3:08 am
Hi.
I’m not sure where to post this, but is there any information on this site about the herstory of the Free Soil Party or where it is headed now?
Thanks,
Laur
November 6th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
There will be a strategy thread somewhere soon, either here or at womensspace. I have been thinking for awhile that Obama will show his true colors soon enough, which will make the Democrats in Congress quite vulnerable in 2010. The Women’s Campaign Forum started a blog, which has been quiet for awhile. Heart volunteered to blog there, but apparently they got swamped with volunteers, and are still deciding what to do with the blog. Heart and I will be networking, trying to convince more women we need a party of our own to represent us.
As for the herstory, the two About articles here are for that purpose. I wrote an article for Google Knol recently, which is also here at
About Free Soil Party . The old one is About Aletha and this blog
November 7th, 2008 at 1:03 am
The blame game is in full swing in the Republican camp. The wardrobe controversy has escalated, and Gov. Palin is countering with her version of the story. This is a hit piece from Newsweek, gleefully cited by Randi Rhodes today. Accompanying that story is a gallery, ‘Caribou Barbie’ Goes Couture. This story is from ABC News
Of course the disgruntled anonymous McCain aides are telling a different story. In the blame game, believing either side is generally a mistake. Randi Rhodes, though rarely believing anything the McCain campaign said, seems perfectly willing to believe what these anonymous snipers are saying now, because it suits her agenda of trashing Governor Palin. Palin is an ambitious politician, bound to ruffle feathers among her enemies and allies both. It is no surprise that attacks on her have been way out of proportion and bear little resemblance to the truth. That is politics as usual, but the attacks took on a particularly virulent and barbaric tone, because she is a woman. That prominent feminists took part in this is a great shame that will be hard to live down. Yes, she is a political enemy, but these feminists should soon realize, if they take their blinders off, so is Barack Obama.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:52 am
I’m glad to hear the Freesoil party will continue, and I look forward to the planning thread.
This site is so huge; there is so much to check out and comment on re: current events, as well as the free soil party platform.
After Obama’s victory, I had hoped against my better knowledge that he would turn out to bring change–from what I have heard re: his picks for cabinet so far, that doesn’t look to be the case at all. Still if people were willing to work this hard to bring Obama into office, we could work this hard to bring radical women into office, right? As you so aptly pointed out, Aletha, women were willing to work to get Hilary into office, with much-less-than-stellar politics; think how hard women would be willing to work if we had a *viable* radical feminist candidate! (No offense to Heart–it’s just that it seems folks aren’t willing to vote third party much anymore, unfortunately).
But then, maybe “viable” means “viable to malestream politics.”
Argh.
November 7th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Viable means viable to malestream politics, according to political reality, which is a tenacious myth, but a myth nevertheless. Women are already grumbling about Obama, and not just on radical feminist blogs. I expect that to escalate greatly, especially if Lawrence Summers gets selected for Treasury Secretary. That he is under consideration at all is a slap in the face. But then, what should women expect from Obama?
The Free Soil network is growing, slowly but surely, and Heart deserves a great deal of the credit for that. Almost nobody took the party seriously before Heart decided to run. Nowadays it may seem nobody takes third party politics seriously, but I think that is largely due to the disastrous 2004 Green Party strategy, along with the novelty of this Democratic primary, with neither of the top contenders a white man. People who might otherwise have abandoned the Democrats because of their broken promises from 2006 gave them another chance. When people see that those broken promises were no fluke, and had very little to do with Republican filibusters, Democrats will be in hot water.
This blog has over 400 news stories now, but I doubt I will ever catch up to Heart. I have an idea for restructuring the news section so related stories will be easier to find.
November 13th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
More murky water surfaces about Palin mistakenly calling Africa a country. Pranksters thought up a plan to create a fake McCain adviser with a big mouth, Martin Eisenstadt, who claimed to be the source of the leak about the Palin gaffe. The real culprit is still hiding in anonymity. This story is from the New York Times
Now if only all the other people who have lied about Governor Palin would apologize… I know, it is not going to happen. Many want to believe the worst about her, so many of the lies have found a receptive audience who prefer to keep believing the worst, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. Governor Palin is a Republican conservative woman, not some whackjob extremist bent on taking away women’s rights. She may be naive about the company she keeps in her party, and she may have more common sense than political savvy. She is not especially skillful at hiding her ignorance when she is stumped. It is not difficult to stump most politicians, but most of them are better at pretending they know more than they do know.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Heart posted about a poll on how women feel about the sexism on display during the election campaign. One encouraging finding she cited was
As an example of a man who should know better, but could not see the problem with the media treatment of Governor Palin, Peter Hart at FAIR had this to say in his story Top Troubling Tropes of Campaign ’08
Good old clueless liberal men. What planet was he living on? Of course he could not see Democrats as treating Palin unfairly; that would be right-wing paranoia, with so little actual evidence! This from the organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting? What is fair or accurate about this account?
