At Salon, a Democratic speechwriter discusses post-campaign negotiations (using the example of Chuck Robb vs. Doug Wilder in Virginia, a campaign he was involved with), and speculates over what kind of concessions Clinton may want the Obama campaign to make in exchange for peace. Here’s an interesting speculation:

A Major Platform Win. Namely, healthcare. Hillary needs to be able to make the case that her campaign had a substantive impact on the race. The best way to do that is to get to write the party’s healthcare plank in the platform. If Obama folds on the mandate issue, Hillary walks away with a policy win. Plus, this would please John and Elizabeth Edwards. Choosing Elizabeth to write the healthcare plank of the platform could appease both camps.

Obama’s stand against (some) mandates is fully as embarassing as Clinton’s stand on the gas tax holiday; this is a point that he can, and should, concede to Clinton once the primary is over.

The essay also points out that Democrats have come together after even worse primary-season splits than what we’ve seen this year, and done it surprisingly quickly.

That aside, I hadn’t realized that such post-campaign negotiations were so normal a part of the process; live and learn. Curtsy: Digby.

Wil Wheaton has a post on his blog entitled “Hillary Clinton: the psycho ex-girlfriend of the democratic party,” and there’s really nothing more you need than the title to understand what the post is about.

I’ve seen altogether too much of this from Obama supporters; not just sexism, but also bitter derision and gloating.¹

My message to Obama supporters such as Wheaton: Stop it. If you’re so sure Obama has won, then it’s time to start acting like smart winners. We can’t win in November without the nearly 50% of Democrats who prefer Clinton to Obama, and every unnecessary word you write that dismisses, alienates or otherwise pisses off Clinton’s supporters is a word that helps John McCain win in November.

I’m not saying to keep silent regarding substantive disagreements, but if all you’ve got is sexist jokes and sneering mockery, then do Barack Obama a favor and shut the hell up.

Wheaton ends his post with this:

And allow me to just head something off right now that’s already come up on Twitter: I’m not sexist. This isn’t sexist. That’s a stupid straw man, and if you try to make that claim, I will point and laugh at you.

This so annoyed me I was going to leave a comment — but then I read the comments, and this response from Backpacking Dad had already said it perfectly:

Is it not sexist because it’s mysogynistic instead?

Is it not sexist because it’s funny?

Is it not sexist because it’s a metaphor that speaks to you?

So. Those were all questions. Here is a statement:

“Dude. You don’t get to decide what’s sexist.”

Here’s a reason to think that it MIGHT be sexist. You can g’an and point and laugh, but I’ll take this seriously for a second just to see where it goes:

The metaphor evokes a trope in sexual politics, that of the irrational girl who cannot accept that a relationship is over. Labeling, categorizing, pigeon-holing someone in this way “he’s a geek, she’s a slut, he’s a pig, she’s cow” is at once appealing to a fragment of truth, and also making the target controllable.

If they are controllable, they are marginalizable. And they can be dismissed. The problem with controlling and dismissing Hillary using a trope from sexual politics is that it moves her from the realm of discourse and debate into the realm of sex (as in “getting it on”). And labeling her as batshit crazy in an ex-girlfriend sense means that she is not only sexualized, but her sexuality can be controlled.

And that’s the heart and soul of sexism.

But I can understand if you didn’t really want to engage anyone on this. It is a funny piece, and sometimes maybe we want to hang on to the things we like even though someone else might think they’re inappropriate.

UPDATE:

According to U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, she may be starting to more closely resemble another famous movie character: The psycho lady played by Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction.”

When asked about whether Clinton should drop out of the race on Fox 13’s “Good Morning Memphis” program today, Cohen said: “Glenn Close should have stayed in that tub.”

Rep. Cohen, would you please GET THE FUCK OFF MY SIDE!!!

(Curtsy: Talk Left.)

1. And yes, I’ve seen plenty of bitter derision from Clinton’s supporters for us “Obamabots,” as they charmingly call us, but that’s not the subject of this post. (back)

So I find the American political process completely mystifying. At this stage it seems apparent that you guys have reached the baroque stage of elections - a complicated, expensive edifice that references nothing but itself.¹ Both the Democrat candidates would probably be on the right of the National party (our right wing). I read blogs of people who seem to see similar problems with the world than I do, even if they generally have less radical solutions, and I don’t understand the way they view this electoral process. So I’m going to ask a question of liberal/left-wing/progressive commentators, because I really want to know.

Who has said more that you agree with and less you disagree with Obama or Reverend Wright?

PS - the other thing I’ve been wondering is for Americans who are anti-war which is the more pertient question:

“What’s Obama doing meeting with Bill Ayers”

or

“What’s Bill Ayers doing meeting with Obama”

1. unless I’ve got what baroque means wrong, in which case it’s something else (back)

Clinton:

“There was just an AP article posted that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.

Yes, there is a pattern emerging.

Elrod:

[…] The implication is, of course, that hard-working goes hand-in-hand with white. Never mind that Obama has won hard-working black Americans, or that he’s won whites everywhere outside the South and the Rust Belt.

The “hard-working Americans, white Americans” is a classic Wallace/Helms/Buchanan equation of whiteness with hard work and honesty. The opposite is either effete white intellectuals who don’t work, or lazy blacks who also don’t work. In fact, the Reagan coalition GOP even dropped the word “white,” knowing that “hard-working” and “law-abiding” already implied, in their minds, white people.

I don’t think Hillary Clinton really believes that only white people are hard-working. But she has to know that such phrasing is downright toxic given the racially polarized electorate in the primary.

Jack and Jill Politics:

Hard-working Americans = white Americans. Right. The rest of us sit on our porches eating watermelon and plucking banjos.

For some reason, despite this “broader base” Clinton still seems to be having trouble raising money, and you know, getting more votes than her opponent. But at this point any abstract metric besides votes or delegates that Clinton can use as a rationale for her candidacy becomes the only appropriate one to use.

