It turns out that one of the doctors in yesterday’s piece on families coping with gender identity issues, Kenneth J. Zucker, Ph.D., is on the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group for the American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Pam says that’s not good news:

Needless to say, gender-variant LGBT and straight youth, as well as transsexual adults, will likely have to deal with another decade plus of being considered seriously disordered — with its conversion therapy implication for children. Reform models for, or different takes on Gender Identity Disorder in DSM-V aren’t likely to be seriously considered with forceful advocates Zucker and Blanchard on the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group, advocating to continue listing gender-variant youth and adult transsexuals as disordered.

Pam makes the analogy to 1973, when Homosexuality was was removed as a disorder from the American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Second Edition (DSM-II).

It was the step that recognized that individuals whose sexual interests are directed primarily toward people of the same sex weren’t afflicted with a psychiatric disorder.

I make that leap, too. And will share this personal story only to inform the reader of how my experience shapes my beliefs… Read the rest of this entry »

Whatever happened to the Melting Pot? Now we learn that “Barack Obama is faring better than might be expected among Jewish voters, beating John McCain in Gallup Poll Daily general-election matchups and trailing Hillary Clinton only slightly in Jewish Democrats’ preferences for the Democratic nomination.”

This crucial piece of information tells us what? That Jews don’t blame Obama for the anti-Semitic outbursts decades ago by Louis Farrakhan, who is admired by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Is this something we need to know? A wise old editor I worked with used to say about such useless information, “Uninteresting, if true.”

As pollsters and political “experts” turn this election year into a demographic nightmare, pinning labels on voters by race, gender, religious affiliation, age, income, education, everything but height and weight, the dominant theme of the campaign coverage has become parsing everything that divides Americans and deciding which politician profits from which.

Obama keeps talking about reaching across those divisions, but the media story line keeps magnifying them. All of this perpetuates the beliefs of Karl Rove and his ilk that the way to win elections is to divide and conquer.

Voters, who have seen how well that worked out for them in the past eight years, may be ready to defy the labels and surprise the experts. Now that would be interesting, if true.

Cross-posted from my blog.

NPR has a terrific and nuanced story on a difficult and challenging topic. One issue to dispose of right away, the story is headlined Two Families Grapple with Sons’ Gender Preferences, which may suggest to some that those boys make a choice about their gender identity.

As their story makes clear, little choice is involved. To people of my sexual identity (I self-identify as gay) using the words gender identity in the title would be more precise. Please forgive the quibble and let’s move on… Why on earth would any child ever choose to go through this:

Bradley had always had a preference for girls’ things. From his earliest days he had chosen girls’ dolls, identified with female characters and gravitated toward female children. But Carol had never thought to care. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t a loaded gun; it wasn’t a lit cigarette. She says it had really never crossed her mind to say, “I’d really rather you played with a truck.” […]

It was a single event that transformed her vague sense of worry into something more serious. One day, Bradley came home from an outing at the local playground with his baby sitter. He was covered in blood. A gash on his forehead ran deep into his hairline.
Read the rest of this entry »

The tale of the two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who after trying to incubate a rock in the Central Park Zoo were given an egg by a zookeeper to hatch together, tops the list of `challenged’ books again this year:

“And Tango Makes Three,” released in 2005 and co-written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was the most “challenged” book in public schools and libraries for the second straight year, according to the American Library Association.

“The complaints are that young children will believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle that is acceptable. The people complaining, of course, don’t agree with that,” Judith Krug, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

In a fun and fascinating story on ‘Gaydar’ in NY Magazine last summer (yes, it exists!) we learned of the breakup of the daddy penguins. And that shed some interesting light on the nature/nurture question:

But for most in the animal kingdom, same-sex pairing is either fleeting or situational. Even Silo and Roy, for six years the poster-penguins for same-sex love in the Central Park Zoo-they famously raised a daughter together-were not destined to last forever. Silo waddled off with a female named Scrappy in 2005, says zoo director Dan Wharton, adding that we shouldn’t worry about Roy’s hurt feelings. “Penguins are matter-of-fact about these things.”