December 16th, 2008 at 12:01 am
The Wasilla Bible Church was set on fire Friday night. Arson is suspected. Heart blogged about this yesterday. This story is from
Presumably the arsonist is trying to send a message to Governor Palin, but what might that be? She has made plenty of enemies, from liberals who hate her politics to fundamentalists who hate her for showing that a fundamentalist woman can have a life outside the home. Many would like to intimidate her so she would shut up and go away. If that was the purpose, the arson was a wasted as well as criminal effort. Gov. Palin is not the kind of woman to be easily intimidated or shunted aside.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Randi Rhodes today opined that the remarks on television by the father of the child of Bristol Palin, of which she played an excerpt on her show, illustrate the lack of leadership of ex-Governor Palin. Randi did not explain just how she expects Palin to muzzle Levi Johnston, but apparently her inability to do so shows Randi what kind of horrid leader Palin is! Mr. Johnston is bitter and capitalizing on his enmity toward Palin. What is she supposed to do about it, give him a stern lecture? As if he would listen? Is she supposed to muzzle the TV station? Johnston is much in demand because he supposedly has the inside scoop on the despised governor. Is Randi actually implying a true leader would find a way to stifle the free speech of her critics? I am rather offended by such blatant partisanship, but I cannot believe that of Randi Rhodes. She values free speech too highly.
Randi did say she does not know if the accusation by Mr. Johnston that Palin refers to her youngest child as her retard is true. I suppose Palin should be grateful for small favors? If that is true, Palin should be shamed, but a man with a grudge against the grandmother of his child has no credibility. Why is Randi giving him any? Because it serves her agenda, no doubt, which is to trash the prospective opponent of her beloved President Obama any way she can imagine.
November 25th, 2009 at 1:32 am
Sarah Palin does have a rather large supporter base. Its hilarious when some of them are interviewed and cannot explain why they support her. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/23/palin-supporters-struggle_n_367800.html
November 26th, 2009 at 2:37 am
I listened to that video, which was presumably edited to make the interviewees sound as bad as possible, but heard almost nothing to justify this statement by the poster:
Ironically, I would have no trouble giving specifics about that. Not that I support Palin, but Obama is not doing much to reverse the damages done by the previous Administration. In fact, in many ways, he and his party are exacerbating the damage. His economic, war, and environmental policies are nothing to write home about, and what about that disgusting Stupak-Pitts amendment? If anything like that survives in the final bill and Obama signs it, it will make a total mockery of the Democratic litany of fearmongering about how Republicans will stack the Supreme Court to outlaw abortion.
January 4th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
As the approval rating of the President steadily declines, that of his potential challenger is ascending, and if the trend continues, will eclipse him. This story is from the Los Angeles Times Top of the Ticket blog
Shocker polls: That Sarah Palin-Barack Obama gap melts to 1 point
December 8, 2009 | 2:42 am
How could Republicans, so thoroughly disgraced by the disastrous previous Administration, be making a comeback so soon? It appears the 2008 landslide made Democrats overconfident, and since the promised changes have proved largely illusory, disillusion is rife. Republicans do not deserve to benefit from the failings of Democrats, but neither did Democrats deserve to benefit from the failings of Republicans. Their policies are too much alike, in general, and the specific issues on which they differ are hyped beyond the actual implications of those differences. For instance, Democrats love to scream about how dangerous Republicans are on the abortion issue, but Obama could not be bothered to ask his Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, where she stood on the issue. This was no fluke; this health insurance reform debacle has demonstrated that abortion rights are too low a priority to be allowed to stand in the way of getting some kind of reform passed. Likewise, Democrats tout their dedication to the environment, but their energy bill is a sick joke that will do virtually nothing to abate the greenhouse effect. Both parties are too beholden to corporate interests to force big business to clean up its act.
Democrats have only themselves to blame for this loss of public approval, and if they lose most or all of their majorities in Congress, that would be the usual result befalling a party that does not deliver on its promises. Governor Palin made a big splash when she came onto the national political scene. She had some bad moments that for awhile made it seem that she was just a flash in the pan, soon to disappear into oblivion, but that was just the hope of overconfident Democrats. Their landslide was primarily the result of the economic meltdown and the ability of Obama to raise the hopes of people desperate for change, but he has dashed those hopes, and it appears the usual midterm losses for the party in power are in the cards yet again. If Obama and his party do not shape up fast, Obama will probably be a one-term President. Palin would certainly not be my choice for the first woman President, but if she is, in a way, it would serve the Democrats right, for trashing her, making fun of her, lying about her, scoffing at her, and generally thoroughly underestimating her.
August 31st, 2010 at 10:58 pm
This is from a New York Times Op-Ed last Friday
“Progressives” have let a great many mockeries of what they supposedly stand for happen. Under Barack Obama, with solid majorities in both houses of Congress, women were sold out to pass health insurance “reform,” and that sellout shows no sign of abating. NARAL is trying to get signatures on a petition to oppose this addition of insult to injury:
This Administration has also greatly escalated the “war on terror,” though that appellation has gone out of favor, even as Obama crows about keeping his promise to end the war on Iraq, which just means the remaining troops and mercenaries have officially relinquished their “combat mission.” The sellouts in environmental policy keep on coming, as Obama continues to promote “clean coal,” a new generation of nuclear power plants, and genetically engineered biofuel crops as his answer to climate change. His coddling of British Petroleum during the oil spill disaster has been nothing short of shameless. So the Democratic snubbing of their base is comprehensive, not just a slap in the face of feminists. The left has been critical, but ineffective in slowing down the tide of betrayals. So the phenomenon of someone like Sarah Palin becoming the face of a “groundbreaking political woman” is no surprise to me, as the truly groundbreaking political women have gotten such halfhearted support, if not derision, from Democrats, progressives, and leftists.