Meanwhile, apropos women’s involvement, the sisters duke it out:

Former Rep. and vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, who has endorsed Hillary Clinton, tells the New York Times that the way Clinton was treated at last week’s Democratic presidential debate shows that it’s still “OK in this country to be sexist.”

“John Edwards, specifically, as well as the press, would never attack Barack Obama for two hours the way they attacked her,” Ferraro says. “I think if Barack Obama had been attacked for two hours — well, I don’t think Barack Obama would have been attacked for two hours.”

Kate Michelman, the former NARAL Pro-Choice America chairwoman who is now an advisor to John Edwards, counters with a blog post and statement (posted online by the Edwards campaign) in which she accuses Clinton of trying to “have it both ways” when it comes to gender.

As much as I like Ms. Ferraro I have to disagree a bit on this particular issue.

The biggest fight for Edwards in this whole campaign has been with Obama, not Clinton. Obama and Edwards split up a big part of the Moderate-to-Progressive/Liberal vote among Dems. Clinton is far to the right of Edwards and until recently hasn’t been the main competitor. The fight has been to gather in all the Lefties and then to take on Obama to seal up everything to the Left of Hillary. Obama stands in the way and his repeated failures have given us meat for a low-key intellectual fight which has lasted months. Patience and consistent pressure has rewarded us with the public becoming ever more aware of this weakness of Barack’s. He makes mistakes of major significance on a regular basis.

Only since the gay-bashing issue has come out has it become completely obvious to many of his supporters that they should look elsewhere for representation. Now comes the fight with Hillary.

For her and her supporters to claim Edwards is bashing her because she’s female is to completely misread this entire campaign. Perhaps Ms. Ferraro hasn’t been watching it very closely and only began to notice when this kerfuffle arose.

Sure, many of the details about Hillary and her campaign have arisen and been noticed over the last few months. But, the actual fight with her only began with that debate.

Why has that fight been so obvious and loud when compared to the quiet persistent fight with Obama? It’s because it took time for Obama to reveal himself and for Edwards to present himself as a better candidate.

With Hillary the timing is different. Her supporters are different. The issue is different. Everything is different.

The difficulty of facing a candidate whose supporters are (or, at least seem to be) uncritical requires more drastic measures. One must confront them and thus a bit more noise is required. I certainly hope that during this debate (purportedly over immigration) her supporters will listen to the Edwards side of the argument and see it’s not immigration, but personal qualities of Hillary which are crucial. Just as Obama made errors (not because of stupidity or of greed or of some other nasty thing, but just because it’s part of who he is, part of his experience or character or something fundamental to him) Hillary has flaws.

Hillary wants to be President. She’s been told she’s well-qualified for it. She’s seen her husband do it. And she’s been told since leaving the White House that she too could do it. But, she didn’t strive for it for many years. She let Bill do that and she was in the background. Sure, she says she advised him. I have little doubt of that. On which subjects isn’t clear, but all spouses advise. We want them to. But, she … SHE didn’t strive to be president because it wasn’t her goal. She’s being offered it. That isn’t how it should work.

Now that she is going after it we’re seeing she isn’t the same as Bill. She’s as different from Bill as Bush II was from Bush I. I don’t mean to slander her by that, but her personal qualities are obviously different than Bill’s.

Yes, they work well to campaign. Yes, Hillary is smart and presents herself well. But, she takes illegal campaign money. She has a pollster who is anti-union. She worked for a law firm which did anti-union work. She avoid committing to any particular position polls and focus groups haven’t cleared or her primary competitors haven’t committed to first. She doesn’t lead. She didn’t lead in seeking out the White House. She didn’t initiate her own try. She’s been following for far too many years to change stripes now.

My problem with Hillary is that she’s not the Leader America needs at this point in time. She’s a Goldwater Girl/Liberal/corporatist/lawyer and nobody knows what she is or what her experience has been (aside from being scarred by the Republican attack machine) or where she might take the country as president. She’s a cipher and only has a front-runner position because of name and face recognition. If she were Joe Smith she wouldn’t be in this race at all.

Even after the immigration discussion I still have to ask, is she for the Spitzer plan or not?

How can you trust someone like that to Lead the world? I can’t.

1. They are targeting, according their site, “unmarried” women. They repeat this over and over. This is negative from jump because it tells women what they are not. The standard perspective they’re coming from is “married” and if you’re not married, you are sub-standard… “UN”. What these women are is SINGLE. One. Independent. Making their own way on their own, or coupled-up chosing to not marry or are prevented by law from being married. Single is not a dirty word. Married is not the standard. Dump the “unmarried” bs.

