I think "playing the victim" can work in many spheres of public life (work, etc.) where victimization is real and there are concrete remedies for it (pay raises, disciplinary measures). But in politics, I think it's a losing strategy. People do not want to vote for a victim. Clinton and Clinton-supporters and Obama and Obama-supporters all need to get out of the sexism/racisim name-calling game. American society, to it's detriment, sees victims as weak. In politics you need to focus on how your race or gender makes you stronger/better, not how others victimize you because of it.

Re: "Senator Clinton and her supporters are seriously underestimating the outrage that will be generated within the Democratic Party if she tries to mitigate popular election results with an elite group of political appointees."

You act like the superdelegate system is something created just for Hillary instead of a system that has been in place since 1972. If the delegates from Florida and Michigan who represent over 2 million voters are not going to be seated because of the 'rules' then the same adherence to the rules should apply to the superdelegates. According to the rules, they are supposed to exercise independent judgment.

And let's be honest. Even if Hillary ends up with more pledged delegates than Obama, Obama's supporters, which includes the MSM, will insist that the superdelegates give the election to him.

Anonymous-

You act as though superdelegates were created as a way to overturn democratic decisions on the basis of crony politics.

Several Party leaders, including Dean and Pelosi, have already pointed out that the system is for use as an emergency brake, not as a way for a candidate to use personal connections to the individual superdelegates themselves to overturn popular electoral results.

That the Clinton and Bush families immediately see these institutions as ways to secure victory extra-democratically after they have already lost legitimate elections speaks volumes.

I would hope that the party WOULD split before selling its soul to exactly the power-hungry tactics that have already blown the GOP to pieces.

I'm a feminist and I'm for Obama. I responded in length to this idea that it is more feminist to vote for Clinton, despite her political track record (voting for the war, for cluster bombing villages with children, for tighter bankruptcy rules--despite the fact that it will mostly hurt single mothers & children) at my blog TiyospayeNow. I am an Ivy League-educated mother of two young children. The word tiyospaye is a word from Dakota Sioux that refers to a circle of tipis where a family lived and children were cared for.

The post is called Steinem & Jong vs. me & Paglia? I feel like my generation of feminists are somehow being stacked up against the Second Wave leaders, which feels really terrible, but why? We have good reason to be wary of the Clintons. Their form of Democratic party has been about pandering to Nixon's "Silent Majority" and taking our vote for granted, because they banked on the idea that we wouldn't have anyone better to vote for. They held us captive to the fear of a Republican takeover in order to get us to accept their watered down Democratic party and accept NAFTA, Welfare Mother to Work, "don't ask, don't tell". When Senator Clinton had the chance to be a leader, MY leader in the Senate, and fight the Bush Administration's march to war--an illegal war--she did nothing. She would have my vote 100% if she had fought for what was right when it mattered.

Obama's above quoted comment is typical of his aloof, grandiose style. Narcissism and narcissistic character disorder come to mind. He does not really say anything that sounds particularly intelligent, much less brilliant. He has begun to imitate a certain Black style of speaking. And he brings up an idealization among so many people.

Yes, "We are the one's we have been waiting for", does seem to illustrate the problem.

And let's not forget that Clintonism has been a disaster for the Democratic party. Bill never won a popular majority. He took office in 1992 with large Dem majorities in the House, Senate, governorships and state houses. Two years later Dems were a minority in both houses of Congress and two years later than that they'd lost their majority of governorships. The Clintons believe that triangulation is the way to win, but all it does is alienate your base, very much as you describe. The current Dem congressional majorities are solely due to Bush's incompetence, mendacity and overall awfulness, not Dem strategy.

Would Hillary Clinton be the same as Bill? I can't say, but there's not a lot to suggest she'd be different. They've always struck me as less of a married couple and more of a political team. Her votes for the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, bankruptcy "reform," etc. strongly suggest that she and Bill are on the same page as triangulators. Or maybe she's just not very liberal. Whatever the case, there's every reason for liberals, be they feminists are not, to vote for someone else.

I thought it interesting to get this view from another side. This is from Moe Lane at redstate.com where they hate Clinton.

http://www.redstate.com/stories/elections/2008/code_words

"..which comes via TalkLeft (the title, "These Kinds Of Sexist Remarks Are Not What I Am Looking For," should give you an idea of their reaction), my general conclusion was merely Stone cold dumb[expletive deleted] of Obama for letting that come out wrong. Then I remembered that I'm a knuckle-dragging reactionary Neanderthal of a GOP fascist patriarch, so I did what knuckle-dragging reactionary Neanderthal GOP fascist patriarchs do in such cases: I went and asked my wife what I should be thinking.

I got an earful. While my better half (and I should note for the record that my wife is: a, the sole wage-earner of the family; b, has a doctorate in aerospace engineering; c, is a right-wing moderate with a lifetime NRA membership and no intention of voting Democratic in this election) normally looks upon my political enthusiasms with the same polite, supportive disinterest that she reserves for my love of the Cthulhu Mythos, on this topic she has an opinion, which you may read after the fold.

Read on.

The following was typed out by her: I haven't edited it at all, except to blockquote it.

Obama was careful not to say anything glaringly, obviously misogynistic; he never explicitly references Sen. Rodham Clinton's sex, for example, so he can say, in all innocence, that he was just talking about her as a person, not as a woman.

However, I find that disingenuous. The charge that women are irrational and emotional has long been levied against them, to argue why they should not be allowed into the political (or other public) arena. "A woman president? She'll get PMS and push the button." Women get emotional ("when she's down") and then do those silly, female things that men can gently laugh patronizing about ("launches attacks to boost her appeal"). Note that it's cast, subtly, as a self-image problem. She needs to "boost her appeal" like a woman who, feeling down, goes out and buys expensive shoes so she'll feel pretty.

If he's said that when she "feel threatened," "feels behind," "is behind in the primary," or otherwise implied that her attacks were motivated by a rational reason, I wouldn't have blinked at the comment. Instead, it's all because she's feeling badly - silly little woman.

(NB: If you're defining misogyny as vicious frothing hatred against women, then no, his comments were not misogynistic. Maybe "sexist" is a better word - whatever you want to call it, his comments play to an old and pervasive idea that women's minds just aren't as strong as men's.)"

The comments from all the republican conservatives are very interesting, as they AGREE WITH OBAMA's subtext, that a woman is too emotional and weak to serve as President, and considering Clinton hasn't said anything about this, but this obviously evidence that it is Clinton who is playing the sexist/woman as victim card. Oh, and women who are PMS'ing shouldn't be anywhere near the BIG button.

So, how is it, conservatives "GET IT" in all the different forms, but Obama supporters are so willing to be so blind when it serves Obama?