Tag Archives: Sarah Palin

State Of The Female Nation: Election 2008

As we look back at this long, I think exhausting, electoral season, I guess we can feel lucky we have a democratic process, with a peaceful instead of bloody change of regimes. None-the-less, I can’t help feeling that the light it  has shone on the prevailing attitudes towards and treatment of women candidates has illuminated some dark places in our hearts and has been, at least metaphorically, both brutal and bloody.

No one has addressed this better or managed to make more incisive points than the esteemed Lynette Long or other guests who’ve posted on her blog.  Some, I believe, have really gotten down to some root causes and  effects which I’d like to share with you, from a  non-partisan, but pro-woman standpoint.

Artemis March in a guest post Lynette Long: SARAH PALIN: A RORSHACH FOR FEMINISTS discusses where women stand today, both with how they are portrayed in the media, and their standing as candidates in the political parties:

“The truth is this: A woman can’t deal with sexism solo. She has to have a Greek Chorus to amplify, interpret, and spin with, for, and about her. And, after 40 years, there is no Greek Chorus for women at the national level. Nada. Zip.

  • There is no feminist voice in the Old Media, let alone a feminist perspective informing all the media. The media are totally androcentric in their framing of all issues. Women who are allowed face time either see the world as their male bosses do, or tread very carefully with their small departures.
  • The DNC never had Hillary’s back, never became her Greek Chorus. They not only betrayed their best candidate in 75 years, but they also betrayed the many constituencies for whom she has a long record of fighting.

After 40 years, feminist organizations and spokeswomen have not been able to create a cultural context that would make it impermissible to attack women and perpetrate the kind of vicious misogyny directed at Hillary Clinton and now at Sarah Palin. It would be a tall order given that patriarchy has been organizing our social world and our culture for 5,000-6,000 years. The only good news here is that the behavior of the DNC has made it transparent to many of us that we’ll never get there by being an appendage of the DNC and held hostage to Roe.

If establishment feminists had any real clout with the DNC, Hillary would be taking the oath of office on January 20. Rather than attacking women candidates who don’t fit their precious self-image, leftist so-called feminists and those wondrous postfeminists should get over themselves. If they had done that a year ago, Hillary would be on her way to the White House, and we wouldn’t be in this mess of opting between which set of candidates scares us less.

Sarah Palin is a rorschach for the Left and for feminists. She has exposed the boundaries and implicit rules for inclusion in their clubs, thereby sparking a much needed dialogue about what feminism is and can be. She has thrown into relief the limitations of establishment feminist strategies, and blown open the door to alternative strategies. Sarah Palin arrived on the national scene at the moment when many Hillary supporters were recognizing an old political truth: If you can’t walk away from the table, you have no bargaining power. If you have no alternatives, you will get nothing but crumbs.”

And speaking of alternative strategies, Greta Van Susteren came up with an alternative strategy on Lynette Long: ARE YOU KIDDING??? FROM GRETA ON GRETAWIRE.

“I can’t get over it….are they nuts?”, Greta asks about women who portray themselves as leaders for women but proceed to attack other women running for office.

Their inertia (and now criticism of those who disagree with them) has made them utterly irrelevant.    I will give them credit for starting the ball rolling for women (that was yesterday) but now (today) they are in the way.  Now they are putting a stop on women.  They are hurting women.  I can’t figure out why….

Real Feminists are DOERS — working ! Role models! Taking a chance!  Showing everyone women can!  And yes, Feminists are Governors and Governors are Feminists! Feminists are not women drinking the kool aid – blogging with each other how terrible the world is to women.  That doesn’t help.  Frankly, that’s lame…really lame.

Yes, there is sexism in the world and lots of it — but a real Feminist goes out and fights it…and fights it by becoming a role model, being successful, showing we can and we want to…and a Feminist has independent thoughts and positions – yes, dares to disagree with the women who are stuck in the past …those women just blogging …thinking “woe is me..there is sexism out there that stands in my way..that is why I have become so utterly pathetic where only my very small crowd of equally pathetics will listen….I am so unhappy and it must be someone else’s fault.”