This kind of comment is less a description than an agitator, it’s meant to give white voters the impression that they would be “disenfranchised” by an Obama win. It’s a not so subtle effort to evoke racial resentment over Obama’s success. […]

J&JP also points out that neither Clinton nor Obama will win a majority of the white vote in November (the majority of whites have always gone to Republicans, in recent decades). What matters isn’t who gets the majority of whites, but who gets the majority of voters.

Pam at Pandagon:

The frame is specific — that’s why Clinton referred to hard working white Americans. What happened to “blue collar Americans?” Oh wait, there are a lot of hard working black and brown blue collar/working class Americans, and many of them they voted for Obama, so she had to slice that demo down to the bottom line. Dog whistles no more.

I want to believe that it wasn’t a purposeful slip of the tongue because it’s too painful to contemplate that the black vote is now perceived as a “problem” because it skews to Obama, and because there are more white voters who have a problem with him based on his race, we have to nail that demo.

Remember, the black vote has been the most reliable Democratic vote, not the Reagan Democrats. Black voters don’t turn out for Obama solely because he is black. I’ve blogged before about this bizarre train of thought — if the affinity vote is so powerful we would have seen a bum rush for Alan Keyes. What Clinton is saying is not inaccurate (polls slice and dice this way), but its use here is inappropriate and inflammatory.

In Matthew Yglesias’ comments, Brendan writes:

The point isn’t that she’s calling non-whites lazy–I didn’t read it that way at all–but that she’s suggesting white votes should carry more weight than black votes in choosing the nominee. That is a blatantly racist claim, no matter the ostensible rationale behind it.

Steve Benen:

Let’s put aside the unfortunate wording of Clinton’s statement in which she equated “hard-working” with “white,” and consider the merits of her broader point.

Clinton has done well with white “hard-working” Americans, especially in states like Pennsylvania. But her argument is premised on the notion that White Joe Six Pack who votes in a Democratic primary would rather support a Republican than Obama. Where’s the proof to bolster this claim? There isn’t any.

By the logic of Clinton’s argument, we should also note that her support among African Americans is quite poor, and the “pattern” is pretty clear. Are we to assume that if she were the nominee, those same voters would back McCain over her? That Clinton couldn’t possibly win because she’d never get the support of African-American Dems? Of course not.

Why, then, characterize the race in this illogical, race-based way?

The Politico’s Ben Smith:

Now, the press has talked about the race in these terms constantly, so I won’t feign shock. But it’s a bit strange to hear it so bluntly from the candidate’s mouth, and probably not a great way to endear herself to African-American voter.

And it’s also noteworthy that the blunt talk on appealing to whites surfaces the day after the last round of primaries in which there’s a substantial number of black voters.

More blogging on this: Stereohyped, All About Race, The Angry Black Woman, Comments From Left Field, Jeff at Blog Of The Moderate Left (but unless I missed it, not cross-posted to Shakesville), Fables of the Reconstruction, The Roland Report. The American Street.

While I finish up grading my 1000 papers (I’m exaggerating a little), I figured I’d open up the discussion about the election. We have two big primaries today in Indiana and North Carolina. What are your thoughts? Any pressing issues you want to bring up. Anybody in Indiana or North Carolina, feel free to let us know what’s going on in you’re voting district.

Michael Bérubé at Crooked Timber has a good and fairly long post comparing the disability policies of Clinton, Obama and McCain. Kathy at The G Spot nutshells for us:

– Hillary Clinton’s disability policy? Very, very good.

– Barack Obama’s disability policy? Even better!

– John McCain’s disability policy? Complete and utter craptastic-ness.

Both Michael’s and Kathy’s posts are excellent and well worth reading in full.

I did wonder if some disability activists wouldn’t look at the candidates in terms of “right to die” laws and find McCain to be better on that issue than the two Democrats. (Although I don’t know if any of the three have specifically spoken about that issue.)

A bit from Michael’s post:

And I have to admit that I’ve been mightily vexed by […] the phenomenon of the avoidance of disability qua disability. It’s as if we Americans have been talking about disability all our lives, as Molière’s M. Jourdain has been speaking in prose, without realizing it. Remember that debate about SCHIP? You know, the one we lost on Bush’s veto? What the hell was that about? It was about disability, folks – about children suffering catastrophic illnesses and traumatic injuries for which their parents couldn’t (and their parents’ dastardly, moustache-twirling health-insurance providers wouldn’t) provide. Vets returning from Iraq with PTSD or TBI (post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury) and being warehoused and/or underserved and/or neglected by VA hospitals? Uh, well, once again, here we’re talking about disability. Why in the world do we frame these things as matters of “health” or “employment” or “veterans’ benefits,” when doing so prevents us from realizing that we’re all touching different appendages of the 8000-pound elephant in the room? The subject is disability, people. It’s about our common frailty and vulnerability. Get used to it.

I don’t really know what people mean when they say “playing the race card.”  To me, 9 times out of 10 it’s really means “stop talking about race because I’m uncomfortable” or it means “don’t accuse me of racism.”  But you have to laugh at some of our white American politicians like Bill “My Office is in Harlem” Clinton.

Clinton is at it again complaining that the Obama camp “played the race card” on him.  It all started with an interview with a Philadelphia radio station where Clinton made the race card comment.  The next day when asked about the comment Clinton denied it. Check out the video and the text summary on this New York Time blog (Clinton has his finger up in the air, which is usually a sign that he’s lying or angry.).  Here is the text of the exchange where Clinton tells his lie:

Mr. Memoli: “Sir, what did you mean yesterday when you said that the Obama campaign was playing the race card on you?”

Mr. Clinton: “When did I say that, and to whom did I say that?”

Mr. Memoli: “On WHYY radio yesterday.”

Mr. Clinton: “No, no, no. That’s not what I said. You always follow me around and play these little games, and I’m not going to play your games today. This is a day about election day. Go back and see what the question was, and what my answer was. You have mischaracterized it to get another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us, and I choose not to play your game today. Have a nice day.”

