Who Should Be In Obama’s Cabinet?

I want to share in this fascinating discussion I participated in yesterday on GRITtv hosted by Laura Flanders. We covered Barack Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff and talked about who we’d like to see fill  the rest of Obama’s cabinet. Alexis McGill Executive Director of Citizen Change, Dan Gerstein former Senior…

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The Tide in the Affairs of Election 2008

Pundits make their living trying to tell us why politics happens as it does. They are always arguing about what the one driving factor was in a given election. Well, take it from someone who has worked in campaigns from the lowliest grass roots to the highest halls of power–not a one of them looks…

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Come to the Party of the Future

Ralph Waldo Emerson had great sayings about almost everything, but this one describes the 2008 elections as well as any political pundit has done in almost two years worth of blathering: There are always two parties, the party of the past and the party of the Future; the Establishment and the Movement… This principle is…

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Will the Long National Nightmare Be Over?

I early-voted in Arizona a couple of weeks ago. It was almost like praying. I spent a long time on the ballot, which was quite extensive–in Arizona as in many Western states there’s always a raft of ballot initiatives to consider, and judges though appointed initially must be retained in office by a vote of…

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Does Palin Trump Biden?

I had intended to blog throughout the Democratic Convention. But there came a moment when I just wanted to be a spectator. Partly this was motivated by the fact that my husband Alex and I were simultaneously shopping for (and finally picking) a new apartment, an endeavor that diverts one’s attention considerably.

So I took a couple of days off from writing just to soak up the historic events. I especially enjoy lavishing myself with the rich sounds and sights of major speakers’ rhetoric, turning every nuance of what was said or not said around in my mind and analyzing their delivery.

Last night, Alex and I went to watch Obama’s speech with a group of friends who were all charged up and ready to go out and work for him. Dawn, a young woman who’d attended the first few days of the convention, had brought hats and placards, and the flags we frequently waved to signal our approval of some speaker’s point, were provided by the host, Loretta, along with all-American Chinese food and ice cream sandwiches for sustenance.

That afternoon, a wave of sadness had washed over me unexpectedly. Yep, I thought I’d gotten over the fact that the Democratic nominee wouldn’t be a woman, and that not even the vice presidential candidate would be a woman. For so long, I thought sure….

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NO WAY, NO HOW, NO McCAIN: HILLARY, THE DESIGNATED ADULT

Her orange pantsuit might be a Glamour magazine “don’t”, but like every word Hillary spoke last night during her moment at the Democratic National Convention, it was so right, so Hillary.

Her once-ridiculed pantsuit is part of the Hillary brand now, like Barry Goldwater’s thick-rimmed black glasses, Winston Churchill’s smelly cigars, Joe Biden’s train tickets.

Standing sharp against the cobalt blue DNC backdrop in the organgest pantsuit I ever saw, Clinton paid tribute to her “sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits”. It was a moment of feminist humor and a nod to the fact that she was today truly, completely, and finally ceding the Democratic nomination to her former chief rival, Barack Obama.

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IN WOMEN’S EQUALITY DAY SPEECH, HILLARY WILL LOOK WITH LONG EYES

All eyes will be on Hillary Clinton when she speaks tonight at the Democratic National Convention.

Media pundits and McCain loyalists will be parsing her every word, scrutinizing her every nuance, analyzing every element of her body language for quite a different reason. They love a political food fight. They’ll pounce on any whiff of tepidness, real or imagined, in her support for Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy. The Republicans have even set up a “Happy Hour for Hillary”, lying in wait to whip up animosity toward Obama, whether their spin is real, or if all else fails, conjured up by their Rovian attack dogs.

But while talking heads will strain to see any shred of conflict between the Democratic nominee-to-be and the second-runner, some of us will be looking at the occasion with what the Tohono O’Odham people call “long eyes”.

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Going to Denver? Watch Out for Dingbat Campaign Consultants

No, I’m not in Denver. Been there, done that, got lots of t-shirts, hats, buttons, and memories of spending the days in transit from event to event and watching hordes of people cruising from event to event to see who they might see there and of course to be seen themselves. I plan on keeping tabs on the convention happenings and blog throughout though. And I imagine I’ll have a better seat from my home office. Here’s one good convention website resource with schedules, speakers, events, and up to date electoral information all in one place.

Do you Twitter? I’ve never Twittered before, but I signed up so I can follow Huffington Post bloggers and perhaps post Twitters there, if I can figure out how to say anything in 140 characters or less.

My worst convention memory was in 2004 when I spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

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“Omaba Caint” Post Sure Could Get Blog Buzz Going

Seems like my last post, “Obama Caint Choose Kaine”, riled some folks up.

Erin Kotecki Vest, who blogs at BlogHer and Queen of Spain, got on my case with several arguments worthy of response. I have great respect for Erin, and am pleased for this excuse to congratulate her in public on becoming BlogHer’s Producer of Special Projects (high five here!).

However, I learned from hard knocks on the political frontlines that her argument on behalf of Gov. Kaine is self-defeating. Sadly, it also demonstrates how we can make it so incredibly hard to hold politicians’ feet to the fire about reproductive rights, health, and justice, and how women are often entirely too well behaved to make history turn out the way we want it.

True, the issues of birth control, sex education, reproductive rights, and abortion have been so polarized by the media’s false balance (someone else used that phrase on HuffPo last week, but I made it up when I wrote The War on Choice) that both the facts and the framing get skewed in public discourse. That’s frustrating to be sure. But, the deal is, whoever defines the terms of the debate is probably going to win it. And you can’t ever win at all if you don’t stay in the game.

If you haven’t already, please read “Obama Caint Chose Kaine” for my key points about Obama’s veep pick, which I won’t reiterate here. Here’s an excerpt of Erin’s reaction:

We could go through and talk about Kaine’s repeated his position supporting Roe and what he’s done as Governor…however, let’s just put all that aside too.

Let’s deal with the realities of this country. The reality of government. The reality of America in 2008.

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