As her chances of becoming vice president recede, some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters are pushing for the Democratic Party's new platform to state that the primary elections "exposed pervasive gender bias in the media" and to call on party leaders to take "immediate and public steps" to condemn future perceived instances of bias.There are no specifics yet but this will be an interesting development, especially as it seems clear that Clinton will not be the VP and that she will speak on the anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. While other aspects of the Democratic Platform will concern ending the war in Iraq or passing legislation for universal health care, it is not clear what legislative action will occur, if any.
The push for the plank in the party's statement of principles reflects a lingering unhappiness over Clinton's treatment during the Democratic primary, and over what her supporters say was an inadequate response from party leaders.Some Clinton supporters have complained of jibes against the New York senator by TV talk show hosts, off-color novelty items and incidents such as the time when hecklers yelled "Iron my shirt!" at a Clinton rally.
A Democratic committee devoted to writing the platform is to meet today in Cleveland to hear presentations from policy advocates, then draft the document.
"There were so many examples in the media of sexist comments where we never heard from the party leadership or Barack Obama," said Stacy Mason, executive director of a political action committee called WomenCount, which claims thousands of members. The group ran newspaper ads in the spring urging Clinton to stay in the contest.
"We're focused on why the Democratic leadership was so silent about it during the campaign," Mason said. "It was their obligation to come to the defense of one of their own primary candidates, and they didn't. They stayed silent during the campaign, and that's not OK."
Friday, August 01, 2008
The Democratic Divide Continues
Backers of Senator Clinton write the problems of the primary into the Democratic Party Platform. From the L.A. Times:
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Yes. Critics of the sexism freighting Clinton's coverrage abounds.
So too, as illustrated in thy previous post, will the cacophony grow in outrage at the use of race, sutble or overt, to denigrate Obama.
Much harder to find? "Advocacy groups" getting airtime or print space to express grievances at the baseline corporate lackeyship of our politics.
Atrocious victimization borne of Ovaries and Pigmentation notwishstanding, both Hill and Barack like it, love it, want some more of it.
Hmmm. One wonders if members of a group like "WomanCount" might read this present comment as though it were written in an alien language.
;-)
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