Mr. Memoli: “Respectfully sir, though, you did say …”

Mr. Clinton: “Have a nice day. I said what I said, you can go and look at the interview. And if you’ll be real honest, you’ll also report what the question was and what the answer was.”

Then in a subsequent interview he followed up with this gem of a comment:

In the same interview, he offered a full-throated defense of his record with African-Americans, adding: “You gotta really go some to play the race card with me. My office is in Harlem, and Harlem voted for Hillary by the way.”

Nice variation of the some of my best friends are black line isn’t it?  I guess we should also note that there were several irregularities in the voting in NYC, so some have questioned Clinton’s “lock” on Harlem.  In spite of past black support for Clinton, Clinton has never been the pro-black politician people make him out to be.  His policies were not particularly helpful to African Americans, and he was more than willing to play on white fears of blacks when he went out of his way to attack a rapper in one of his campaigns. 

I get a chuckle out of people like Clinton and Ferraro making racist comments, and then attempting to use the condemn the condemners strategy to make themselves look like victims.  I think I need to file this under “whiny white people.” What I’d say to Clinton is–if you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen. 

I trust the anti-colonialist and anti-racist reasons to oppose most US uses of military force against other countries are clear to most “Alas” readers. I haven’t been discussing that connection because it’s too clear to be missed, not because it’s not important.

In contrast, I am worried, perhaps needlessly, that some readers will read this series of posts as me saying that I’m voting based on foreign policy concerns, not concerns about sexism, misogyny and LGBTQ issues.

I don’t believe the distinction exists. I’ll use this post to discuss why the distinction between a hawkish versus a moderate foreign policy should matter to feminists of all sorts.

And make no mistake — Clinton is a hawk, not just posturing as one for the election. Quoting Stephen Zunes:

…When her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination Senator Barack Obama expressed his willingness to meet with Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro or other foreign leaders with whom the United States has differences, she denounced him for being “irresponsible and frankly naive.”

Senator Clinton appears to have a history of advocating the blunt instrument of military force to deal with complex international problems. For example, she was one of the chief advocates in her husband’s inner circle for the 11-week bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 to attempt to resolve the Kosovo crisis.

Though she had not indicated any support for the Kosovar Albanians’ nonviolent campaign against Serbian oppression which had been ongoing since she had first moved into the White House six years earlier, she was quite eager for the United States to go to war on behalf of the militant Kosovo Liberation Army which had just recently come to prominence. Gail Sheehy’s book Hillary’s Choice reveals how, when President Bill Clinton and others correctly expressed concerns that bombing Serbia would likely lead to a dramatic worsening of the human rights situation by provoking the Serbs into engaging in full-scale ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, Hillary Clinton successfully pushed her husband to bomb that country anyway.

The most famous difference between Clinton and Obama is Clinton’s support of invading Iraq — an approach to foreign policy fully consistent with her history, and likely to continue in a future Clinton adminstration, judging from who she’s chosen to lead her foreign policy team so far. From a feminist perspective, it cannot be overemphasized that our decision to invade and occupy Iraq has been a nightmare. Here are just a few examples:

First, from an op-ed by Bonnie Erbe:

A new poll of leaders of Iraqi women’s-rights groups finds that women were treated better and their civil rights were more secure under deposed President Saddam Hussein than under the faltering and increasingly sectarian U.S.-installed government.

Roz Kaveny writes:

Most weeks, three or four people are hacked, stoned, burned or shot to death for being lesbian, gay, bi or trans. The highest Shia religious dignitary Sistani has again promulgated a fatwa calling for the execution of all non-repentant LGBT people - people talk of him as a liberal and in this degree he is - he allows people to repent on pain of death when most of his rivals would just kill. Contacted by the UN about this campaign of murder, the Iraqi government has refused to acknowledge that it is even a problem.

This is a direct consequence of the war - the Saddam regime, vile as it was, was secular in this respect, just as the Ba’athists in Syria still are. No-one does well in a totalitarian state, but LGBT folk were left alone, mostly.

Riverbend:

Rape. The latest of American atrocities. Though it’s not really the latest- it’s just the one that’s being publicized the most. The poor girl Abeer was neither the first to be raped by American troops, nor will she be the last.

Houzan Mahmoud, of The Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq, writes: (link via Bitch PhD):

More widely, professional women have been deliberately targeted and killed - notably in the city of Mosul - and, recently, anti-women fundamentalists in Baghdad have taken to throwing acid in women’s faces and on to their uncovered legs.

So-called “honour killings” are rife, as is the kidnapping and rape of women. Beheadings have occurred and women have been sold into sexual servitude. […] This is a recipe for future gender enslavement, second-class citizenship and ignorance. Thousands of female university students have now given up their studies to protect themselves against Islamist threats.

Islamist hostility is contagious and echoed daily in high-level political debate. Currently there is a drive over the “right” of men to have four wives, to make divorce a male preserve and for custody of children to be given to men only. Even women on Iraq’s National Assembly - the country’s parliament - have been calling for resolutions to allow for the beating of women by their guardians (males relatives, such as husbands or fathers).

This is all the outcome of the occupation of Iraq.

Melissa at Shakesville writes:

This is madness. In one fell swoop, they have turned back literally decades of women’s rights in Iraq.

When all other rationales for this war were proved devoid of substance, the Right yammered about a humanitarian intervention…and so did the hawkish Left. The last time I checked, women were humans, too, and they ought not to be left with less freedom than they had before we got there.

Iraqi women’s rights activist Yanar Mohammed:

Even apart from this the streets are not women-friendly. Many professional women who drive to and from work get insulted by men travelling around in pick-up trucks holding machine guns and wearing black from head to foot. Going out in the streets is scary. Many females have stopped going to school.[…]

If you travel from the north down through Iraq to the south, it is like being in a time machine. You travel from the 21st century in Sulamaniya, through Kirkuk to Baghdad, where you see a city which is in ruins. There is dust everywhere, and people are wearing very old clothes. Then in the south you are in the Dark Ages. In the areas dominated by the Sunni Islamists, in Fallujah or in Mosul, women’s situation is even worse than in Basra. You have something there which is new to us in Iraq. It comes from Wahhabism, from al Qaeda, from Saudi Arabia.