The religious right made sure that I knew that long ago. What I didn’t know was this:

Of course, biology doesn’t determine everything. And some critics of sexual-orientation researchers blame them for minimizing the role of experience in determining our affectional course in life. The feminist biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling has waged a constant battle against their research, which she calls “a big house of cards” that ignores the power of environment in creating personality. Nurture, she argues, can and should be studied as a link to sexual orientation. The baby penguin raised by her two dads [Tango] is a potential case study-though genetically unrelated to either parent, in the last few mating seasons she has mated with another female.

That Gaydar piece had some other interesting things to say about female sexuality:

In many other studies, though, lesbians have appeared less unique than gay men, leading some people to wonder if their sexual orientation is innate. Michael Bailey-who, as a heterosexual researcher, is a minority in this field-even doubts the existence of female sexual orientation, if by orientation we mean a fundamental drive that defies our conscious choices. He bases this provocative gambit on a sexual-arousal study he and his students conducted. When shown pornographic videos, men have an undeniable response either to gay or straight images but not both, according to sensitive gauges attached to their genitals-it’s that binary. Female sexual response is more democratic, opaque, and unpredictable: Arousal itself is harder to track, and there is evidence that it defies easy categorization. “I don’t yet understand female partner choices very well, and neither does anyone else,” Bailey wrote me in an e-mail. “What I do think it’s time to do is admit that female sexuality looks in some ways very different from male sexuality, and that there is no clear analog in women of men’s directed sexual-arousal pattern, which I think is their sexual orientation. I am not sure that women don’t have a sexual orientation, but it is certainly unclear that they do.”

He contends that what they have instead is sexual preference-they might prefer sex with women, but something in their brains can still sizzle at the thought of men. Many feminist scholars agree with this assessment, and consider sexuality more of a fluid than an either-or proposition, but some don’t. “I think women do have orientations, but they don’t circumscribe the range of desires that women can experience to the same degree as men,” says Lisa Diamond, a psychology professor at the University of Utah, who is writing a book on the subject. “For women, there’s more wiggle room. You can think of orientation as defining a range of possible responses, and for women, it’s much broader.”

When I pointed to the Gaydar story the first time, I noted that Bailey is a controversial figure in the LGBT community. He “has notoriously declared that true male bisexuality doesn’t exist and dismissed many transgender people as peculiar sexual fetishists.”

Still, I find the female sexual orientation observation an intriguing one.

We’ve seen our last First Lady of a certain kind. Genteel, always attempting to be background instead of foreground or middle ground. Laura Bush will likely be the last of a long line of smart women who stayed behind the scenes for the most part, or else led lives ‘out there’, like Eleanor Roosevelt who most of the time seemed as though she wasn’t married to the President, but rather to ideas.

We have seen the signs of the remarkable transition from genteel little lady with little to say, and certainly never anything controversial, to efforts to act as a fuller human being… for instance, First Lady Hillary Clinton. She had an idea and thought to bring it to the fore. But, she was bashed for carrying the notion that she should/could/ would dare to be involved in policy; health care. “You’re not a player, you’re just a figurehead; go put your hoop skirt back on and act right.’

Nancy Reagan was smarmed for ‘advising’ her husband; many thought she had ‘too much power’ over him and should just go back to pouring tea for be-medaled dignitaries. Mrs. Reagan’s bold interruption of Raisa Gorbachev who appeared to be hogging the camera during an interview of the Russian and US First Ladies, prompted Mrs. Reagan to intervene clearly and loudly. “I want to talk now,” said Mrs. Reagan. This breach of ‘ladylike’ protocol was hailed by many as a high-fiver for Nancy.

It used to be, and was vehemently expected by many in the electorate, that First Ladies, whether wives of Presidents or Governors, were supposed to remain like the curtains; be backdrop, to concern themselves only with ’safe, feminine’ interests (feminine as defined by softness and sweetness… forgetting that many women are also inventors, innovators and often, warriors ).

The short list below is not to trivialize, for First Ladies’ attendance on under-served populations and ideals that might never have more than a hoot and holler amongst male politicians, has been critical.
Read the rest of this entry »

“Hello, this is Lamont Williams. In the next few days, you will receive a voter registration packet in the mail. All you need to do is sign it, date it and return your application. Then you will be able to vote and make your voice heard. Please return the voter registration form when it arrives. Thank you.”

That is a transcript of the robocalls that voters in predominately black districts, which is to say Barack Obama-leaning areas, received in a ham-handed voter suppression effort by Women’s Voices Women’s Vote that was clearly intended to try to help Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the May 6 primary in North Carolina.

