ah. my ECB fantasy

Allison Benedikt, I think I love you.

Yeah there won't be another serious female presidential contender for another two generations.

get real aznchick.

- check out the list of female guvs in the country and the hugely qualified female VP candidates that O has to choose from, including Hills - though hopefully we can leave leave Ferraro off.

#3, and that's supposed to be an argument for nominating Clinton?

@3,

Bullshit. If anything, your defeatism will make that true. I'm holding out for a presidential candidate who doesn't have to run on her husband's record. And we'll get that in significantly less than two generations.

Thank you. That column was way more validating than an HRC presidency ever would be. I have principles in common with this woman - not just biology. HRC's somewhat admirable perserverance reminds me of a few hyper-ambitious teenage girls I knew in high school. Ya know - the ones who said they wanted to be the first woman president? I wondered, what if another girl gets there before you? Will you still want the job if you can't be first? Or will that not be a big enough paragraph in the history books to justify the trouble?

Thank you, Alison Benedikt. Qualified male candidates have lost the presidency on many, many occasions; female candidates, even well-qualified ones, will not magically be exempt from this possibility. Hillary Clinton is not Every Woman. It is not all in her.

Eli, Alison Benedikt, @6 & @7

Thank You.

"who doesn't have to run on her husband's record."
What a load of crap. She is a smart intelligent woman and she is a two term senator of her own accord. There will always be some BS reason against a woman candidate esp. as large as the U.S. presidency. Remember Janet Reno? She was viciously mocked for her appearance even from supposedly liberal media. If we have a youthful "beautiful" woman running she'll probably regarded as a no-brain doll.

@10,

Yes, she is a two-term Senator. Maybe she didn't have to run on her husband's record, but apparently she thought she did. And most of her support, except from women, is entirely based on people's affection for her husband and their nostalgia for the '90s. As I said, I'm holding out hope for more and better in less than a generation.

It's nice to see a woman stating the obvious here about the "boycott Obama" "feminists." I'm starting to wonder if that crowd of profoundly stupid bloggers (Violet Socks, I'm looking at you) is secretly in the employ of the McCain campaign. I can't come up with any other rational explanation for their doomed passive-aggressive strategy for advancing their agenda.

They remind me of Nader supporters circa 2000. Ask them how well their protest-vote strategy helped to advance their agenda over the last eight years.

Angryaznchick @10: Have women achieved equality only when harsh, irrelevant criticism is eradicated? That's pretty unrealistic. I'm satisfied if women simply have no fewer impediments to power and money than do men, and we're getting there. HRC has not faced sexist comments because she is a woman; She has faced them because she is a presidential candidate. Chubby Bill Clinton weathered lots of cheeseburger jokes. Mitt Romney has endured plenty of jokes about multiple wives (which haven't been allowed in the mainstream LDS for about a century), and comedy skits about McCain's age are ubiquitous. Weathering these indignities is a prerequisite to being a successful politician. If HRC reduces her campaign to a hissy-fit about the sexism of fashion commentary, she is doing our gender no favors. If she stands as a demonstration of perserverance and leadership despite the indignities of small-minded commentary she really is evidence that woman are on the same political stage as men through their own strength and willpower.
Some self-disclosure: I work for a labor union with mostly male members. I get comments about my looks all the time (positive - at least to my face). Members call me a bitch (in the context of complimenting how I handled the opposition). Union leaders use foul language around me, say "excuse my French", and repeat it 30 seconds later. They insist on carrying my bags for me after I've lugged them through two airports on my own. Sexist sexist sexist. And I don't give a shit because they pay me well, they fall in line and march when I give the orders, they thank me sincerely for my work, and brag about my expertise to people who don't have me on their side. Trade everything I've got in exchange for people forgetting I've got boobs? No thank you. Despite her recent whining I bet HRC wouldn't either.

@10 - Yeah, and I'm absoultely positive her last name had nothing to do with her being elected to the Senate and representing a state she had no connection to whatsoever.

She's not going to lose the Democratic nomination because of sexism. She's going to lose the Democratic nomination because she ran like a Republican.

@10 - Go ahead and not vote for Obama. The conservatives who dislike McCain so much will stay home so they pretty cancel you out. Obama doesn't need you spiteful people to win.

http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/wp-content/obotbehavior500vh.jpg

Sad.