Riverbend again:

For me, June marked the first month I don’t dare leave the house without a hijab, or headscarf. I don’t wear a hijab usually, but it’s no longer possible to drive around Baghdad without one. It’s just not a good idea. (Take note that when I say ‘drive’ I actually mean ‘sit in the back seat of the car’- I haven’t driven for the longest time.) Going around bare-headed in a car or in the street also puts the family members with you in danger. You risk hearing something you don’t want to hear and then the father or the brother or cousin or uncle can’t just sit by and let it happen. I haven’t driven for the longest time. If you’re a female, you risk being attacked.

I look at my older clothes- the jeans and t-shirts and colorful skirts- and it’s like I’m studying a wardrobe from another country, another lifetime. There was a time, a couple of years ago, when you could more or less wear what you wanted if you weren’t going to a public place. If you were going to a friends or relatives house, you could wear trousers and a shirt, or jeans, something you wouldn’t ordinarily wear. We don’t do that anymore because there’s always that risk of getting stopped in the car and checked by one militia or another.

There are no laws that say we have to wear a hijab (yet), but there are the men in head-to-toe black and the turbans, the extremists and fanatics who were liberated by the occupation, and at some point, you tire of the defiance.

I could go on with quotes like this for another fifty screens, easily. The scope of the disaster is almost impossible to comprehend.

What’s important for this election isn’t how bad Iraq is, however. Iraq has happened, and neither Clinton nor Obama can change that. What’s important is how a Clinton or Obama presidency will change what happens in the future.

If Obama’s approach to foreign policy, and his team of policy advisers, comes into power, that will not mean that progressives occupy the White House, and it will not mean that horrible abuses of American power will cease to happen. Obama is not perfect. Obama is not even progressive. He’s just significantly better than the alternatives.

An Obama White House mean that a group of people who are significantly less warlike, and more critical of the U.S.’s use of military power, will become much more important in Washington and in our national conversation than they have been (and will remain so for years after Obama leaves office). It means that questionable invasions and bombings, which Clinton has supported throughout her career, will probably happen less frequently.

If Clinton becomes President, that will be a big improvement over Bush, in that we’ll switch from having a Republican hawk to having a Democratic hawk. It will be a much saner and more intelligent hawkish administration; but it will still be a hawkish administration, and from a feminist perspective — especially a feminism perspective that recognizes that anti-racism, anti-colonialism and LGBTQ issues aren’t separate from feminism — that’s bad.

Clinton didn’t intend the enormous harms I discussed above, of course. (On the contrary, Clinton has a dedication to women’s rights internationally that goes back many years, and which I admire.) But the unintended consequences of hawkishness aren’t less dire because they’re unintentional. The unintended consequences of Clinton’s future hawkish policies could easily turn into thousands of deaths, thousands of rapes, thousands of women under virtual house arrest, thousands of LGBTQ people in prison or worse. For people on the margins, unintended consequences are deadly.

I am not saying that if you’re a feminist, you must vote against Clinton because she’s a hawk. Feminists can vote a variety of ways for a variety of legitimate reasons, and countless feminists I admire will be voting for Clinton, or already have.

But foreign policy isn’t separate from feminist issues. It makes no sense at all to say that you’re voting based on feminist concerns, not foreign policy concerns. Foreign policy is a feminist issue, and anyone voting as a feminist should take that into account as they weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each candidate.

While I think Barack Obama has done a good job walking the tightrope of racial politics in America, I get the feeling that he is heavily constrained by racism and racial stereotypes. This was one of my reactions to the now famous speech–it is always important to think about what is, and is NOT being said. For the record, I think the speech was good as a political speech, but as a speech about race in American it was so heavily constrained by the politics of racism that there were some important points that Obama omitted. Furthermore, the reactions to the speech steer discussion in some unfortunate directions, which is where most of my critique lies. Now before anybody gets upset at me for saying this, I don’t blame Obama for the subsequent discussion of his speech.  My critiques are not about the man as an individual, they are about racism and racial politics in America.

Let me start with some things I agreed with and liked about the speech. Obama (and the speech writers because I’m sure there were some) asserted that we don’t talk openly and honestly about race in America.  I think that is true–people either tend to deny the realities of racism and or they exaggerate, stereotype, or misrepresent when it comes to our differences.

I also agree that history has created a great deal of racial baggage that we carry around with us as people.  Moreover, there is an acknowledgement in the “speech on race” that these effects linger in the form of institutional racism.  Check out these few paragraphs (I referenced the text from Daily Kos.):

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point.  As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried.  In fact, it isn’t even past.”  We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country.  But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations.  That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened.  And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up.  They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted.  What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination.  That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future.  Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways.  For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years.  That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends.  But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table.  At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

With the exception of the comment about welfare policy, which echoes Ronald Regan, I think these are pretty bold statements for a politician to make.  Of course, they are not quite as bold when they are framed as products of past discrimination rather than products of both past and present discrimination, but given the conservative nature of political discourse, I can live with it.

