Women bring something different to the table; a perspective that is distinct from men’s. Both experiences are equally important, and both need to be incorporated in to decision-making and represented in power-circles if we hope to embrace all viewpoints and make progress as a society. Yet advancement for women and for gender equality seems to have stagnated, and considering how far we are from equality, stagnation is tantamount to decline. When it comes to the percentage of women in national legislatures, the United States ranks 90th in the world, with women holding 90 of the 535 (16.8%) of the seats in the 111th US Congress. These numbers did not improve in the latest election. Recent public opinion research shows that a gender gap persists in perceptions of gender inequality, and sexist messaging not only undermines a female candidate, it significantly reduces her favorability among voters.
Gender Equality
A summer Harris Interactive Poll on gender equality finds that most people believe women still have a long way to go before they are considered truly equal in the United States, but it isn’t a high priority for many. Ninety years after women were given the right to vote, 63% of Americans believe the United States still has much work ahead to achieve gender equality, with a substantial gender gap – 52% of men compared to 74% of women – in agreement with this statement. Over half of men (55%), but less than a third of women (32%) agree that “things are fine the way they are between men and women.” Three quarters of respondents agree that the current state of gender equality is not perfect, but that there are more important issues to resolve first, with no difference between men and women on this statement.
There is a gender gap on several equality issues, such as:
(A great deal of race and gender politics is hidden from sight, which is why so much can be learned by studying what people aren't attending to. This diary discusses some examples from one of the most significant approaches being explored today. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Just finished watching an interesting bit on C-Span's Book TV with Claude Steele talking about his book Whistling Vivaldi And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us. He talked about a host of interesting experiments designed to activate "stereotype threats" and how they played out and how they could be counteracted.
A stereotype threat is a threat to our identity that is based in stereotypes - women aren't good at math being an example Steele offered - that suddenly confronts us with the fear that we're going to reinforce the stereotype. He pointed out that in such a situation our physiological reaction is literally fight or flight - our brains light up in all the areas that don't help us function cognitively. In one experiment, Steele and his associates tested a group of equally competent male and female mathematicians; they set them in a room alone and said "Take the test." The women did measurably worse on the test than the men - at odds with what they knew about them. So on the next round, they told the men and women "You may have heard that women are worse at math than men but on this test there's no history of that - men and women do equally well on this test." The women's scores were equal to the men's. Brain scans reveal that when we find ourselves in one of these settings confronted with stereotype threat, we end up dividing our attention and actually perform less ably precisely because we've got brain power going to responding to the threat.
In another situation, they told men they were going to have a conversation in a room (about one of two topics - either racial profiling or marriage and intimate relationships) and showed them pictures of the other men with whom they'd be talking; one set of pictures showed two black men, the other two white men; the participants (who were white) were then told, "Okay well I'm going to go get your conversation partners, I'll be back in a minute. Would you arrange the chairs please?" The real experiment was how the chairs were arranged. Those men discussion relationships and intimacy tended to place the chair close together no matter the race of their conversational partners; those told they were discussion racial profiling set them further apart. Thus far, no surprises. The big surprise was that the white men who demonstrated the least racist attitudes set the chairs further apart then did those who demonstrated more racist attitudes.
For today's story, we will travel far afield from the typical domains of politics or science or law that have so often provoked our thinking into an often overlooked area of human relations:
To which gender do you belong?
It's a simple question, or so common sense would tell us-either you're male, or you're female.
As it turns out, things aren't quite so simple, and in today's conversation we'll consider this issue in a larger way. By the time we're done, not only will we learn a thing or two about sex and gender and sexuality, we'll also learn how to offer a community of people a level of respect that they often find difficult to obtain.
The New York Times reported last Wednesday that the Obama administration will support granting asylum for at least some victims of severe domestic violence. This new position, written in a court filing submitted by the government in a currently pending asylum case, reverses the previous Bush administration stance.