WVWV president Page Gardner has apologized for any “confusion” caused by her group.

But it is obvious that Gardner is playing the news media and others for suckers because the more we learn about the high-tech suppression effort the more obvious it becomes that it was black North Carolinians whom the women’s advocacy group was trying to confuse in the service of getting one of their own elected — a proclaimed feminist who like them has mastered the manly art of dirty politics.

It is minorly ironic that Jeff Fecke over at Shakesville has been one of the bloggers to depants Gardner in providing details of WVWV’s jackbooted approach to electoral politics. Ironic because certain Shakesville contributors expend considerable bandwidth pushing back against the perceived enemies of feminism, often in locker room language.

Anyhow, Fecke details the insidiousness of the WVWV effort, which is now under criminal investigation by North Carolina authorities:

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the more maddening threads of the Democratic presidential campaign concerns Hillary Clinton’s feminist credentials: Has she done enough for women? Can successes such as her Pennsylvania primary win be considered victories for feminists? Is she in fact a feminist? And so on and so forth.

I have hesitated riffing on this because along with writing about anything to do with Israel (which I will do at length as its 60th anniversary approaches) feminism is a third-rail in blogging, and all the more so when the blogger is a guy.

My own situation is further complicated because my view of what constitutes a feminist has changed.

There was a time when I would claim to be a feminist. After all, I have been respectful of a woman’s reproductive rights, have shared in being responsible for birth control in relationships, abhor sexual harassment and domestic violence, believe in equal pay and went out of my way as a newspaper editor to find, hire and promote qualified women in that male-dominated business.

All that said, I don’t consider myself a feminist anymore. Nor do I consider myself to not be a feminist. I have come to believe that the label has become conveniently elastic and is used far too often as a cudgel in drawing battle lines.

But if you consider yourself to be a feminist, does Hillary Clinton fit as someone who:

* Supported an unprovoked war that has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of women and children until it became politically unpopular to do so.

* Would kill millions more by nuking Iran.

* Not merely put up with but defended a spouse who was a serial philanderer.

* Is running for president because of that husband and not despite him.

* Has men in most all of her key campaign staff positions.

* Uses campaign tactics that Lucrezia Borgia would approve of.

* Whines on cue about being treated differently because she is a woman.

For the sake of argument, I’ll concede that Clinton is a feminist, but she is of that generation of feminists whom a friend calls feminazis because of their orthodoxy.

This crowd includes the sob sisters at the New York state chapter of the National Organization for Women who excoriated Senator Ted Kennedy for “abandoning” Clinton because he was another “progressive white man who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president” and therefore endorsed Barack Obama.

No, my biggest problem with Clinton as a feminist is one that I share with Goldy’s Sister at horsesass.org:

“I don’t actually fault Hillary, because as all successful feminists of her generation who struggled to break the glass ceiling—and isn’t this the ultimate glass ceiling—she has absolutely mastered the rules of a man’s world. Unfortunately, the game is changing, and the old rules are no longer good enough. I wanted the first woman president to be better than the men who preceded her and not simply to be better at their politics. I wanted Hillary to rise above the fray, to inspire and to unite, and to humanize, and to finally be the one to change both how we campaigned and how we governed. While I owe Hillary a great debt for paving the way for the next generation of women politicians, I believe that our first woman president will not come from her generation. The price she and her peers had to pay for playing by the rules, as they existed, was too high. The first generation feminists didn’t realize that woman shouldn’t simply strive to succeed at the old rules, but they needed to change the rules themselves.”

Right on, sister. Right on.

As you consider the output of the coverage you watch over the next few days related to the remaining primaries and their results in the Democratic presidential nominee race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, keep in mind this lengthy list of data and statistics that show how poorly the news media reflects the female population - especially among the gatekeepers.

Three of my favorites:

• In newspapers, 38 percent of journalists working in daily newspapers are women; 65 percent of all supervisors are men.
  American Society of Newspaper Editors, 2006 census
  http://www.asne.org/index.cfm?id=6506
• Women who enter newsrooms are leaving prematurely. In 1992, nearly 42 percent of journalists with five to nine years of experience were female. Ten years later, that group was only 26 percent female. As of 2002, more than half (54 percent) of women in newsrooms have fewer than five years experience.
  The American Journalist in the 21st Century.
  