A Few Critiques of the Speech and Reactions to It 

The comment about Obama’s white grandmother has been pulled apart and parsed by pundits, most of whom don’t have a clue about the dynamics of interracial families.  Later, in discussing this speech Obama described his grandmother as the “typical white person” and the same pundits went crazy. These pundits expect people to be racially consistent and they cringe at the idea of whiteness being discussed in any way that is not exceptional¹.  In the pundits’ minds, people can’t change their racial views over time, and they can’t hold contradictory views.  In reality, that’s exactly how people are when it comes to race.  I highly suspect that Obama’s grandmother is typical of most whites in her generation–they grew up with racial segregation both legalized and informal segregation as the norm and didn’t much question it.  Furthermore, intermarriage was illegal in many states during the much of his grandmother’s lifetime.  Although Obama has never spoken about his white grandparents reaction to his parents marriage and his birth, we know from surveys that during the early 1970s the vast majority of whites opposed interracial marriage and this opposition was still very strong even into the 1990s, when whites were asked about a family member intermarrying.  So it would be the least bit surprising if she had negative views of interracial relationships and black people.  It’s pretty clear that, like many white relatives of interracial couples and biracial people, Obama’s grandmother loved him and cared for him, and she held stereotypical views of black men.  That should not be hard to believe because it is the norm in many mixed race families, and in many people in general.

What bothered me about this part of the speech and the subsequent discussion of the racial dynamics of Obama’s family life is that I got the distinct impression that the underlying message Obama and some of his supporters were trying to convey was, “Hey, don’t forget; I’m/he’s white too” or “I’m/he’s not as black as you think I am/he is.”  To me that was a really sad revelation about the current state of racial politics in this country.

What made this worse was when it devolved into a common stereotype of mixed race people that I have discussed in the past (here and in papers I have presented at conferences).  The myth involves the belief that mixed race people are 1) signs of progress and 2) potential saviors who will somehow liberate us from racism because they understand “both worlds.”  On numerous occasions, people have treated Obama in this way.  They have viewed his mixed race heritage as something that bestows him with supernatural abilities, specifically the ability to transcend race and heal old racial wounds.  Having a mixed race family doesn’t not necessarily give an individual a special understanding of race, and being monoracial doesn’t preclude someone from being able to united diverse groups and develop an understanding of what it is like to be from “another race.”

I don’t totally blame Obama for reminding people that his mother is white–that is politics.  Obviously, his campaign thinks it will help him, and they are probably right about that.  I just don’t like the handful of narratives that we have developed about interracial families and mixed race people.  While the old narratives about tragic mulattos, the one drop rule, and sexually adventurous interracial couples are misguided, some of our new narratives–”the best of both worlds” and “the supernatural biracial uniter” are also misguided.

In the next post on the Obama speech, I’ll address two other problems I had with the speech and the reactions to it.  The 2 critiques/points are related to the following points 1) Are white “resentments” and black “anger” really equivalents?  Does the two way street anaology really work?  2) Why does “Working Class” mean white in our political discourse?  And what does it say that we single out white working class resentment (racism)?

1. Do you think they would have been mad if he described her as the “exceptional white person” rather than the “typical white person”? (back)

Previously, I argued that the differences between Obama and Clinton even on desperately important domestic issues, such as LGBTQ rights or health care, are unlikely to make a real difference in policy outcomes. This is because the differences between the candidates — both centrist Democrats — on these policies are small, and the enormous effects of political constraints and legislative give-and-take will matter so much that the small differences between Clinton’s and Obama’s policies will be a wash.

But Presidents have much more control over foreign policy, especially matters of war and peace. This is an area where even small differences can potentially matter a lot. Specifically, a President’s beliefs about the use of military power, versus diplomatic approaches, is essential. There are areas of foreign policy in which the President will be forced to compromise with Congress, for better or worse: trade policy, for example, and immigration law. But there is no area where the President has more freedom to choose than military and diplomatic policy.

Unfortunately, it can be hard to determine what the differences between Clinton and Obama on foreign policy are. Listening to what they say is of limited use, because currently they’re both primarily concerned with persuading swing voters and superdelegates to support them, and everything they say is tailored to that end.¹

What matters more is who each candidate has chosen to be their foreign policy advisers. The press and public don’t pay much attention to these advisers, except when one gaffes² ; furthermore, the candidates are probably planning to be stuck with most of these advisers for years to come. So the foreign policy teams Clinton and Obama pick probably reflect their real policy preferences — or at least, reflect their real preferences more than calculated candidate statements to the public do.

Furthermore, it’s important to realize that the advisers a president “brings with” will stick around for years. Some of them will have the President’s ear while the President is in office, which is important. Many of them will be elevated into positions of greater importance within foreign policy circles, which is an effect that can last long after the President who elevated them leaves office. (Many of President Nixon’s foreign policy people remain important foreign policy people today.)

This is one of the most important effects a President can have. In the months before we invaded Iraq, the greatest advantage that the Bush/Cheney pro-war group had is that the bounds of “serious” foreign policy views were being set almost entirely by people who were in favor of invading Iraq; those who were not in favor of preemptive war were not considered serious, and so had a limited impact on the national debate.

The invasion of Iraq has been a disaster, and that disaster will probably continue for many years to come. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who would otherwise be alive are now dead, because of our invasion. Even more Iraqis have not been killed, but have been hurt in other ways; they’ve been horribly injured, their lives have been constrained, their infrastructure (even more) destroyed, their children’s and grandchildren’s prospects for the future dimmed.³ In addition, thousands of Americans have been killed and tens of thousands grievously wounded or traumatized. After that come the less important, but still substantial costs: Costs in money, costs in missed opportunities, and costs to the US’s international standing and effectiveness.

Over the next thirty years, there will be many times when the tenor of the “expert class” of foreign policy thinkers will again set the bounds of what is “serious” and what is not. As we’ve seen in Iraq, when the “serious” opinion excludes all people who oppose wars of choice, the costs to the world are hideous. The foreign policy experts riding on Clinton’s and Obama’s coattails are therefore important to consider.

And it’s here that we find a real difference between the candidates. Stephen Zunes, writing in Foreign Policy in Focus, reports:

Obama advisors like Joseph Cirincione have emphasized a policy toward Iraq based on containment and engagement and have downplayed the supposed threat from Iran. Clinton advisor Holbrooke, meanwhile, insists that “the Iranians are an enormous threat to the United States,” the country is “the most pressing problem nation,” and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is like Hitler.