You don’t have to agree with Governor Palin on all issues or even one issue to know that she truly IS a Feminist.  She is out there being a role model…she is a doer on a giant level..she takes hits from the media and she keeps going..nothing is stopping her…in fact, she doesn’t have time to sit around and complain.  She creates more opportunity for women each day than one can quantify.  This is what women wanted.  Yes, women can be Governors..engineers…..run for Vice President…professional athletes…news anchors…professors….business owners….lawyers…doctors….and even astronauts.  We wanted women to have choices…we wanted it so that women had equal opportunity to succeed.

Feminists should be excited for what Governor Palin has done for women — you don’t have to vote for her but you should give her credit for what she has been doing and is doing for women.”

And the following comment by Greta really hit home with me.  I keep getting hate emails from one side or the other, attacking one candidate or the other.  And the thing that both puzzles and galls me is that these are from people who never sat in a phone bank calling to ask for support, never block walked, never painted a sign or planted it in a lawn, never attended a rally or donated a dollar to either party.  And yet a day or two before one of the most important elections our country has held, they believe a flood of spam hate email will actually influence, convince and carry the day.  Wake up!

So I join Greta when she says…

“Get over it. Here is an idea: instead of sitting on your keyboard sniping at other Feminists …get off your a** and campaign for the other ticket! That’s a novel idea: DO! and make yourself relevant again! who knows? you might even become happy!”"

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Palin Displays Her Feminist Side

Lynette Long: Palin Displays Her Feminist Side – From the Washington Post.

AdvancingWomen.com adheres to a strictly non partisan policy, but we do support women and we’d like to see a lot more of them in office and a lot more of them recognizing and talking about positions which will help women.  So we’re always glad to see another excellent post by Lynette Long who is very outspoken on her pro-women positions.

Lynette Long

Lynette Long

HENDERSON, Nev. — Extolling the virtues of equal pay and opportunity for women, this afternoon GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin framed her White House quest in terms of feminist values.

“I have a question for the women in the audience,” the Alaska governor began her speech here at the Henderson Pavillion, underneath an arching white tent. “Are you willing to break the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America?”

Palin surrounded herself onstage with two higher-profile defectors from Sen. Hillary Clinton’s camp — Lynn Rothschild, a member of the Democratic Platform Committee, and Elaine Lafferty, a former editor-in-chief of Ms. Magazine — along with Shelly Mandell, the president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women, Linda Klinge, the vice president of Oregon’s NOW chapter and Prameela Bartholomeusz, a small business owner and member of the Democratic National Platform Committee….

Lynn Rothschild, former Hillary Clinton Supporter

Lynn Rothschild, former Hillary Clinton Supporter

And while Palin has spoken repeatedly on the stump about shattering the “glass ceiling” with her candidacy, this afternoon she lashed out at Democratic nominee Barack Obama as a hypocrite who fails to treat women — including Clinton — as equals.

“When the time came to make a decision, Barack Obama couldn’t bring himself to pick the woman who got eighteen million votes in the primary,” Palin said of Obama’s vice presidential pick, comparing it to the discrimination women face in the workplace every day. “The qualifications are there, but for some reason the promotion never comes … You’ve got to ask yourself, why wasn’t Senator Hillary Clinton even vetted by the Obama campaign?”

Elaine Lafferty, former editor-in-chief Ms. Magazine

Elaine Lafferty, former editor-in-chief Ms. Magazine

Palin went on to suggest Obama discriminated against women employees in his own Senate office, as opposed to GOP presidential nominee John McCain.

“There is a difference between what Barack Obama says and what he does,” she declared. “Out on the stump, he talks about things like equal pay for equal work, but according to Senate records, women on his staff get just 83 cents for every dollar that the men get. What is with that? Does he think that the women aren’t working as hard? Does he think they’re 17 percent less productive?”

“I know one senator who does pay women equal pay,” she added, referring to McCain.

Within minutes of Palin’s remarks, Obama senior advisor Anita Dunn issued a statement saying, “Senator Obama has fought for equal pay for an equal day’s work, while Senator McCain has suggested that women don’t get equal pay because they need more education and training. While Senator Obama has proposed a plan to help working women, the McCain-Palin campaign offers just more negative attacks and distortions.”

An Obama aide who asked not to identified said that women on McCain’s staff earn more comparable salaries to men on staff because they occupy more senior, high-paid posts in the Arizona senator’s office, not because Obama discriminates against women.

Palin went on to say, if elected, she would pursue policies such as flexibility in labor laws so women could engage in more telecommuting and would push for a tax code “that doesn’t penalize working families.”