• Only 3 percent of clout positions in mainstream media are held by women.
  “The Glass Ceiling Persists,” Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2003.
  

There are 25 more where that came from.

Cross-posted at Redblueamerica.com.

Overlooked So Far, The Nation’s Unmarried Women in 2008 was released two days ago. You can read the summary here and the full report here.

From the summary:

So far unmarried women are mostly overlooked, but they are a key to this year’s campaign. A fast-growing demographic that is increasingly focused on politics, these single, divorced, and widowed women compose 26 percent of the electorate—in other words, unmarried women are more than one in four of all voters.

And appalling, unacceptable statistics:

A few facts make clear the challenges unmarried women are facing, and why their agenda is somewhat different from what the nation has heard from the campaigns so far.

• Economically Vulnerable. More than 40 percent of unmarried women have household incomes of less than $30,000 a year. That’s much worse than married women and married men, and worse than unmarried men.
• Work Pays Them Less. Unmarried women make less than others for the same work, and earn only 56 cents to every dollar a married man earns.
• Responsible for Children. The responsibility for taking care of children often falls on unmarried women: There are 12.2 million single-parent families in America, and more than 10 million are headed by single mothers.
• Missing Health Care. Unmarried women are more likely than other Americans to have no health insurance. They were twice as likely to be unable to afford medical care in the past year as women who were married.
• They Rely on Social Security. More than 25 percent of unmarried women rely on Social Security as their only source of income.

…

In this agenda, we outline the steps that leaders, particularly the next president, should take to address the needs of unmarried women. The policy agenda is divided into four categories: Expanding Opportunity by Rewarding Work; A New, Stronger Social Contract; Resolving the War in Iraq; and Improved Health Care for All.

I don’t imagine these numbers are going to reverse without consistent, intense attention, or without our elected lawmakers getting in there and doing something to create jobs, make health care affordable and demand that salaries and work conditions provide the stability and flexibility needed for not only the unmarried women, but especially those with children - since if the woman cannot provide for herself, how is she to provide for the child?

This is, of course, part of why we need more women in elected offices.

Cross-posted from Writes Like She Talks.

…AND THE LIGHT OF A REVEALING ROLE MODEL:

John F. Kennedy was correct about life and politics when he famously said, “Life isn’t fair.” Not only is politics unfair, it may be the least fair part of life. In many election years, if we had blue-ribbon selection panels charged with considering only the qualifications and likely performance of potential presidents, governors, and senators, the list of winners would likely be quite different from the ones actually elected by the voters. But that’s not the way democracy works, and people learn to live with their mistakes–and maybe even learn not to repeat the same mistakes. Part of politics’ unfairness is also the constant criticism that cascades down upon each candidate from every conceivable direction. Yet the critics are often wrong.

MORE

Have Democrats - and Europeans - become too comfortable with the inevitability of a Democratic President in 2008? Financial Times Deutschland columnist Thomas Klau writes in part, ‘The dramatic struggle between two exceptional Democratic politicians has drawn attention away from the fact that McCain’s candidacy is also a turning point - a break in the position of Republicans which, as far as party politics is concerned, could mean a historically and culturally deeper break than the Democratic Party’s nomination duel. … The reproach so often repeated by Obama - that McCain offers only a sequel of the failed politics of George W. Bush - misses the point: McCain has contradicted Bush’s policies so often, that no one can embody calls for change the way he does.’

By Thomas Klau

Translated by Julian Jacob

March 6, 2008

Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)

The saga goes on - the epochal battle for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Once again, the voters have resisted the pressure of the media, which was so quick to choose a favorite candidate.

In the U.S., people love quick results and clear statistics and a fast declaration of winners and losers. But Americans also appreciate the courage of those who don’t give up. Hillary Clinton has fought on after being written off and has gone on the attack when many were urging her to clear the field for Barack Obama. On Tuesday [Mar. 4] , the voters didn’t abandon her.

The senator’s tenacity and her steadfastness in times of great stress could be her best argument, if in Denver in July it comes down to drawing party delegates to her side. Clinton will need arguments because despite her victory yesterday, the numbers continue to speak against her. In terms of the number of delegates, Obama is out in front and will be almost impossible to catch - the arithmetic and dynamics of the approaching primary dates work in his advantage.

