The details of renewing my membership got in the way of me posting sooner, but better late than never!

I just wanted to remind everybody that while Ms.Clinton might be the first viable female candidate for president, she surely won't be the last. That she is in the running shows how far we've come in the last few decades.

One doesn't need to pin all their hopes on her as the standard bearer of feminism, and in fact it might be wise not to. She has liabilities that have nothing to do with her gender, but when she stumbles because of them, people are ready to attribute it to her gender. She has the potential to be counter productive. We all know the first (insert non-christian-white-male group member) to hold the presidency will be held to a higher standard than their predecessors. Maybe better for that person to not have the baggage that Ms.Clinton has.

While I'm glad for the progress for women, I wonder if I'll live to see a non-christian or even athiest in the White House. Only then will I believe that the alleged seperation of church and state is real.

"I really don't consider Hillary a feminist at all. She followed her man to AK, spent most of her life campaigning for Bill and cleaning up after him. She is not her own person. She is running on her husband's experience, instead of her own."

- bernbart: http://letters.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/03/04/women_and_hillary_again/permalink/d02c0c807c14e3dc7937d2302f455391.html

This is the sort of muddle-headed crabbing we used to expect from the right. Now we get loads of it in comments sections around the internet from some of our fellow Dems who support Obama. This is what disturbs me about those Obama supporters who denigrate Hillary unreasonably and unfairly. I don't know how much of this has to do with feminism or sexism, but it seems to be an irresistible compulsion of all humans to irrationally demonize their opponents. The nastiness has been consistently aimed at Hillary from Obama supporters. And yet Lynn Harris suggests that it is exactly the opposite.

Just as the U.S. govt resorted to occupying countries, torture and domestic spying in the name of defeating terrorism, will the Dems become just as willing to attack and demonize as the Rovian right was? Is it "all fair" in the name of an Obama victory? Yuck.

When I heard Obama say this, it never even occurred to me that it might be sexist.

My point exactly, not everyone hears things the same way you do. It is a legitimate interpretation especially when one hears similar things all day everyday at work. That Obama may have a tin ear, I can accept. That, of course, is part of the problem.

I meant to say that if we have a black president before a woman, it won't necessarily mean it is sexist, it is just something that may happen.

Never said women have it worse. I hate that argument, oppression is oppression.

I am simply pointing my feelings 20 years ago, and couple it with my own experience running for office myself. I am not saying that if we have a black president before a woman president is somehow sexist. It just may be. I am not putting any interpretation on this, but everyone else is free to make of it what they will.

I was interested to hear about the people who thought we would have a woman president before a black man. History has many lessons to teach, but we don't all learn the same ones.

I think the swift-boat campaign had an effect but that effect wouldn't matter if he handled it better. He did not know how to handle it. Also, Kerry was not the preferred choice for many Democrats, including me. Many were voting for Kerry as an anti-Bush candidate. But I still believe he lost because of his campaign, with Cahill's "let's be nice campaign." And Gore should have fought harder.

There have been negative elements in the acknowledged and unacknowledged for both campaigns, with Jackson for Obama and Bill for Hillary. But nothing compares with McCain's support of Hagee.

One thing is for sure, future campaigns will take lessons from the Obama camp. Even if it is only for fund raising. It is just too easy to click the "donate now" button.

We will see how Obama's campaign does if he wins Texas and Ohio and Hillary drops out. Yes, I agree that he has run a better campaign than Clinton. However, it is easier for him to run a good campaign because he had the press as well as the wind at his back. I do not suggest that the press has been helpful to him out of any love for him. They will now behave quite differently. They already are behaving differently.

You said: Gore won the popular vote. I knew you would say that. However, making certain polling is fair is also part of running a good campaign. In my opinion, Gore should have fought harder after the campaign. He was too damn gentlemanly about losing.

Your argument about 2004 is that Kerry ran a poor campaign so that is why Bush won. That is only part of why Bush won. Extra-campaign there where Bush's Swiftboat Veterans for Truth. I think that there is the acknowledged campaign and then there is the other campaign. Obama's acknowledged campaign has been well run. Obama's unacknowledged campaign includes Jesse Jackson Jr. with his sexist (with racial subtext) complaint that Hillary Clinton did not cry for Katrina victims. Tell me, what do you think of Obama's unacknowledged campaign?

I forgot to mention another site that has helped Obama:

http://youbama.com/home/

This site was started by two Stanford University students.

If Eleanor Clift is not insistent on being heard, how do you suggest that she get heard?

I'm not sure she shouldn't be shrill here. As I've mentioned before, shrill is not always a bad thing in my book, esp. when it means "insistence." No matter how you slice it, though, one might objectively observe that perhaps TV is not her medium. I don't think that's true for all women.