…it may be significant that Senator Clinton’s foreign policy advisors, many of whom are veterans of her husband’s administration, were virtually all strong supporters of President George W. Bush’s call for a U.S. invasion of Iraq. By contrast, almost every one of Senator Obama’s foreign policy team was opposed to a U.S. invasion. […]

Hillary Clinton has a few advisors who did oppose the war, like Wesley Clark, but taken together, the kinds of key people she’s surrounded herself with supports the likelihood that her administration, like Bush’s, would be more likely to embrace exaggerated and alarmist reports regarding potential national security threats, to ignore international law and the advice of allies, and to launch offensive wars.

By contrast, as The Nation magazine noted, a Barack Obama administration would be more likely to examine the actual evidence of potential threats before reacting, to work more closely with America’s allies to maintain peace and security, to respect the country’s international legal obligations, and to use military force only as a last resort.

In terms of Iran, for instance, [Obama advisor] Cirincione has downplayed the supposed threat, while Clinton advisor Holbrooke insists that “the Iranians are an enormous threat to the United States,” the country is “the most pressing problem nation,” and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is like Hitler. This is consistent with Clinton’s vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment that opened the door to a potential Bush attack on Iran, and with Obama’s opposition to it.

Which experts do you want influencing the boundaries of acceptable foreign policy thought for the next three decades: The ones who supported invading Iraq, or the ones who opposed it?

Matt Yglesias writes:

Obama people are more likely to value international law, strategic restraint, and a narrow focus on al-Qaeda whereas Clinton people are more likely to take a pragmatic/instrumental view of international institutions, worry that nothing will happen without American leadership, and to have more sympathy for the Bushian idea that you need broad confrontation with rogue regimes.

Which expert do you want whispering in the President’s ear for the next four to eight years, when the next important foreign policy decisions come — Susan Rice, who has been arguing for the last six years that humanitarian intervention in Darfur should be among the US’s most pressing foreign policy goals, or Richard Holbrooke, who has been a cheerleader for invading Iraq from the start? (Holbrooke is a leading contender for Secretary of State if Clinton is elected.)

And at the most basic level, which President do you want: The one whose foreign policy team consists almost elusively of people who got the single most important foreign policy question of the last decade wrong, or the one who hires people who didn’t get it wrong?

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Note: The original draft of this post included a section arguing that foreign policy is a feminist issue. The section got to be so long that I decided to make it a separate post, which I will post later today.

* * *

PLEASE DON’T POST COMMENTS ARGUING THAT INVADING IRAQ WAS A GOOD IDEA, or arguing that supporting hawks is a good idea. If you want to do that, use this post instead.

This thread is intended to be an argument for progressives who agree with core progressive ideas, and in particular progressive ideas about war.

* * *

1. Although I hasten to add that what they say is not entirely meaningless. First of all, the political pressures limiting what Clinton and Obama say now, will still operate (although less powerfully) once either of them takes office. And secondly, on the rare occasion that Obama and Clinton’s public statements on foreign policy do diverge, that may indicate a real difference in their approaches to foreign policy. (back)
2. ”Monster.” — S. Powers, 2008. (back)
3. Obligatory Saddam-Was-A-Monster statement: None of this is to say that Saddam Hussain wasn’t a monster. But our invasion has made things much worse. (back)

At my favorite pro-Clinton¹ blog, Shakesville. Excellent.

1. Except for Jeff, who favors Obama. (back)

I’m definitely not saying there are only two issues that matter. There are hundreds of issues that matter.

But for most of those issues — including most of the issues I’m personally passionate about — it probably won’t make a difference if the nominee is Obama or Clinton.

Take health care. Clinton’s proposal is clearly, albeit marginally, better than Obama’s. But that’s not an important difference, because neither Obama or Clinton expect to have their exact proposals put into law. The law will be written in Congress and brought to the President to sign, based on what can be gotten through the Senate (which will not have enough Democratic votes to overcome a filibuster, so nothing will get passed without a handful of Republicans agreeing to it). Ron Wyden — who is the leading Democratic Senator on Health Care, and who has quietly gotten a handful of Republicans to sign on to his Health Care plan — will probably have more to do with the details of the eventual health care reform than either Clinton or Obama will.

I’m not saying that health care is unimportant — on the contrary, it’s essential, and an issue that effects me personally. What I’m saying is that the relatively minor differences between Clinton’s and Obama’s health care plans probably won’t matter much for what actually happens, because on domestic policy the President’s powers are severely constrained by politics. When push comes to shove, what will matter is getting enough Senators to sign on to a plan — and either Obama or Clinton will go with the plan that they can get through the Senate, not the plan they talked about during the primaries.

The President certainly has a broad effect on what policies pass, which is why the broad differences do matter. The broad differences between Clinton and McCain, say, or between Obama and McCain. But when it comes down to actual policy, the differences between Clinton and Obama are narrow and likely to be washed out completely in the give and take of negotiating actual legislation.

What’s true of Health Care is true of domestic issues generally; it just doesn’t matter much if Obama or Clinton is in the White House, because the relatively subtle differences in policy or language choice Obama and Clinton supporters argue about won’t translate into differences in real law and real policy. Look at another couple of examples:

1. Both of them will choose reliably pro-choice Supreme Court justices¹ ; neither of them will choose Supreme Court justices who will reverse the Court’s bias in favor of business over labor. Even if either of them secretly wants to appoint a real leftist to the Court, the Republicans would filibuster, so forget that.
2. Both of them are committed to trying to overturn DOMA — although Obama favors a full repeal, whereas Clinton favors a partial repeal (leaving a bit in as a hedge against an anti-gay constitutional amendment). It’s an interesting argument, from a wonky point of view, but in practice it’s doubtful 60 senators would agree to overturn DOMA in part or in whole.

These are issues I care a lot about — these are issues, in fact, of central importance to me. But they don’t provide a strong reason to vote for Clinton over Obama, or vice versa, because the outcome will be pretty much the same under either President.²

What about sending a message that bigotry is not acceptable in a Democratic Presidential candidate?