Now the battle for the Democratic nomination will become harder and perhaps dirtier. Clinton’s revitalized election team will make every effort to keep the Illinois senator on the defensive. Obama’s squeaky-clean image will suffer if for the first time, the press keeps its klieg lights on the senator’s more problematic contacts. It is here that he is vulnerable to attack. He’s member of a Black church congregation in Chicago, the leader of which has maintained contacts with Black racists. And the corruption trial against a former Obama supporter, building contractor Tony Rezko, is imminent.

DEEP-SEATED PARTY CRISES

With the withdrawal of Mike Huckabee, the Republican primary battle has ended with the formal selection of John McCain. The dramatic struggle between two exceptional Democratic politicians has drawn attention away from the fact that McCain’s candidacy is also a turning point - a break in the position of Republicans which, as far as party politics is concerned, could mean a historically and culturally deeper break than the Democratic Party’s nomination duel.

Politically, Clinton and Obama are conventional Democrats, located in the middle-left of their own party. But McCain is the first Republican presidential candidate in many years who has ascended in spite of the resistance of the culture warriors - that aggressive nationalistic wing of the Party. Unlike the leading figures of the present U.S. government, his TV is not tuned to Fox News - the propaganda channel of the right - but MSNBC - and anyone who knows the United States understand how much that says.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. elections

Rather than signaling the onset of a post-racial society, does Obama’s success herald the dawn of a new American ‘ethnopolitics’? Mirko Lauer of the Peruvian newspaper La Republica writes, ‘Governor Kenneth Blackwell, an Ohio politician who has won many victories said in 2006: ‘We’re at a historic moment, and in a position to win nominations and break stereotypes.’ He’s implying that it’s precisely Blackness that is beginning to win elections.’ Lauer goes on to point out, ‘the real change in U.S. politics will be an extension of ethnopolitics as long practiced by Whites to their own advantage.’

By Mirko Lauer.

Translated By Halszka Czarnocka

February 28, 2008

Peru - La Republica - Original Article (Spanish)

As Barack Obama inches closer to the Democratic nomination (this morning’s betting gives him an 82 percent chance), the question of whether a Black candidate can win a United States presidential election comes into sharper focus. Hillary Clinton’s people, believe it or not, have begun to disseminate photos of Obama in ethnic garb, something between African and Muslim.

[Editor’s Note: In the photo (right), Senator Obama donned the garb of a Somali elder during a visit near the Somali border, on diplomatic mission to Kenya in 2006.]

The Blacks now constitute 11 percent of the electorate, and it’s unlikely that they’ll all vote for Obama. Among other reasons, this is because people of color are very diverse in terms of class, culture, ideology and political affiliation. There are Blacks for Hillary, and some are even with Republicans. If Obama wins the nomination, in this regard he may end up quite alone.

Strangely, in the tea leaves of the moment, it’s not the White vote that is perceived as the biggest stumbling block for Obama, but the Latino vote. Indeed, Latinos have a very competitive relationship with African-Americans, have a political agenda of their own, and a distrust for progressivism common to nearly all immigrants.

The progressive analysis posits that this election is very different in terms of race and gender. The idea is that many voters will be willing to elect a Black or a woman solely on the basis of political image or the merit of their proposals. Yet this same electorate has consistently elected conservatives of all kinds.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. elections.

As WORLDMEETS.US regularly demonstrates, the U.S. election race is dazzling the rest of the planet. The U.S. correspondent for Portugal’s Jornal de Negocios finds America’s capacity to remake itself after the ‘reactionary’ George W. Bush to be ‘remarkable.’ Leonel Moura writes in part, ‘Just as in the person of George Bush, America has given us one of the most reactionary presidents ever; it now electrifies the planet with the possibility of electing a woman or a Black … For those familiar with American society - which is very advanced technologically and rather backward in terms of moralism - nothing could be more revolutionary than seeing a Black man in the White House - a house that has always belonged to the White man.’ He goes on to observe, ‘this society, rather savage in its pursuit of capitalism, also has the capacity for absolutely remarkable regeneration.’

By Leonel Moura

Translated By Brandi Miller

February 27, 2008

Portugal - Jornal de Negocios - Original Article (Portuguese)

Just as in the person of George Bush, America has given us one of the most reactionary presidents ever; it now electrifies the planet with the possibility of electing a woman or a Black. A fact that just about everyone would have labeled a subversive fantasy just a few years ago is now a matter of great excitement in the world at large and in the United States, where there is talk of nothing else.