Just why the Bush administration opposed granting asylum in this case is a mystery. In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security had indicated in the asylum case of a Guatemalan woman named Rodi Alvarado that they would be open to granting battered women asylum in limited circumstances, but as the Times article notes, the administration never pushed the position forward. Indeed:
“As recently as last year, Bush administration lawyers had argued…that battered women could not meet the strict standards of American asylum law.”
The reason most often cited for opposing gender-based asylum claims like this, is that allowing battered women to apply for asylum would lead to an overwhelming flood of applications from women all over the world. But this hasn’t been the experience of other countries which allow domestic violence to be grounds for asylum. Take Canada, for instance. Two years after they put into place guidelines on accepting gender-based persecution as grounds for asylum (including domestic violence), these types of cases made up less than 2% of the 40,000 refugee claims.1 Because our asylum systems are similarly structured, it’s likely that we’ll have a comparably small number of applicants.
For most of our history, our businesses, government, and laws have all discriminated in favor of privileged white men and against everyone else. In particular, the discrimination favors white men with money, or born into privileged families, over everybody else. The boys taking the golf and tennis lessons at the country clubs this summer will be smiling for good reason, because they know that our country has things set up so that they will get way more than their fair share regardless of how lazy, stupid, and corrupt they are. The fix is in.
The best jobs in our country are almost exclusively held by white men. White men only represent around 35% of the population, but they hold about 98% of the best jobs, the jobs with the big paychecks and the life-long titles. Notice that men give themselves lifelong titles, like King, Prince. Senators (for life), Judge, Ambassador, Professor: even if they only held the job for a few years, they use the title forever. It's so silly. So pretentious. Women, who are over 50% of the population, are not only excluded from the better jobs, but they are viciously attacked when they try to move up in their professions. Blacks are excluded. Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, all excluded.
So white men get the best paying jobs. They also get the jobs with the most power. They get to control everything in our society, and they use their positions to enrich and protect themselves and other white men. For example, Congress (mostly white men) pass laws saying that Wall Street (mostly white males) cannot be sued or held liable for stealing money from the public. Cops (mostly white men) are never held liable for wrongful death of a citizen, even if they walked up to an unarmed, blind, 90-year-old grandma and shot her in the face, the media and the courts immediately label it a "Suicide-By-Cop." What a stupid term. It's like when women get raped, and the media says she asked for it. Same thing. Automatically blame the victim and excuse the (usually) white male.
And we now know that even when the white men engage in international war crimes, start wars of aggression, lie the nation into war, torture and murder people, loot and pillage and plunder the nation, even then they are not held accountable for their actions. They have permanent immunity. Privileges and immunities, like Princes or King. How creepy is that? Even when they kill people, they get away with it.
Certainly our entire nation and its laws have always given preference to whites and to males. For example, after the country gained its independence, it was decided that there should be some law saying how a new person can become a citizen. So a law was passed in 1790, and it said that any person who had lived in the U.S. for at least 2 years, and was free and white, could become a citizen.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/...
Note that non-whites were excluded. Many blacks in this country were slaves and, even after they were freed, they were denied status as citizens by the southern states. Regardless of how many laws are passed, the Republican Party to this day continues to have an official organized policy dedicated to preventing black people from voting in our elections.
Of course voting was always reserved based on gender and race and class. Originally, only white male property owners could vote. At the time George Washington was elected our first President, in 1789, only 6% of the population of this country was allowed to vote -- white, male, property owners only. In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was executed at the end of the U.S. War Against Mexico, and provided that Mexicans residing within the then-claimed land of the United States would be citizens, although they were routinely denied civil rights based on a variety of tactics. In 1856, all states in the country had finally removed the requirement of property ownership for voting, but voting was still generally limited to white males. In 1870, blacks were given the right to vote, but were prevented from doing so by local vigilantes. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony decided to test the exclusion of women, so she tried to vote, and was arrested and tried for her "crime." Women were not legally given the right to vote nationwide until 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. Our actual history doesn't quite live up to those patriotic songs. A little shoddy on closer examination. http://www.kqed.org/assets/pdf...