I have a great deal of sympathy for this argument, and I would never say that this is not an issue that matters. We’d all be better off if future Democratic candidates learned that appeals to racism, sexism, and homophobia are a sure route to losing a primary. Even if it meant losing the 2008 election, it might be worth it if a clear message could be sent.

Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to send a clear anti-bigotry message this election, because there’s no clean candidate to vote for. Barack Obama’s people have undeniably made appeals to sexism during this election, and arguably so has Obama himself. Moreover, Obama allowed a outspokenly homophobic gospel singer to headline multiple fundraisers.

But what’s the alternative? The Clinton campaign has consistently brought race into the campaign, from the unsubtle whites-are-oppressed complaints of Ferrarro to more subtle attempts to make Obama into a Scary Black Man, including Clinton herself struggling to keep the Jeremiah Wright story in the news.

We can’t send a “no bigotry, no way” message with a vote for either of these candidates. Both of them have dirty hands.

The Two Issues

So what are the two issues where the differences between Clinton and Obama are potentially important?

The first, most important issue is who can beat McCain in the general election, because either Clinton or Obama — bad as they are, from a leftist point of view — would be enormously better than McCain. McCain is another four to eight years of failed Bush policies; more needless, avoidable war, more wasted lives, and more economic mismanagement.

The trouble is, although both sides play with math semi-persuasively (”only large states count!” “No, only swings!” “No, only Reagan Democrats!” “look at the fundraising!” blah blah blah), there’s no way we can know or even reasonably guess who will beat McCain by the larger margin, because we don’t get to run the general election twice.

Furthermore, arguments based on “electability” don’t have a good track record; remember when all the smart number-crunchers said we had to support John Kerry because he was “electable”? But in practice, Kerry let the Republican machine walk all over him. Deciding between the two candidates on the basis of “electibility” is problematic at best, guesswork at worst. Plus, by some weird coincidence, Obama’s partisans all look at the math and find out that Obama has the best shot of beating McCain, while Clinton’s partisans find the exact opposite.

In the end, the most logical way to decide which candidate is most able to win a national election is to create some sort of mock national election (we can call it something else, like a “primaride”), in which both candidates have to fight for votes nationwide in a vicious campaign run according to arbitrary rules while a vapid media looks for any shallow, stupid story to report on. It’s not a perfect solution, but I can’t think of a better method of settling the “electability” question.

The second issue that matters is foreign policy. Unlike domestic policy, Presidents have a great deal of control over foreign policy, even down to fine details. The president controls the military, after all. And even in other areas, congress has long deferred to the President for the details of our foreign policy, and that deference is greater than ever after eight years of Bush.

Because of this Presidential control over small details, even the small differences between Obama and Clinton on foreign policy are much more likely to matter than small differences on domestic policies.

In my next post in this series, I’ll argue that Obama — who is no progressive — nonetheless has an approach to foreign policy that is significantly better than Clinton’s, from a progressive point of view.

1. I’ve heard more than one Clinton-supporter argue that we can’t rely on Obama to appoint pro-choice justices. That’s not true; even if Obama is secretly pro-life, and there’s no reason to think he is, it would be political suicide for him to attack the Democratic base by appointing an anti-choice justice. (back)
2. It’s also true that the President, through issuing rules, staffing choices, etc.., can make some domestic decisions without Congress’ say-so. But none of these are areas where I’ve seen evidence of a significant policy disparity between Clinton and Obama on any major issues, except perhaps “open government” issues. (back)

Tomorrow I will begin posting my arguments for voting for Barack Obama.

But first, some arguments I will not use. Because they’re sucky.

Top Ten Bad Pro-Obama Arguments

1) Clinton is just plain selfish for not dropping out of the race! It shows she has bad character.

2) Racism has benefited Clinton this election, totally unlike sexism benefiting Obama, which has never happened and if it ever did happen didn’t matter.

3) Clinton is eeeevviiiil.

4) Obama will run center but govern left.

5) Obama is the next JFK!

6) Obama is the messiah. Worship him, foolish mortals, or your very soul is lost.

7) Hilary is only where she is because of her husband.

8) Hillary is a horrible role model because she stayed with Bill after Monicagate.

9) Hilary has shrill laughter. She reminds me of my hectoring mother. She’s a woman, and woman things disturb me.

10) The math proves Hillary can’t win, so no one should vote for her.

(UPDATE: Thanks to Jackie in comments for providing an eleventh bad argument for Obama:)

11) “Clinton is playing the victim card, as if sexism, and not 1-8 above, is to blame for the fact that her inevitable nomination turned out not to be so inevitable. Even if she believes it’s true, how does whining and blaming spell empowerment?”

(How did I miss including that one the first time around?)

Yes, these are exaggerations of what some Obama supporters have said; but only just.

And yes, I think that Clinton supporters make some sucky arguments too (including some of the above arguments with the names reversed). But that’s not my focus right now.

My point is that people on both sides of this debate can and should strive to make the debate less stupid. A lot of my fellow Obama supporters have not managed to do this, unfortunately.

More tomorrow.

UPDATE: See also, Kate’s not-the-reasons she voted Clinton.

Via Kate at Shakesville (and pointed out to me by Bean):

The video is in two rough halves: the first half is a montage of anti-Clinton misogyny in the mainstream media (although you can find the same thing from some so-called progressives). The second half is a loving montage of Clinton pics (I love the black and white pic with striped pants) set to a really cool pop song.

The open misogyny displayed towards Clinton by media figures is, simply, disgusting. As Judith Hope said:

You know, no matter who your favorite candidate for president may be, can American women continue to look the other way while the national media spews such sexist contempt? If we learn nothing else from this long Democratic primary season, we now know this: It is still ‘open season’ on American women.