2. There are several alumni from Hillary and Bill’s admin and campaigns on the board of this organization. I think that makes the agenda clear and it diminishes the true empowerment agenda they attempt to present in the spot. Dump the clinton alumni from the organization and really make it about getting women to vote…. for whoever they choose.

3. Julia LD, at the end of the spot, wants you to vote for Hillary Clinton only because she’s a women. They don’t talk about her positions, her record, her resume, or any other qualifying factor. Just vote for her to put a woman in the Oval Office. Not only is that sexist, it is insulting to women. It is against Federal law which prohibits considering gender, race, and religion as a qualification of employement. Since the President is a Federal job, it applies. This is a campaign to get women to vote for Hillary Clinton… plain and simple. Only she doesn’t have to claim it in her campagin financing. Its a sad thing when it could really be a wonderfully empowering thing. Either have Hillary claim this a an ad for her “vote for Hillary” campaign or drop the scene with the Oval Office and drop number 2.

Women don’t want to get jobs BECAUSE they are women. They want to get jobs because they are the BEST qualified for the position. I don’t ever want to have to wonder on that and up until now I didn’t… ever. I always KNEW I got the job because of my qualifications.

Thankfully, I’m an “unmarried” VOTER so they won’t come after me. :-)

I posted this same sentiment over at Digby’s when she had this up. I also think Digby rocks! I just disagree on this.

I just don’t know what I’m going to wear to the polls tomorrow, maybe my lake blue blouse.

… the one with the fire-breathing dogs on it??

Christy!!!

…Could we start by standing up for the Constitution? ‘Cause that would be swell…

Consider this: In Pakistan, thousands of lawyers have taken to the streets to defend the Constitution of Pakistan…

Let that sink in for a moment.

What would it be like if, in Washington D.C., thousands of lawyers took to the streets in protest against the Constitutional abuses of the Bush administration? [It is true that Bush has never officially suspended the Constitution, but Bush has derided the Constitution as “just a piece of paper.”]

Bob in HI

Ding! Ding! Ding!

That’s just what I have been thinking all day long. Blessings on them all in their righteous fight.

… and the parties are at rough parity on terrorism, once a major Republican strong point.

And, they manage to sneak in that Republican talking point. I wish I had a link for you, but I may have even gotten it here: poll after poll has shown the supposed advantage of Republicans on national security in public opinion is a myth.

They recite it over and over, but it’s not true, and it hasn’t BEEN true for years.

Plus, I was in the car and heard a few of the Rush comments on this poll. To hear him, it all favors the way things are, so to speak. Thanks for a different take.

Got EPU’d on the sub-prime mortgage thread and thought that the impact on this disaster on the 2008 elections (and beyond) needed to be brought forward.

Let’s consider the effect of foreclosures on the election process. On the one hand these folks will likely want to vote Democrat, especially if Bush and the Republicans in Congress don’t act to assist those being made homeless.

OTOH Homeless and displaced people are far less likely to have their voter registrations up-to-date, have the necessary home address generally required, and are extremely mobile from residence to residence. The PUGS are going to go challenge crazy!!!

Plus, many of these minority voters were moving into suburban or rural areas which were previously white districts….and with Republican Congressmen. Thus prosperity for minorities posed a threat to the PUGS, if not immediately, then down the road 10 or 15 years. While I don’t think the mortgage crisis was intentional in this respect it wouldn’t behoove the Republicans in these Districts to help those in foreclosure. They aren’t the correct Party, class or race.

Think of how this ties in with campaigns like that of Charlie Brown against John Doolittle, or Jerry McNerny (okay, I know, yuck) against Pombo back in 2006. The change of minority composition in those districts really helped. Then theres that nefarious Pug plan to make Californias Electoral votes be distributed by voting district.

So there is really going to need to be voter registration and assistance drives to get themse victims of foreclosure to the polls. It needs to be a targetted population, registration-wise for the Domocrats. And laws should be passed that assures that they will be allowed to vote, either in the district of their original home…or in their recent place of occupation.

You know, this is…this is…sheerly brilliant. I agree with you, we’ve got to make s ure these people get to the polls too… I hadn’t considered that side effect of redlining as well … >:-(

rwcole @ 45

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking at a news conference in the West Bank Monday, said…”President Musharraf has said that he will take off his uniform. That would be an important step.”
President Bush is scheduled to address the situation from the White House on Monday.

Condi and George are watching to see Musharraf take off his uniform???

Will Condi take off her stilettos and George remove his codpiece?

BRAIN BLEACH!

Ugh!