I saw three stories today that made me think of this national, institutional, legal and historical bias in favor of white men and against everyone else in our society. The first, of course, was about Pat Buchanan and the drug addict from the radio, as well as their hangers-on, trying to incite hatred and violence among the population by hysterically screaming that Sonia Sotomayor was out to destroy white men, and that white men need to join together to defend themselves against their enemies -- I guess women? Hispanics?
Then I saw a story that Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia was back in the hospital again. He was just there a few weeks ago. He's 91 years old. White, male, and 91 years old, yet he's still allowed to hold one of only 100 seats in the Senate. God forbid anybody should tell this guy to go home, he's old enough to retire. Let somebody else have a chance. We see this same thing in judges -- sometimes suffering from dementia, peeing their pants on the bench, drooling, falling asleep, yet nobody will remove them from the position. See http://www.metnews.com/article... (rarely, the judicial commissions will remove a judge when they are completely disabled. Example: Justice Marshall McComb of the California Supreme Court was only removed from the bench when the state finally intervened. He was totally disabled by senile dementia, yet the other privileged white men on the California Supreme Court just turned his chair around during the hearings, and let him keep the job). So it is special treatment and privileges for the wealthy white men, and unemployment, no healthcare, no rights for anybody else. White men not only get all the good jobs, but they get to keep them long after they no longer are able to properly acquit their responsibilities.
Finally, I saw a story about a basketball player who allegedly cheated on his SAT exam. Apparently this young man is a terrific basketball player who is good enough to go pro right now. But the monopoly professional basketball team owners in this country, for some bizarre reasons, want to keep kids out of the profession until they are at least 19. That means that a kid gets out of high school, and has to get into college to play basketball there, for one year, in order to get picked up by the pros when they turn 19. I see no legitimate reason for this. None. Supposedly the white males who own the teams and run professional basketball don't want to have to pay these young men at 18, and can save a lot of money by blacklisting these young men for a year. Which is all it is -- blacklisting without any rational basis. The person who wrote the article noted that in effect (regardless of intent) this rule mostly discriminates against young black men. It seems like a really stupid rule to me. There's certainly no rule that prevents young people from getting professional contracts as singers, or actors, when they are under 19 years of age. What's the difference? See "The NBA's uncool rule - College Basketball - Rivals.com" http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaab/...
But again, when I put these together, it makes me think of how much things remain the same in our society. Most young black men are completely excluded from any opportunity in our society, which is why sports is such an attractive option. Many black families live in poor neighborhoods and their kids are sent to crumbling, unsafe, poorly staffed schools where they do not receive a decent education. Many of them, like most poor people in our country, are fed only high-starch low-protein and low-nutrition food which makes them fat, sluggish, unhealthy, and destined for diabetes and heart disease at a young age. These kids are screwed from the time they are born. But once in awhile, a sports star comes along, and he has a big ticket out. And the white-male professional basketball owners of America, who have a monopoly control of the sport, decide to park these kids somewhere for one year out of high school and prevent them from earning a living. How is that fair?
At the same time that these 18 year old kids are denied opportunity, we have a 91-year-old white man who's had way more than his fair share, but he will not let go.
And we have a woman who has done exactly what our society said she should do: work hard, go to school, get an education. Yet when she asked for the well-deserved promotion, she's attacked by a bunch of vile, threatening, racist old white men who seem dedicated to inciting violence among their followers -- "Defend The White Men Of America." They're crazy. And dangerous.
That's the thing about the privileged. It does not matter how much money they have, how many times they get to go to the "insider" dinners and bars and get-togethers and resorts, doesn't matter how many homes they have, how much art or stocks or shoes, doesn't matter that they will never live long enough to spend even a big chunk of what they already have -- they won't let go of a penny. I know quite a few people who are extremely wealthy by most people's standards, and they are cheap. The worst tippers, most resentful at having to fund public schools, nastiest about the unemployed (why don't they get a job), strongest opponents to public healthcare (that's socialism), least likely to pay a bonus to their employees.