But there’s one element that keeps me from endorsing this video wholeheartedly; the videomaker includes Keith Olbermann bashing Clinton for not distancing herself from Geraldine Ferraro’s infamous comments. For all I know Olbermann is a sexist asshat (I don’t watch his show), but his Ferraro comments are anti-racist, not misogynist. Including anti-racism within a montage of vile misogynist crap, as if the two were interchangable or in any way comparable, is offensive.

P.S. Check out this recent Media Matters column reporting more misogyny on parade, this time from the delightfully fair and balanced, not at all biased people at Fox. curtsy: Chet at Shakesville.

Here’s Sydney and Bean at PSU today, where Chelsea Clinton was appearing. Sydney: Grrrrr!

Look under the fold for more pics… It’s worth it, I think.

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Study: Stricter voting ID rules hurt ‘04 turnout

A study by the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University shows turnout in 2004 was about 4% lower in states that required voters to sign their name or produce documentation. Hispanic turnout was 10% lower; the difference was about 6% for blacks and Asian-Americans.

Kevin Drum:

By a substantial margin, the Indiana residents most likely to possess photo ID turn out to be whites, the middle aged, and high-income voters. And while this is undoubtedly just a wild coincidence, these are also the three groups most like to vote for Republicans. […] Overall, 91% of registered Republicans had photo IDs compared to only 83% of registered Democrats.

But like I said, this is probably just a coincidence. I’m sure Karl Rove and the RNC had no idea that the demographics broke down like this. Right?

From Art Levine, writing in The American Prospect:

But Republicans were not deterred by their loss in civil court and pressed for a criminal investigation, a probe which U.S. Attorney for New Mexico David Iglesias started on the same day that the court ruled against the GOP. Iglesias was a true believer in the menace of voter fraud. As one of just two U.S. attorneys in the nation to form such task forces, he was invited to lecture other U.S. attorneys in 2005 as part of the annual Justice Department ballot-integrity conference.

Iglesias’ efforts weren’t enough for Patrick Rogers, the Republican National Lawyers Association point person in the state, who mounted a campaign to pressure Iglesias to bring criminal charges before the election, rather than form a task force. Indeed, even before Iglesias concluded in 2006 that there wasn’t enough evidence to indict on voter fraud, major Republicans in the state had started asking the Bush administration for his removal. In early December 2006, Iglesias was one of seven U.S. attorneys whom the Justice Department fired.

Today, Iglesias says of voter fraud: “It’s like the boogeymen parents use to scare their children. It’s very frightening, and it doesn’t exist.”

From Art Levine (again), this time in The Huffington Post:

“Black voters in Dallas, Texas in 2006, after Mr. Agerwal joined the Justice Department, received a letter that said if you were registered by ACORN, they’re a fraudulent organization, and if you try to vote, you’ll be prosecuted and arrested at the polls.” He testified that he had alerted the Justice Department, but no action was taken. Project Vote, ACORN’s partner in managing voting registration drives, also contacted the Dallas FBI, which declined to investigate the intimidating mailers sent to thousands of African-Americans.

The FBI belatedly responded to Project Vote in late December 2006, asserting that “no factual predication of voter intimidation was established.” The FBI’s decision not to investigate, critics say, is the latest sign that politicization appears to have compromised the nominally non-partisan law enforcement agency.

Moreover, the Justice Department’s response was part of a striking pattern of indifference to alleged intimidation violations. In fact, The Huffington Post has learned, President Bush’s Justice Department hasn’t brought a single prosecution or lawsuit in more than seven years on behalf of any African-American voters who faced direct voter intimidation threats and challenges…

[…]such threatening incidents include black-shirted, gun-toting thugs thwarting Latino voters in Tucson, Arizona in 2006, and fliers from a fake “Milwaukee Black Voters League” distributed during the 2004 election in Milwaukee inner-city neighborhoods warning people that if anyone in their family had been convicted of a crime, “you can get ten years in prison” if you dared to vote. Unfortunately, such cases don’t seem to have been deemed worthy of serious investigation by DOJ, and certainly no prosecutions or lawsuits have resulted.

With US economies elections often quite close, the 2-4% gain that Republicans gain in elections because they’re led by cheating, lying racists actually does make a real difference. And the system is self-perpetuating; the more racist Republicans are in charge, the more racist Republicans are appointed to positions from which they can make sure that crimes against non-white voters are ignored.

For regular coverage of voting rights and voting access issues, check out the Voting Matters Blog.

(Watch the ad before reading further if you prefer to avoid “spoilers”).

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I think every man should, too. The title of this post is a quote from an article by Connie Schultz:

I don’t think every woman should support Hillary Clinton just because she’s a woman. Smart women disagree all the time, and that has never been more obvious than in our heated discussions about Clinton.

I do, however, think every woman should support the notion of Hillary Clinton. That means judging her by her record and her plans for our future, not by her marital stamina, her choice in suits or her version of femininity. Even if we can’t support her as a candidate, we ought to acknowledge the history that she is making — for us and for our daughters and granddaughters. And we ought to point out to them that making history sure has a downside.

Recently, I learned that some airport shops are selling a “Hillary nutcracker.” She has a smile on her face and metal spikes between her thighs. I don’t worry about the candidate, who has learned how to handle such misogyny, but I do dwell on the young girls who might catch a horrifying glimpse of those steel jaws and decide that no woman should invite such vitriol. […]

Katie Roiphe writes that she has “yet to meet a woman who likes Hillary Clinton.” Lorrie Moore calls Clinton “a freak.” Amy Wilentz declares that Clinton’s recipe for chocolate-chip cookies “sounds awful” and that when Chelsea was a newborn, Hillary’s hair was “a wreck.”

On and on they go, bruising and battering the only woman to do what they — and the rest of us — could only dare to imagine.

All the while, 11-year-old girls watch.

And learn.

Curtsy: Kate Harding.

(By the way, Katie Roiphe is best known for an anti-feminist polemic she wrote years ago, declaring that there must not be a rape crisis because none of her female friends told her she had been raped. It’s curious that, all these years later, Roiphe’s still making a similar error in logic.)