"..absoultely positive her last name had nothing to do with her being elected to the Senate"
Gee how about GW Bush? How about the Kennedys ? Their being elected into offices didn't have something to do with their family name? Yet Hillary has to bear the cross of having a famous last name ? Puh-leeze

Angry AND stupid!

@17 - None of those people got in on their own merits either. I was just showing you that HRC is not a two term senator of "her own accord." I believe those were your words.

bravo @17

you just contradicted your "own accord" comment by giving examples of others that attained office with the advantage of name recognition. You seem to understand. That is unless "own accord" means something else to you. she has had the BENEFIT of name recognition, and to argue that she has made it all of this way on "her own accord" is ridiculous.

I think it's ridiculous to assert that sexism played no part in this race and equally ridiculous to assert that it's the reason why she lost.

Saying that sexism was present is not the same as saying that there's no reason to dislike her except for the fact that she's a woman. There are plenty of reasons to dislike her that have nothing to do with sexism.

I'm just tired of the "if you like her it's because she's a woman" and "if you dislike her it's because you're sexist" themes that seem to have been so prevalent in the past few months.

I'm glad she put "angry" and "chick" in her handle. I would not have been able to tell.

To #10 and anyone/everyone else in the Clinton camp who shares these comments, particularly people who will pick up their toys, go home, and vote for McCain:

I personally don't care if the next president of the USA is a total prick or not. I don't care if the next president of the USA is black, white, Puerto Rican, Asian, male or female, what-fucking-ever.

I DO care if the next President of the United States is pro-choice(fortunately Obama and Clinton both fill that role).

I DO care if the next president of the United States isn't stupid enough to promise something as batshit as a gas tax holiday and let our infrastructure fall further to Hell not to mention encourage even more driving when that is precisely the last thing America needs done. Guess what? Advantage: Obama. Also, don't make arguements that Clinton doesn't really believe in the gas tax holiday, because disingenuously promising a terrible policy in a half-assed attempt to pander to peoples' short-term expectations is precisely as damaging the mess we've been subjected to for years in this nation and it's gone on way, way too fucking long.

I DO care if the next president cares to take a slightly different, pragmatic, daresay diplomatic approach to foreign policy than Cold War-style saber rattling. Nobody cares about Cuba anymore except a few old hawks, some rich Floridians, and Tony fucking Montana; all of these are getting long in the tooth.
Advantage: Obama.

While one may also make the arguement that the Iraq war vote is just one issue and it is old hat, I disagree. It's a KEY indicator. Allowing Clinton a free pass for this obvious blunder(and my little sister who was in middle school at the time figured out Bush/Rummy/Et al were pulling a fast one) when really she was making yet another disingenous decision to pander to America's dumb side also solves nothing.

Sorry folks, I'm just going with the better candidate. I had similar antipathy towards Bill in '96, so again..

That said, if Hillary somehow won the nom, I'll grudgingly vote for her in the face of unstable horror that is McCain, but keep your fucking identity politics out of it, and I don't care if Obama is "smug," "arrogant," "elitist", "condescending," Clinton supporters throwing around that shit are as bad as the poor suckers who spent the last eight years voting for an inbred simian because they thought "they'd like to have a beer with him" as opposed to really analyzing the results of his policies.

Take your silly demagoguery and identity politics somewhere else. You are why Democracy sucks.

Well, nevertheless, we continue to hear about the "politics of having a vagina" but never about the "politics of having a cock". I'm sure there's a simplistic reason for this but nevertheless a lame one.

In politics no one "gets there on their own" and almost all candidates will have to carry their own luggage as well as that of their spouses, relatives and the occasional one-nightstand.

BTW - what is the equivalent of "bitch" in exclusively male politics and why is it never used?

Wackistan at 23 wins! We can all go home now.

#24

- I've used "cock", "prick," and various permutations thereof, "shitstain," "worthless douchebag" before. Oh, "Doddering old fuck" in reference to a certain guy who can't tell the difference between an Arab and a Persian and wants to bomb 'em all.

Why is it that film editors are so articulate and outspoken in their support of Obama?

Mary F at 13 you make me very happy, thank you, whew, exactly. This is the way our "agenda" is won.