I know a guy who is very wealthy, mostly because he's a privileged white country-club male, upper class, private schools, an insider from birth. Every year when a group of us go out for a holiday lunch, and invite all the office staff as well as the professionals -- he will not pay for his secretary's lunch. That's how cheap he is. I don't think there's a person in the world who likes him, and doubt he'll live long enough to spend all the money he has accumulated like a miser. But it doesn't matter -- he will not buy his secretary a sandwich at the Christmas/holiday lunch.
He's typical of people I know with money. There is no reason to try to appeal to them based on fairness or justice, because they don't believe in either. And, needless to say, most of these people are white men who use their accumulated wealth to try to get control over the people around them -- employees, wives, kids. They don't care if everyone hates them, as long as they feel like they have control. If they'd gone into politics, they would be starting wars to make themselves feel strong and powerful. It's a sickness.
When Bill Gates claims he's charitable, don't believe it. He, and Warren Buffett, and Bill Clinton, (all white males) all set up and fund private charities as a way to hold onto their money and avoid paying taxes. They can put up to 1/2 of their income into a private charity which they completely control, and keep all that money tax-free. Let's say they earned $200 million in a year, they put $100 million into a separate account, label it "charity," and don't pay $30-40 million in taxes that they otherwise would owe. It's all a tax fraud. As long as they pay out 5%/year of the money, they will never have to pay taxes. So guess how much they pay out every year? 5%. How much of that 5% goes to a kid, or relative, as compensation for them "managing" the charity? And they spend all their time going around telling the rest of us that they don't want the money for themselves -- they just want to help others. Warren Buffett keeps saying he's going to give away all his money when he dies. Don't bet on it. If they wanted to help, they would give their money away now, not hide it in private charity accounts in their own names. What's the problem? They don't think there's enough need, enough starving, enough suffering the world already?
The politicians in Congress are mostly white men. I don't think putting privileged white women, or non-white women, into Congress, will change much. I'm not suggesting that other people are kind and honest, but white men are bad. Just that our society has built in a bias towards white men which is unfair to the great majority of the people in this country. 65% of the people are not white men. We need affirmative action to change that and try to bring about some equality.
And we need a serious change in our taxes to go back to when the tax system made sense. Stop these private charities and start taxing rich people again. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett should never have been allowed to accumulate so much wealth, because it should have been taken in taxes. And Microsoft should have been busted up as a monopoly decades ago. Bill Clinton should never have been allowed to leave office then go out and solicit close to a billion dollars from the corporations he benefitted while in office, and from foreign countries that he helped while he was the president. Politicians should be prohibited from taking so much as a penny from anybody for any reason when they leave office, other than reasonable compensation for an actual job.
A woman should be allowed to move up in her profession without being viciously attacked by an organized group of white men, publicly threatened and humiliated just because she wanted a better job. A 91 year old white man should step down, move out, and let somebody else get a chance, instead of holding onto power just because he can. And an 18 year old black kid should not be prevented from getting a job by a conglomerate of millionaire basketball-team owners who figure they can do whatever they want, because nobody ever listens to young black men in this society.
Fewer than 20 percent of federal appellate judges are female, but of the appellate judges called a "bully" or accused of similar words in the AFJ (outburst, intemperate, temperamental, discourteous, or unpleasant), 40 percent (4 of 10) were women. In sum, female judges are twice as likely as male judges to draw criticism for outspokenness and aggression. (It is theoretically possible, of course, that twice as many female judges as male judges actually are outspoken and aggressive, but there is little reason to think that, and my anecdotal experience is to the contrary - that male judges are more likely to be aggressive, whether in proper or improper ways.)
NOTE: I wrote this diary Friday evening. After finishing it, I discovered that Newt Gingrich had gone all-in with full-throttle nutjob email attack on Sotomayor, all built upon the egregious mis-representation dealt with below. Rather than re-write this diary, I will follow up with a separate one dealing in detail with Newt's demented attack email.
