The sentence in bold confused me. You're saying (a) that 5 of 15 top Senate staffers are women, and also (b) that of the 5 staffers who make more than $100K, one is a man and 4 are women?

It sounds like there's less women, but the average pay for the women is higher than the men. But then you say he chose to pay his female staffers less.

I must be reading that wrong.

Erica, please see the comments on Eli's post about sample size.  'Nuff said.

True diversity doesn't come in private parts and skin color.

Yes, Erica, did you mean 1 of the 5 staffers who make more than $100,000 is a man, which would mean the other 4 are women, or is it a typo and the last word in bold should be women?

You are saying Obama should hire under-qualified or non-loyal ex-Clinton staffers just so he can hire more women? Your arguments are starting to border on absurd.

Out of curiosity, what's the gender balance (number of staff, and also pay differences) over there at The Stranger?

"Only five, however, are women, and only one of the five staffers who make more than $100,000 are men."

Doesn't that imply that he pays the senior women who work for him very well? How is that a problem?

Mr. Poe @3, diverse people don't come in private parts?

I don't believe that.  That's just a vicious racial smear.

I am as confused as 1 and 4. It sounds great that of the fifteen staffers on Obama's team, of the five that make over $100K, four of them are women. Hooray for women!

@1 -- You're not misreading it...I had the same reaction. How fun it would be to see shrill matched with fact.

@ 3 -- I don't know where you do your bidniss, Mr. Poe, but I come in private parts all the time.

ECB -- What number would you be happy with? What's the solution? Is 50-50 the only possible answer...or should there be MORE women because women are so, gee, I don't know, kewl?

Or are you just happier shooting pellets from your feminist potato gun?

I can haz identitee politicks?

This post is so riddled with errors you'd have to charitably reconstruct the entire thing just go get it into a state where it was worth disproving.

So the female candidate had lots of women on her staff and the ethnic minority candidate has an ethnically diverse staff. Check.

Probably also worth nothing that the boldface sentence lacks subject/verb agreement.

I often feel that Erica would be more at home on some trashy news network "infotainment" show. She could be the shrill Liberal placed across from the bow-tie wearing douchebag, and they could spend the 40 minutes screaming at each othe.

20+ police cars just went speeding up Olive Way. What the hell is going down on Capitol Hill?!

Consider the shitty grammar here:

"only one of the five staffers who make more than $100,000 are men"

The two possible corrections are: "Only one of the five staffers who make more than $100,000 is a woman." Only one of the five staffers who make more than $100,000 is a man."

In the context of ECB's post, it's obvious which one is correct.

Whoops--no, only one is a woman. Fixing it now. (Sentence originally said all four are men, but I updated to reflect more recent info.)

And how did that all work out for Hillary ECB?

@17:

"(Sentence originally said all four are men, but I updated to reflect more recent info.)"

Er, what? Forgive me for being closeminded in my concept of gender identity, etc, etc, but you formerly thought that four of the five were men, and you corrected it, upon learning differently, to say that one of the five is a woman?

So not all of the other four are men? Isn't that a point in Obama's favor, for hiring someone who is of some indeterminate third gender?

Or are you still failing to make any sense?

I've never had sex in my life. My private parts are on lock down. My penis is a temple for Jesus.

Please stop wasting time and space nit picking Obama. McCain is the opponant.

...the fact remains that Obama is the one who hired an imbalanced staff in the first place...

So 33 men and 31 women is an unbalanced staff?  A split within 1 person of being perfectly 50/50 seems pretty balanced to me.

OK. Only 5 of the 15 top staffers, are female. What is the correct number? What if the 16th ranking staffer was a woman? Or the 17th? What determined the cutoff for a "top staffer"?

Only one of the 5 staffers that make more than 100k is a woman. What is the correct number? Why is 100k the cutoff for this test?

Since 57% of Hillary's top staffers was women, isn't this also imbalanced? And why is the cutoff for Hillary's "top staffers" 14 and Obama's cutoff is 15?

