Posts Tagged ‘election’
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…
Read MoreWill 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…
Read MoreObama in St. Louis: Metaphor for America (Guest Post by Mark Salo)
Of all things during this last pre-election week, I’m in the utter chaos of moving into a new apartment, unpacking boxes filled with material elements of life while watching the increasingly frenzied campaign coverage on CNN. As though we’d picked up conversations from decades of working together, an e-mail from Mark Salo popped up on…
Read MorePowell Endorses Obama: What Does It Mean?
I imagine just about every reader of Heartfeldt Politics watched Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama on today’s Meet the Press; you can listen to the key points on this podcast. I often find Powell too wishy washy for my taste, but then he is a diplomat by disposition and profession. And in this case,…
Read MoreMcCain’s Rovian Lipstick Diversion
I rarely agree with journalist Andrew Sullivan, but this time he nailed it. Here’s an excerpt from his blogpost on John McCain’s Rovian diversionary tactical ruse to get the media’s scrutiny off of the McCain/Palin ticket and the important issues facing the country. Sullivan is unequivocal in his condemnation of McCain. So it’s come to…
Read MoreWhy Would a 14-Year-Old Feminist Support Hillary?
Thanks to Deborah Siegel who blogs at Girl With Pen for this inspiring article, written by Samantha French, age 14, and a student at Writopia Lab, a writing enrichment program located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It’s always intriguing to learn how political opinions are formed, and this young women clearly has a mind of her own–and better yet, she talks publicly about what she believes.
As we all know, the buzz around America’s college campuses is Barack Obama and how he represents change for America. According to the media, he has overwhelming appeal to the country’s so-called “youth.” And it’s true. The phrase “yes we can” is being inhaled faster than pot brownies and Jell-O shots at a frat party. However, what the media seems to be consistently ignoring is the opinions of the country’s real, good old-fashioned, disenfranchised youth: high school students. Who are almost unanimously pro-Hillary.
OK, so I’m dreaming.
As a female freshman in Bard High School Early College, one of New York’s more liberal high schools where nearly two-thirds of the student body are females, there is not huge support for Hillary, which makes me sad. Many people at Bard, both male and female, support Obama because they are “tired of the Clintons” (a notion which they have obviously been fed by their parents. Think about it: the last time a Clinton was in office they were eight at the very most).
At first, I agreed with them. My dad’s a die-hard Obama supporter and so are a lot of my friends. But the turning point came for me when I saw how upset and truly devoted Hillary was to the race after her defeat at the Iowa caucus. The moment that the cameras revealed her sad eyes, I realized that I was seeing in her something rarely seen in any presidential candidate: a human being. While my father continued to be very pro-Obama (re-recording Twisted Sister’s “I Wanna Rock,” titled, I Want Barak,)—and put pressure on me to agree with him—I felt a connection with Hillary after that night.
Read MoreWHY WOMEN NEED TO LEARN HISTORY’S ELECTION POWER LESSON
Like many women who identify themselves as feminists, Kathleen Turner and I are divided in our presidential candidate pick. We spent 18 months collaborating on her just-released memoir, Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love, and Leading Roles.
During that time, we talked about politics quite a bit, because she sees herself as an activist as well as an actor. I rolled my eyes last summer when she announced to me that she’d decided to support Barack Obama and was going stumping for him in North Carolina’s August heat.
I thought it a naïve choice, but Obama had the good sense to invite her to a meeting with a few prominent women and had asked directly for her support. She’d been impressed, as I was when I first met him soon after his 2004 election to the U.S. Senate. And like many people, I was thrilled that the Democratic candidate lineup looked more like America, whereas Republicans were still mired in cookie-cutter white male political hegemony. Nevertheless, it seemed at the time that Hillary Clinton was surging to an unassailable lead for her party’s nomination, so I didn’t need to press too hard on Kathleen to join me in supporting her.
REALITY SHIFTS AND “TRUTH” WITH IT
Read MoreHOPE IS STILL NOT A METHOD
Americans seem to like the message of hope better than we like the message of experience these days. But you know, there used to be a popular sex education film called “Hope is not a Method.” And that’s true about running a country too.
Can anybody deny that Hillary Clinton, who speaks of experience and from experience, is judged more harshly than Barack Obama who speaks of hope? There are so many examples trivial and profound but here’s a trivial one that is symbolic of all of them: I noticed that in the New York Times today, there was an effusive compliment for Michelle’s “athletic build”. In the photo you see she has large thighs.
Now, Hillary’s large ankles have been excoriated in the most vicious manner more political pundits than MSNBC can shake a stick at.
What’s the difference? It’s simply that Barack Obama and everything about him, including his wife, represent the new new thing. Further, he lives in a cloud of good will because he has not had time or inclination to make enough tough decisions that would cause him to make enemies. Even though he’s from Chicago, my sense of him is that he hasn’t a clue what he’s in for during a general election and then governing. Hillary unquestionably does.
Read MoreIS AMERICA GETTING SWEPT AWAY BY OBAMA-HYPE?
Have you ever been in a meeting where the group was on deadline to make a decision, but had been unable to reach consensus on which direction to go? What happens next? Nine times out of ten, someone comes up with a different idea than the ones you’ve been hashing around for hours. Everybody gloms onto it, and so do you, because you are desperate to place that important phone call, go to lunch, or you’re just plain worn down from arguing.
So whoever picks that perfect moment to throw out his or her idea becomes the hero while everyone else gets swept away in that new new thing, whose dazzle is untarnished by the imperfections of solutions that have been over-analyzed.
Leadership experts say this process usually results in the worst decisions. Doesn’t it seem to you as though many people are swept away by Barack Obama’s enormous charsma and dazzling star power?
Read MoreWhat’s Up to the Women?
It’s the quintessential difference between Republicans and Democrats. I don’t mean beliefs or legislative platform. I mean their ability to coalesce around a candidate and move forward expeditiously to get him or her elected.
Super Tuesday came and went without a resolution to who will be the Democrats’ standard bearer, while John McCain’s ascent to front-runner status was aided by the Republicans’ winner-take-all-delegates primary rules. The Democrats–we both love then and hate them for this characteristic–are more, well, democratic. So they have a complex if not downright Byzantine, proportional formula for awarding delegates to their nominating conventions.
Which brings me to the importance of women in this election this year. Check out the state-by-state breakdown in Women’s e-News today. Women are the majority in the population, even more so the majority of voters because a larger percentage of women then men actually cast votes. And this year, the intersection of race and gender has made the breakdown of how women cast their votes more volatile than ever, as African American women–a pivotal Democratic constituency–are choosing to vote for Barack Obama in epic proportions, as high as 80%.
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