The Ed Show started off Friday by calling it "a big mistake" that Obama was apologizing for one sentence by Sonia Sotomayor taken out of context from a 2001 speech, A Latina Judge's Voice. And Ed was absolutely right. Taken out of context, it can be used against her, and so some response could certainly be called for. But (1) there's all the difference in the world between an apology and clarification, and (2) as Ed pointed out, it should have been matched with harsh words for those who've been demonizing her--or, better yet, more subtly, praise for John Cornyn for repudiating Gingrich and Limbaugh for their demonizing attacks.
Before saying anything else, we need to be clear that this is the best attack point they have. And what is it? One sentence--discussing race and sex discrimination cases--that's part of a several paragraphs long argument that can't be fully understood in isolation. Which is why we will go through her argument on the flip. And yet, even though it can't be fully understood when quoted in isolation, it clearly is not what Gingrich, for example, is making it out to be.
Here is the sentence:
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Remember, she's discussing race & gender cases, and she is expressing the hope that a wise Latina woman would reach a better conclusion in those sorts of cases, by virtue of her experiences. She is not expressing certainty, and she's not talking about all cases, but only about those concerning race and gender discrimination. Now here's the Wall Street Journal reporting on what Gingrich turned that into (immediately following their quote of the actual sentence):
"Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.' Wouldn't they have to withdraw?" asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on his Web site. "New racism is no better than old racism."
"Makes me better than"? Where did Sotomayor say that? It's obvious she did not.
And for anyone who's paid attention to Gingrich over the years, this sort of sloppy, self-serving misreading of others is just par for the course. He's an incredibly bad listener. But to really understand how far off the mark he is (and he's not the only one), we need to read Sotomayor's remarks in the context of at least several paragraphs, where she lays out different aspects of her thinking....
In early April I wrote a diary, "The Power Of Finance Is Killing America-It Needs To Be Stopped", in which I showed the enormous growth of the finance sector in terms of profitability as a share of the US economy, and its growth of political influence via campaign contributions. I did this primarily in comparison with the transportation sector and the automotive industry, as a way of explaining the vast difference between how Wall Street and Detroit were being treated when it came to bailouts.
Fortunately, though, despite the persistent inadequacy of Obama's response to the financial crisis, that hasn't translated into uniformly bad and subservient policy. A story at Huffington Post yesterday, "Obama To Nelson: We're Going Around You", reported that Obama had struck a deal to use the budget reconciliation process to reform student loans, saving students tens of billions of dollars. (See my mid-March diary "Student Loan Debt--A Symptom of the Conservative Welfare State Shift".) And a diary here at Open Left coming up in a couple of hours from Caleb Gibson of Demos will report on the growing momentum for credit card reform.
In tandem with that diary, I want to draw on two earlier reports from Demos to provide some context for the reform efforts currently taking shape, and to relate them to the larger structure of problems which the financial industry is implicated in, particularly with respect to economic inequality and its racial and gender dimensions. These reports are "Borrowing to Make Ends Meet: The Rapid Growth of Credit Card Debt in America" (pdf) by José A. García and "Who Pays? The Winners and Losers of Credit Card Deregulation" (pdf) by Jennifer Wheary and Tamara Drautand. This chart--from the "Borrowing" report--gives some sense of the growth and magnitude of the problem:
This represents a 315% growth in credit card debt from $211 billion in 1989 to $876 billion in 2006 (2006 dollars). If incomes were growing at a healthy rate, and this debt growth merely reflected voluntary money-management choices, that would still be a matter of concern, given the high rates associated with credit card debt. But what's actually happening is much more dire. More on the flip.
As Obama’s first 100 days draw to a close, new research shows that addressing today’s economic crisis will require reinvesting in a bedrock American principle: Opportunity. The State of Opportunity, released last week by The Opportunity Agenda, measures our nation’s progress in ensuring that all Americans, and our nation as a whole, have a fair chance to achieve their full potential. The results are sobering.