This is not to be taken lightly. For those familiar with American society - which is very advanced technologically and rather backward in terms of moralism - nothing could be more revolutionary than seeing a Black man in the White House - a house that has always belonged to the White man. And yet they are increasingly supportive of this scenario.
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This week’s debate pushed front and center the question of whether the Democratic Party can do what it did in 1960, nominate an inspiring young leader paired with a Washington veteran in the workings of government.

John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson persuaded voters that they could open a New Frontier with the first Catholic president in American history. This year, the Democrats can offer a ticket with two firsts. (More about that here.)

In tone and substance, the debate in Austin suggested that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton together can restore the damage that George W. Bush has done to the American body politic and that John McCain might only prolong.

Their policy differences were invisible to the naked eye, and they ended up with the kind of hearty handshake that could be repeated to seal their designation as the 2008 ticket at the Democratic convention in August.

For Obama, it would be a demonstration of his claim that he can bring people together. On her part, it would take character for Hillary Clinton to accept the vice-presidency after leading in the presidential polls for more than a year.

But voters are rendering a different judgment now, and when the Texas and Ohio primaries are over, Obama should look back at how JFK in 1960 insured that his party ended eight years of Republican rule by teaming up with his opponent for the nomination.

If the ticket won, Hillary Clinton in 2016 would still be younger than John McCain is now.

Cross-posted from my blog.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are bringing to the fore the neglected demographic in more than half a century of empowerment of minorities.

In trying to explain why the surge for Obama failed to become a tidal wave on Super Tuesday, pundits are honing in on the behavior of the largest silent segment of society–white men.

In parsing the results, Adam Nagourney of the New York Times concludes that 2008 has “cleaved the party neatly in two: the Clinton Democrats and the Obama Democrats. Age, race and gender have become the dividing lines; nothing comes close to mattering as much.

“The Obama Democratic Party is made up of younger voters (under 44), blacks, white men (to a more limited extent) and independents…The Clinton Democratic Party is the party of women, older voters, Hispanics and also some white men.”

From this point of view, of all the demographic armies marching in lockstep, only white men have failed to jump into the ranks on one side or another and stay there.

Read the rest of this entry.

I posted this on January 8th for the New Hampshire primary; it bears repeating:

THINK, People! This is not supposed to be romantic. We are not electing a handsome President to take us on dates and haunt our dreams but rather a sober Chief Executive to make decisions affecting our personal and national future for decades to come. I want maturity and experience, not youth and beauty!

If we elect the political equivalent of a White Knight or a Beauty Queen, I fear for our future.

THINK BEFORE YOU VOTE!

What does the emergence of a Hillary Clinton or a Barack Obama as serious candidates for the U.S. presidency say about progress toward equality in American society? While it is no doubt a positive sign, according to this analysis by Patrick Jarreau of France’s Le Monde, both the tactics of the Clinton campaign and the continued relative lack of women and minorities in positions of authority show that the United States still has a very long way to go.

“Confronted with the asset posed by Obama’s negritude, which is at once assumed and transcended, Ms. Clinton and her husband have tried, each in his or her own way, to send the young politician back to his ghetto … by dividing the electorate of their party, the two candidates could cause fractures that the one who is nominated cannot repair.”

By Patrick Jarreau

Translated By Kate Davis

February 3, 2008

France - Le Monde - Original Article (French)

In nine months, the Americans could elevate to the leadership of their country a White woman or a Black man, two “minorities” in the political lexicon on the other side of the Atlantic. The Democratic candidate for the White House at the end
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Forget the Super Bowl. Here’s a match for Pay-Per-View–the Clintons vs. the Obamas.

Now that the candidates have shown in their last debate how well they bounce the conversational ball between them, why not schedule a round of doubles?

As Hillary keeps explaining away embarrassments by Bill, she always notes that Barack too has a supportive spouse. Yesterday’s Washington Post observes, “It is fascinating enough that Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are playing on the same field as their partners duel for the Democratic nomination. More intriguing still is her effectiveness, hardly a given for a recent campaign recruit matched against a two-term president.