“Working mothers need an advocate, and they will have one when this working mother is working for all of you,” she said, as the crowd cheered.

A former high school basketball player, Palin then launched into a detailed discussion of Title IX, a 1972 law that banned discrimination in any educational program or activity that receives federal financial assistance. The law applies to a broad range of activities, but it has helped ensure high schools and colleges provide equal funding for sports programs and other measures in which men and women participate.

Palin said that she had benefited from Title IX, and for women of her generation, “Over time, that opened more than doors to just the gymnasium. It allowed us to view ourselves, and our futures, in a different way.”

While she credited feminists with the enactment of Title IX — saying, “We owed that opportunity to women, to feminists who came before us” — Palin quickly emphasized that Americans who embraced a different ideology could also push for gender equality. “A belief in equal opportunity is not just the cause of feminists. It’s the creed of our country.”

Toward the end of her remarks Palin seemed to echo the theme that Clinton touted as First Lady: that women across the globe deserved the same rights that American women enjoy, including freedom for sex trafficking and honor killings. “If I am elected, these women will have an advocate and an defender in the forty-seventh vice president of the United States,” she told the audience.

Let’s hope that either candidate who is elected will choose to advocate for and defend women. It’s high time.

For more posts by Lynnette Long, go to Lynette Long

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Is Tina Fey Parody Helping Or Hurting Sarah Palin?

OB-CE712_palin__NS_20080829115851

Image by Surfer Labor via Flickr

Fourteen million people watched Saturday Night Live when Sarah Palin dropped by and took over the stage and the microphone from her late night clone/imitator Tina Fey. In some circles there is no higher compliment or touchstone than to be parodied by SNL. It means you’ve arrived.

There’s little doubt Palin has energized the conservative Republican base and drawn huge, enthusiastic crowds when she speaks. Is she critiqued, marginalized and mocked by the liberal elite? Yes, many of them. Will it make a difference? Maybe not, since the liberal elite are not voting for her anyway. I did read a report from one woman, a Democrat and not a Palin fan, who said, out of curiosity, she attended a Palin rally: “Whatever they may say, Governor Palin is a star. The moment she took command of the stage I knew I hadn’t seen such star power since Bill Clinton’s personality filled the stage. So whatever happens in the election, I think Sarah Palin is going to be a huge star in the Republican party.”

Peggy Noonan, conservative Wall Street Journal columnist and Ronald Reagan speech writer, a member of her own party, does not much like Palin: “There is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office.”

Even if that were true, if Palin ever does get elected to higher office, she certainly wouldn’t be the first president we could say that about. What do you think? Do you find Sarah Palin refreshing and energizing, or ready for the icy trail back to Alaska and the arctic wilderness? Let us hear from you.

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A Female Head of State? What’s Your Point, Honey?

South face of the White House.

Image via Wikipedia

Prepping Women for the White House – International Museum of Women.

What’s Your Point, Honey? Promotes Not One, But Many Women Leaders

Image Borgman (c) 2007 The Cincinnati Enquirer. Used by permission of Universal Press Syndicate

Nearly 100 years after universal suffrage, U.S. women have yet to hold the highest office in the land. Currently, they make up 18 percent of governors, 16 percent of senators and 16 percent of representatives. What’s being done to change these statistics? Filmmakers Amy Sewell and Susan Toffler confront this question head on in their upbeat feminist documentary, What’s Your Point, Honey? Through candid and formal interviews with pre-teens, prominent women leaders and everyone in between, the directors have created a film about and for young women who dream of doing great things.

AdvancingWomen.com is proud to support all young women…. and, in fact, all mature women as well,  who dream of doing great things.  We look forward to seeing one of them sworn in as President of the United States one day.

But as the film’s subtitle, “It’s not about one…” reminds us, it’s not just about getting one woman to the top position, but shifting the political climate so that, by the time these young girls are of eligible running age, it will “be so normal for women to run that we’ll never look back.”

To read more on the making of this film go to

Prepping Women for the White House – International Museum of Women.

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WHY SOME WOMEN HATE SARAH PALIN

Put her out of her misery, please

Image by bobster1985 via Flickr

Lynette Long: WHY SOME WOMEN HATE SARAH PALIN.