And why is this a large enough sample size to even matter?

wow, if you strip away all relevant context -- experience level, education, any knowledge of the applicant pool, the proportion of male:female staffers across all senate staff, et cetera -- and focus only on identity politics, this is really, really shocking.

fuckin' hell. take a look at Michelle O. You think for a minute he doesn't hire the best? Or that he'd get away with anything short of that?

save us the the faux "I'll vote for him because I have to', just vote for another candidate in November. it's called having a backbone.

@10: JTB, your misogynist comments are telling. Is Erica's intelligence threatening to you? Or is it the old kindergarten trick, when you pick on her and pull her hair because you secretly love her? Regardless, you need to get a grip. "Identity politics," sexisim, racism, homophobia, and unequal pay affect ALL OF US. Picking on grammar (@16), calling Erica "shrill" (@10) and claiming that women would be somehow "under qualified" (@5) are all distracting, borderline hateful, sexist, prejudiced, nitpicking rubbish. You sound like a bunch of Republicans. For shame.

Erica, can you please turn your skills to examining Grandpa McCain's platform, who Obama should pick for Veep- anything that is forward looking, and contributes to the effort of winning in the fall? Pretty please?

Soooo ... what was the racial makeup of Hilary's staff? And does Obama have as many old people on staff as McCain? What is the religious makeup of Obama's staff? Are Catholics, Jews and Mormons sufficiently represented?

@27

Honestly, Sven, I think the Democrats are much better off if Erica sticks with peddling off-base smears originating on obscure right-wing rags than trying to help win. I don't think the Obama campaign needs to be spending its time distancing itself from ECB's brand of unreality-based political attacks.

@26:

I think you're reaching a little bit. Most of the first half of this thread is involved in trying to figure out what the hell ECB was trying to say. Hence, grammar matters.

Anyway, your argument boils down to the claim that all the English teachers I ever had in school were misogynists. Which is just absurd.

If you can't defend your argument, accuse your critics of being bigots. That always works!

With every passing day I'm missing Hillary more and more.

The big question really should be - are Sen. Obama's female staffers paid comparably with male staffers?

I've heard they are - anyone have any FACTS to back that up?

"Is Erica's intelligence threatening to you?"

How can he possibly be threatened by something so tiny as to be barely detectable (at least in the context of this poorly written diatribe of a post)?

Seriously, Barack, take some tips from the advertising world.

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=stock_photos

Does equal pay also mean that black whores get paid less per blowjob than white whores? 'Cause they do.

Also, fat whores (BBW's) are paid far less for anal sex than thin whores. Is THAT discrimitory too?

Please ECB, enlighten us?

Or are you just going to delete this too?

With every passing day I'm missing Hillary more and more.

I'm glad she's out, her and her corrupt regimen of tainted donors would have brought an end to the Dem. Party. Thank god we have someone who's honest and willing to actually say things that are potentially unpopular and not just pandering to the unelectable Nader wing.

Real change is saying NO to PAC money!

Vince, you're beginning to be a troll.

The argument is pointless. Why should it even matter? The whole point of this political campaign is that people are people - no matter what race or gender. Why don't we just assume that Obama chose his staff based on their job qualifications (like he or any other employer should) - and not based on what they look like. To suggest otherwise demeans not only his entire campaign, but all those who are voting for him because he's the better candidate. Stop grasping at straws.
To swerve slightly off topic (although along the same highway):If you supported Hillary - if you still support Hillary - then you should do everything you can to support Barack, it's what Hillary is doing and suggesting you do. I'm more and more glad every day that I moved out or Seattle -Erica's post and the comments following proves that the city is not really "progressive" at all, just looking for something to whine about.

ECB: Once a PUMA, always a PUMA...

@26 -- My dear Elizabeth:

First of all JTB are not my initials...that would be Mr. Jubilation T. Ballcorn, a gentleman from Intercourse, PA, with whom I have only the slightest acquaintance. Please make a note that my initials are JTC (and I know that because my tailor in Savile Row stitches same into my right shirt cuff).

Now, to the biggest pellet -- nay, complete potato -- you just bounced against my head: the hackneyed invocation of "misogynist."