“Clinton, 61, earned his reputation as one of the most gifted national politicians in modern times while Obama was still a young lawyer trying to find herself. Obama, 44, kept her political forays to a minimum while building a career on community outreach in Chicago, yet more than a few enchanted voters have said after watching her that she should be the one in public office.”

As this crucial campaign heads toward a two-for-one confrontation, a cable network could do worse than scheduling an hour for the Clintons and Obamas to sit together and talk politics.

There may or may not be social significance in the contrast between the out-front nature of potential Democratic First Spouses and the more conventional Republican mates, but the changes in the White House domestic scene have been evolving ever since the days of Eleanor Roosevelt.

More on the subject here and here.

What would someone from Italy think of the Hillary-Obama clash in the heart of the deep south? According to this account from La Stampa’s man in the United States, Mauritzio Maulinari, in addition to taking note of the continuing controversy over the Confederate flag, ‘When Hillary rises to speak, it’s impossible not to notice the difference; applause arrives, but it’s cold and short. … Hillary remains the best candidate, but the collective emotions are with Obama.’

Translated By Adrian Trevisan

January 22, 2008

Italy - La Stampa - Original Article (Italian)

At celebrations for Martin Luther King, there were boos for Hillary Clinton and standing ovations for Barack Obama. The crowd of thousands of Afro-Americans who filled the square in front of the South Carolina Assembly greeted the two challengers for the Democratic Presidential nomination. The crowd was transformed into a barometer of the electorate that will head to the polls on Saturday for the last primary before Super Tuesday. When “Martin Luther King Day” arrives, in every city in America, everyone - African-American and not - takes to the streets for a march in honor of the Reverend King, a symbol of the battle against segregation. And this year all eyes are on Columbia, stronghold of Southern nostalgia and theater for this bitter presidential duel. Obama raised the stakes against Bill Clinton on the TV screens of ABC by calling him “a partisan husband” and no longer “everyone’s leader” because of his “troubling” positions taken in favor of Hillary and his “unfounded attacks against me.”

The march began in front of the Zion Baptist Church, where hundreds of worshippers left a mass in memory of Reverend King, who was assassinated in Memphis in 1968. They then donned “Obama for President” T-shirts and pins with the images of Obama and King, and carried signs with “Barack’n’Roll” and “No Clinton Dynasty” written on them.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Medina County Democratic Action Committee (in Ohio)* wants Barack Obama to withstand the Clinton machine, or else be prepared to lose everything.

The group’s shout-out derives from this Washington Post article that examines the quality (bitter some say) of recent Clinton campaign moves and their potentially destructive results (losing the nomination, and losing the White House). The article only highlights the tactics employed and the Obama camp responses so far.

MCDAC raises the issue that is often made when primary battles play out in state and local political races: a tough primary better prepares the competitors, elicits the bad stuff early and, in general, makes for a stronger nominee once the primary is over.

The question, then, is: have we seen enough from Obama to know that he will be able to handle the heat in a general election? From MCDAC:

Look, we are concerned about the increasingly bitter tone of this contest. We undertand that when there is little difference between the candidates on issues, each side is going to look for an edge, no matter how small. We also understand that the Clintons are upset that African-American voters who stood behind Bill Clinton in his presidential campaigns are abandoning the 2008 Clinton campaign for Obama. We also understand that supporters of Barack Obama are so impressed by his personality that they can’t understand why the Democratic Party just doesn’t give him the nomination by acclamation. But, here’s our question: If Barack Obama can’t take the heat from the Clintons, how is he going to stand up to the Republicans this fall?

I tend to agree with MCDAC’s conclusion, but I’m honestly not sure whether that’s a good thing (being able to deliver as well as recover from a punch) or not:

The Clintons can take a punch and they can deliver a punch. What Democrats need to know is whether Obama can do the same. This campaign will tell us what Obama is made of and how he reacts under pressure. It is important to know that because Democrats who think that the Clinton campaign against Obama is like Karl Rove’s either suffer from amnesia or are terribly naive.

*Why MCDAC matters: Medina County has been profiled multiple times as emblematic of how Ohio is turning from red to blue; it’s a classic swing state county that appears to be swinging. Read more about it here.

PS: I did not add that image myself, dear readers! Thank The Powers That Be for dressing up my post. Cute, folks, real cute, laughing. You know - we could get pretty creative, putting images on everyone else’s posts. Hmmm…how long until April Fool’s Day?