This post by Belinda Luscombe was pretty enlightening for me in an unfortunate way.  I have been wondering why a number of women I know and respect get apoplectic at the mention of Sarah Palin.  You can almost see sparks shooting from their hair.  When I try to say “A lot of women are not so much for Sarah Palin as they are against the media riculing her or the talking heads disparaging her” ( because someday we really would like a woman vice president or, better yet, president).  The response I often get, after a rolling of the eyes upward is “No one is disparaging her.  Or at least they’re not disparaging women in general.” I see.  Well, actually, I don’t.  But after reading Belinda Luscombe’s post, I’m beginning to.

Some polls are suggesting that after gaining an initial bump, McCain‘s campaign is being hobbled by Sarah Palin‘s vice-presidential candidacy. The voters who are deserting her fastest, some of whom are even calling on her to withdraw, are mostly women.

Ah, women, the consistently, tragically underestimated constituency. What the Democrats learned during the primaries and the Republicans might now be finding out the hard way, I learned at my very academic, well-regarded all-girls high school: that is never to discount the ability of women to open a robust, committed, well-thought-out vat of hatred for another girl.

It’s a simple three-point pass-fail exam: Will the other girls like her?

Here’s why Palin doesn’t make the grade:

1. She’s too pretty. This is very bad news. At school, pretty girls tend to be liked only by other pretty girls. The rest of us, whose looks hover somewhere around underwhelming, resent them and whisper archly of their “unearned attention.” So, if everyone calls your candidate “hot,” you’re in a whole mess of trouble. If the Pakistani head-of-state more or less hits on her, well, yes, she’ll get a sympathy vote, but we’re in Dukakis-in-the-tank territory. It’s an admiration vaporizer. (Of course a candidate can’t be too ugly, or it will scare the men, who are clearly shallow as a gender.)

2. She’s too confident. This also bodes ill. Women have self-esteem issues. But they also have other-women’s-esteem issues. As almost any woman – from the head of the Budgerigar Breeders association to Queen Elizabeth – can attest, it’s almost impossible to get confidence right. Too timid and you’re a pushover. Too self-aggrandizing and you’re a bad word unless it’s about a dog, or Project Runway‘s Kenley. Or Michelle, my best friend until 9th grade, after she won that debating prize and got cocky.

3. She could embarrass us. History is not on Palin’s side. Every time a woman gets a plum job, be she Hewlett-Packard‘s ex-boss, Carly Fiorina, or CBS‘s Katie Couric, there’s always that whispery fear that people will think she got the job just because she’s a woman. So if things don’t go well – and a couple of YouTube clips have suggested that they’re certainly not going well for Palin – women are the first to turn on her for making it harder for the rest of us to louse up at work.”

The fact of the matter is once a female decides it’s over with another female, it’s like an end-stage marriage. No matter how seemingly benign, every attribute becomes an affront: the hair, the voice, the husband, the moose-shooting, the glasses, the big family, the making rape victims pay for their own rape test kits.

I know, I know. With all this extra baggage a female candidate has to bear, the chances of finding a woman whom other women won’t hate seem skinnier than last year’s jeans. But don’t despair, if all else fails, we could just do what we always do and just vote in some guy. It’s worked so well for us in the past.”

Fo the entire post go to Lynette Long: WHY SOME WOMEN HATE SARAH PALIN.

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Where Feminism, Copyright Law and This Interminable Election Intersect

2004 cover with dandy Eustace Tilley, created ...

Image via Wikipedia

Feminist Law Professors » Blog Archive » Where Feminism, Copyright Law and This Interminable Election Intersect.

AdvancingWomen.com thinks the point the original New Yorker cover meant to make was that even sophisticated, urbane and worldly New Yorkers….. or particularly sophisticated, urbane and worldly New Yorkers…. could be insular and parochial when it comes to viewing the rest of the country.  The so called “fly over” area of middle America..states like Kansas and Nebraska, are often heaped with particular scorn. And if the elite, entrenched establishment of the Eastern seaboard think of Kansas City as out of the hub bub, bright lights, fashion forward, deep thinking, heavy weight pontificating and intellectual clarity of the East, what then of Alaska?  Must be a wolverine and moose infested, vast frozen tundra of backwoodsmen and women, “clinging to their guns and religion”, and as Al Gore has demonstrated in his slides and film, about to slip into the watery nether world of the Bering Straits, that slim sliver of maritime border between the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific, between the U.S. and Russia, which Palin can see from her window.