I am tempted to say something cute (even Poe-esque) such as: "A day without being charged with misogyny is like a day without sunshine!" but the topic is actually one I take seriously (and that comment debases a perfectly good brand campaign for the Florida Orange Growers' Association).

No, I think misogyny is really awful. I think discrimination based on gender is really awful. I would fight it where I found it.

But the fact is, ECB's posts are generally like Bella Abzug without the hats. They simply do not amount to compelling advances in the dialogue of gender struggle. This one, in particular, was a classic case...complain about lack of representation, but offer no target for what the right level of representation is; fudge the numbers and make them even less clear in the correction; and, of course, the increasingly stale cheese-and-cracker plate known as HRC For President!

Honestly, this is like feminism as written by The Onion. I appreciate the fact that The Stranger is trying to give voice to feminist issues. I just wish the ball (egg?) was entrusted to someone who could run it up the field in a way that helped men understand the issues, and even made us feel inspired to take up more of the cause.

That's where I am coming from.

But, again, I have no idea what Mr. Jubilation T. Ballcorn might have to say on the matter.

Carry on.

@26,

I was just trying to make it clear what ECB actually meant, since commenters were pretending that the error wasn't obvious.

Mr. Cornball, sir, that was like the tommy gun scene from Miller's Crossing.

Oh, Danny Boy...

The big question really should be - did the chicken come first, or the egg.

I've heard it was the egg - anyone have any FACTS to back me up?

Cybercast News cites a report from the secretary of the Senate which says women working in Obama's Senate office were paid, on average, about $6,000 less than men.

In John McCain's Senate office, the average pay for women is $2,500 more than men.

@ 21,
if we- his loyal and converted supporters don't nitpick him how's he supposed to improve? It's friendly criticism, not hositlity.

Here is typical ECB logic:

"...only one of the five staffers who make more than $100,000 is female."

Therefore, Obama "chose to pay his female staffers less."

Were these female staffers paid less than men for jobs of equal rank and responsibility? She doesn't know, of course, but that doesn't stop here from making another ridiculous leap of logic.

A pity, really, because there is valid criticism buried somewhere in her overblown bluster.

Your obsession with identity politics is the same thing that has been ruining liberals for the last two decades. Get over it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

You have no idea what the qualifications and roles are within this campaign!

I was invited to a schmancy Obama fundraising (but didn't end up going since it was a little out of my price range). There were 13 hosts listed on the invite. All were men. I thought that was a little odd. Not reading too much into it, but still, would it hurt to have a little more visibility of women in his campaign?

They say Hillary's campaign self-destructed due to infighting among her carefully gender-balanced senior leadership team. So yeah, maybe it does hurt to choose people based on identity politics and appearances instead of qualifications and ability to work together. Especially in a close election where a small edge could have put you over the top.

You know, when you're nitpicking the grammar of a blog post, that's probably an indication that you don't want to take on the substance of the post.

The reality is that John McCain's staff pays its women employees 4% more than its men on average, and Obama's staff pays men 14% more than it pays women. The disparity among top staffers appears to be even higher.

On the other hand, these numbers are through last September. I'd like to see what they look like now. But just because Obama is right on government policy and because we like him, doesn't mean he should get a pass on his own hiring policies.

you do realize that you are looking at salary and gender -- ONLY salary and gender -- completely absent of length of employment, experience level, education, job description, starting salary, and so on et cetera... i.e. without a shitload of information that factors into a person's salary?

this data is provocative and it warrants further investigation. but this is a question that cannot be sufficiently answered with only these 2 variables. until somebody completes the story, there isn't much to see here.

ECB's posts make me sad. I'd prefer to think that the right has a monopoly on people who stake out an opinion and then focus only on things that confirm that opinion. Isn't the left supposed to be the elitist college grads who have some grasp of sample size and some level of intellectual honesty?

Ah well, apparently not.

THIS IS SO DEPRESSING I CANNOT VOTE FOR OBAMA NOW HE IS SEXIST AND DOESN'T SUPPORT A WOMYN'S RIGHT TO HAVE A JOB WITH EQUAL PAY

What, no cripples?