Drawing on a large body of government data, the report charts opportunity on a range of indicators—economic security and mobility, equal access, democratic voice, the chance to start over after missteps or misfortune, and a coherent sense of community—across a variety of sectors—from employment to education to housing to criminal justice and beyond. Because the most recent year for which most government data is available is 2007, the report provides a unique picture of opportunity just before today’s crisis took hold.
It shows that Opportunity was both highly uneven and highly unequal for millions of Americans before the recession that began in December of 2007. Over 37 million Americans—12.5% of our nation’s population—were living in poverty in 2007, while the rates for Latinos and African Americans were a staggering 21.5% and 24.5%, respectively. Almost 11% of full-time workers were already living in poverty that year.
Significant gender and racial wage gaps existed in 2007, with women making just 78.2% of men’s median wages, and women with a college degree earning just 65.2% of the wages made by equally-educated men. Latinos earned just 72.6% of the white median wage, and African Americans earned 75.2%. Latina women earned just 58.7% of all men. Overall, the richest 20% of Americans earned almost half (47.3%) of all income in the country, and the richest 5% earned 20.1%.
The Opportunity Agenda is pleased to announce the release of our 2009 State of Opportunity in America report. The report documents America’s progress in protecting opportunity for everyone who lives here, and finds that access to full and equal opportunity is still very much a mixed reality.
By analyzing government data across a range of indicators, this update of our 2006 and 2007 reports assesses our progress in attaining opportunity for our nation as a whole, as well as for different groups within our society. The report paints a vivid picture of opportunity at the dawn of the current economic crisis. But even before the downturn, different American communities experienced starkly different levels of opportunity. The nation has made great strides in increasing opportunity in some areas and for some communities, but many groups of Americans are being left behind in ways that hard work and personal achievement alone cannot address.
These past few years have seen an economy in turmoil, impaired financial mobility, marginal prospects for educational advancement, and a broken health care system. These conditions thwart the nation as a whole as it strives to be a land of opportunity for the 21st Century. At the same time, women, people of color, and moderate- and lower-income individuals and families are being hardest hit and left behind as they face multiple barriers to opportunity.
These barriers are a problem not only for individuals and families, but also for our economy and nation as a whole. They also present an opportunity. Addressing them now would translate to thousands more college graduates prepared for a 21st Century global economy, millions of healthier children in stronger communities, higher wages and greater productivity for American workers, far fewer mortgage defaults and bankruptcies, and far less strain on our social services and justice system. Conversely, the areas of improved opportunity revealed by our analysis represent a foundation and lessons on which to build as the nation works to restore the American dream for everyone who lives here.
Five of the worst reactionary fake Democrats-- Allen Boyd (Blue Dog-FL), Bobby Bright (freshman wingnut-AL), Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Parker Griffith (freshman wingnut-AL), Travis Childers (wingnut-MS)-- joined all but 3 Republicans in voting against equal rights for America's working women. The 3 Republicans: Chris Smith (NJ), Ed Whitfield (KY) and Don Young (AK).
I am so sick of Boyd. His name seems to crop up in every list like this, from Social Security, to SChip, to Iraq, to FISA, and more. That is a primary challenge I would support in a heartbeat. As for the freshman, why did we even bother spending money on them, if they can't even support this? There really needs to be DCCC related penalties for voting behavior like this.
Walk Minnick, a freshman Democrat from Idaho, joined Griffith and Bright in voting against the Paycheck fairness act, too. Nice.
Only ten Republicans crossed over on the Paycheck fairness act, including Chris Smith (New Jersey) who was the only Republican to vote for both bills. That is pretty tepid bi-partisan support for two pieces of legislation that should not be controversial. Fortunately, it was support we did not need to pass the bills. This will hopefully serve as a lesson for future legislation.
Generally speaking, the reason Democrats and Republicans vote differently is not out of spite or a lack of communication, but because they have different values and beliefs. There is nothing wrong with this, especially since, right now, we don't need Republican support to pass legislation. So, why not just pass legislation that will make people's lives better, while Republicans vote against it en masse? The only end result I can see to that course of action will be a generational Democratic majority.