One has to wonder if that same parochial, condescending perspective doesn’t affect some of the media and the talking heads who appear to view Sarah Palin as a “country bumpkin”, illiterate about global geo-politics and not nearly savvy enough to climb on to the world stage.  One has to wonder how all these brainy, politically savvy, white male politicians, who definitely fit into Washington D.C., managed to get us into two simultaneous wars, a financial and credit meltdown and mortgage crisis all of which are rattling the world markets.  It doesn’t seem the bar is set that high that Sarah Palin should be viewed quite so harshly.  Perhaps if she has less hubris she would do less and therefore foul up less than some who have been in power for decades, if not generations.

Where Feminism, Copyright Law and This Interminable Election Intersect

Above is a recent New Yorker cover mocking Sarah Palin. The drawing is a parody of one of the New Yorker’s most famous covers:

It was drawn by the late Saul Steinberg, and titled “View of the World from 9th Avenue, 1976“:

For more posts go to Feminist Law Professors

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Sarah Palin on feminist issues : The New Agenda

Sarah Palin on feminist issues : The New Agenda.

Violet Socks, Editor of The New Agenda has posted these statements to help clarify what Sarah Palin’s position actually is.  Violet says:

“Sarah Palin calls herself a “pro-life feminist.” Basically, that’s feminism minus abortion rights.

Obviously that puts her at odds with modern American feminism on a crucial issue. But to hear tell from the many feminist writers now publishing furious editorials, Sarah Palin isn’t just out of step on that one issue. She is, according to them, the antithesis of everything feminism means.

Really?

I thought I’d start a collection of Palin’s own statements on feminist issues. I post these for now without comment; that’ll come later. From what I can tell, the feminist writers who are attacking Palin are doing so with an astonishing disregard for the truth. I’m still trying to sort out why.”

To view the lists go to Sarah Palin on feminist issues

For more on The New Agenda see our post about The Big Tent

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A great moment for women – The Boston Globe


By Cathy Young September 12, 2008

WHATEVER THE OUTCOME of the presidential race, 2008 will be a memorable Year of the Woman. First, Hillary Clinton came close to capturing the Democratic nomination, a feminist dream that failed. Now, there is Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential pick: to some a new feminist dream, to others a feminist nightmare – a conservative female politician who embraces a right-wing social agenda, including opposition to abortion.

To the contrast between Clinton and Palin, add a contrast between Palin and Democratic vice presidential nominee Senator Joseph Biden, himself a player in gender politics as the champion of a major piece of feminist legislation – the Violence Against Women Act of 1994.

Is Palin – whose image as a tough woman has evoked comparisons to historical and fictional female fighters like Joan of Arc and Xena, Warrior Princess – a feminist hero?

To some feminists, the answer is a clear no. Novelist Jane Smiley brands her “a woman who reinforces patriarchal power rather than challenges it.”

But the charge is unfair. Unlike right-wing columnist Ann Coulter, to whom Smiley compares her, Palin is not known for attacking the women’s movement; she credits it with breaking down gender barriers and creating the opportunities she has enjoyed. While antiabortion, she belongs to a group called Feminists for Life.

As a social issues liberal with strong concerns about religion-based public policy, I have some serious disagreements with Palin, though it’s often hard to separate the reality of her views from the caricatures painting her as a zealot. But I also believe that her candidacy is a great moment for American women.

First, more representation for feminism across the spectrum of political beliefs is a good thing. Women, like men, should be able to disagree on gun ownership, environmental policies, taxes, even abortion while agreeing on gender equity.

Second, the biggest feminist issue in America today is the career-family balance. Despite remaining discrimination, motherhood is at the core of the “glass ceiling” holding back female achievement. How inspirational, then, to see that the “mommy track” can be a road to the White House. Palin is a mother of five who resumed an intensive work schedule days after giving birth, and whose husband seems to be a full partner.

Palin’s candidacy may also be a watershed moment in conservative politics. The right has long been ambivalent about working mothers; a number of conservative politicians and pundits have been given to chiding “selfish” women who pursue career ambitions after having children. Now, a mother with a high-powered career is a conservative hero, and full-time motherhood may be forever gone from the roster of “family values.” ….

Ultimately, women should vote on the basis of a candidate’s ideas and ability, not gender. But in the contest of the vice presidential candidates, Palin represents by far the better version of female empowerment. Regardless of how we vote or who wins, that empowering message is here to stay.

Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine.

Why We Fight : The New Agenda

Why We Fight : The New Agenda.

This is a post that sums up the kind of media sexism women have had to grapple with and the long terms effects it may have on today’s youth:

Gary Kamiya’s article in Salon was graced by that picture of Palin. That picture of Hillary is from Spy Magazine, circa February 1993, just a month after she and Bill arrived in Washington.

The post concludes:

This is why we fight. We fight for my daughter and the millions of girls like her who are endangered by the sexist rhetoric that passes for media these days. We fight for the millions of boys who are looking at the Progressive Dude Nation right now, at their style, their pazzazz, their irreverence, and who are wanting to posture the same stance one day if they haven’t adopted it already. There is more at stake than just this year, this election, or the next four years. There are legions of young minds being shaped, and we must inform them, using rhetoric that is natural to their intellect, of what is going on right now and what is possible for the future.

Lynette Long: WHY I’M (FINALLY) SUPPORTING SARAH PALIN

Lynette Long: WHY I’M (FINALLY) SUPPORTING SARAH PALIN.

AdvancingWomen is not following this political campaign to support one ideology or another.  As we have said, it is very important to be able to distinguish between the larger issue of sexism and an individual’s ideology. We are following this election in support of the right of every woman in any party  to run and to make her case, without harassment or denigration. In that spirit, we present one woman’s thinking of how she, as a progressive, pro-choice woman, came to support Sarah Palin.

WHY I’M (FINALLY) SUPPORTING SARAH PALIN

by Paulie Abeles

“Since John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate, like many of you I suspect, I’ve been constantly asked: “What do you think of Sarah Palin?”
The struggle that I’ve been going through in trying to answer that question honestly, is that all the things I find compelling about her:
that she’s attractive and charismatic, has a great personal narrative, is eloquent, a ‘breath of fresh air’–yes, even “tokenism” (for lack of a better word)
were also true of Obama. And, I, like many Clinton supporters, decided those were not sufficiently strong reasons to support him.

So, in one sense, I would feel like a hypocrite supporting Palin for any of those reasons.

Although I think she is more experienced than Obama—(She, has, after all, directed a budget of over $10 billion, supervised 24,000 employees and negotiated with foreign governments -Russia and China over fishing rights); she is lightly credentialed in terms of the possible field of socially progressive Republican
women McCain could have chosen (Snowe, Whitman, Hutchinson etc.).
And, although I respect her integrity, there is virtually no social issue on which I share common ground with Sarah Palin. Unlike John McCain, who has never been ideological; Sarah Palin is, and unabashedly so.

However as I’ve struggled with these issues since her selection, I keep coming back to two points.
Of all the basic rights—human rights– that Democrats have stood for—there are two that seem to me to be the most important:
the right to vote (and have that vote counted fairly) and the right to free speech.

The right to vote, it seems to me, is not simply about exercising your franchise—but actually having that exercise tied to a result. Whether we look narrowly at Florida and Michigan, or broadly at caucus and convention intimidation and fraud—what becomes clear—crystal clear—is that the delegates—both in number and composition– did not accurately represent the ‘will of the people’ that voted for them.  And, as a tribute to their organizational skill, if not their integrity, the Obama campaign did everything in their power to ensure that that would be the case.
Just as importantly, throughout the nomination process, the Obama campaign did everything possible to curtail the free speech of those who opposed him. Whether it was as simple as harassing supporters at the local metro, or as  brazen as intimidating delegates at state conventions and threatening members of the Black Caucus—opposition to Barack Obama put people at risk—to be taunted, insulted and harassed in a way I’ve never before experienced in a political campaign.

So, I come down to this. Do we believe that the Obama campaign curtailed the freedom of speech of those who opposed him? Do we believe that Clinton’s supporter’s votes were not counted fairly? If we answer ‘yes; as I have answered, than it seems to me that the fact that we disagree with Sarah Palin on reproductive choice, or creationism, or even protecting the Polar Bears—is the human rights equivalent of small potatoes. There are two basic rights that make us a democracy; two essential rights that keep us free.  If I have my voice—and my vote—I can work for all the other issues.  Without them, I can do nothing.

So, this fall I will vote for John McCain and, yes, Sarah Palin. I will vote as a protest, and as a promise. A protest at what took place; a promise that it will never happen again. I will vote as a democrat.”