Let me give you the state of the race today. We have 22 days to go. We're 6 points down. The national media has written us off. Senator Obama is measuring the drapes...
October 25, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - President Bush said yesterday that overconfident Democrats who are already "measuring the drapes" for their move into power on Capitol Hill will have the rug pulled out from under them on Election Day.
"The Democrats have made a lot of predictions. Matter of fact, I think they may be measuring the drapes," Bush said yesterday to laughs at a Sarasota, Fla., fund-raiser for GOP House hopeful Vern Buchanan.
Take that, Democrats! McCain just delivered a real zinger, even though he borrowed it from the burnmaster himself, George W. Bush.
Kind of hard for McCain to make the case that he is different than Bush when he is quoting him in his speeches.
It is also nice to see McCain play the macho identity politics card. Effeminate Democrats measure drapes! Granted, at some point, when you are regularly labeled a bunch of terrorist gay commie Mexican Muslims, snide remarks like these don't even seem offensive. It just all kind of starts to blur together and seems normal.
Update: Thought about this some more, and it seems like Obama would do well to drop a line like "how can McCain possibly be change, when he can't even come up with one-liners that are different than Bush?" Or something like this, as was suggested in the first comment.
Yet another poll shows that Biden won last night's debate. In this poll, in every category, Biden was between 62% and 72% among independents, and also scored a higher percentage of Democrats than Palin scored of Republicans. That is a complete blowout.
I thought Biden made a small slip-up last night when he said "Bosniak." So did Cokie Roberts. Turns out that Biden was right, and we are wrong, as "Bosniak" is indeed the correct term for Muslim Bosnians. This moves from a slip-up to actually very impressive. Biden really knows his stuff.
Frank Luntz conducted a focus group sponsored by Budweiser, the corporation that gave Cindy McCain her money. He then proceeded to produce the only pro-Palin focus group in the country, by drawing all of his information from three voters. Media Matters has the gory details.
Obama hasn't campaigned in Minnesota since August 7th, and is running less than $20K worth of ads in the state. McCain, by comparison, is running $500K worth of ads a week in the state. As such, is it any wonder that McCain is closer to Obama in Minnesota (2.8% according to Pollster.com), than he is in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin? Obama is running lots of ads and campaigning regularly in all of those states, and yet he persists in leaving the backdoor open. I don't get ignoring Minnesota, even if today's Survey USA poll is an outlier.
McCain thinks that townhall meetings with women are more "emotional:"
Nice. No wonder he doing so well among women.
Question: are Palin's speech patterns actually "folksy," or are they the media establishment's stereotype of "folksy?" I'm pretty sure that most pundits just take anything that sounds stereotypical as all "heartlandish." As long as you are a xenophobe with unusual speech patterns, you must be folksy. This is the notion of swing voters pundits have trained themselves to kow-tow to over the last forty years, after all. "Real Americans" are a bunch of bigots who talk funny. I personally find it offensive that this is considered "folksy."
In order to reach any content, it is necessary to scroll down two full screen lengths, because the main navigation menu isn't formatted properly.
No contact information of any sort about who is actually heading up the Women for McCain operation.
One blog post, "Welcome To Women For McCain," totaling all of 187 words, including the title.
A link to Cindy McCain's travel log, which hasn't been updated since July 21st.
A one minute, seventeen second video of Cindy McCain welcoming people to Women for McCain. It was recorded on June 8th, and askes women to participate in a national day of action for McCain on August 14th.
And that's it. That's the whole website. It hasn't been updated since June 8th. It would have taken less than fifteen minutes to put this together, but actually looks much worse given the formatting screw up with the left-hand navigation column.
This website is, apparently, the entire extent of John McCain's outreach to women before Sarah Palin. Now, however, they have decided they can appeal to women by claiming people are acting sexist toward Palin. Then again, the John McCain website only used the word "sexism" twice before the Palin announcement, and never used the word "sexist." So, it wasn't something they were concerned about until recently, either.
Update: They fixed the formatting. Still, no new content.
STATE BLOGS
