Hillary's campaign is not about advancing women, it's about advancing Hillary [View All]

[ProSense]

“Women have been standing up for what we believe in, defying convention and going forward for a long time,” she said.

She also acknowledged that women, including herself, have “experienced a moment along the way when your own sense of limitless possibility collided with a harsher reality.”

“Women face a lot of barriers, some visible, some invisible,” she said. “And in 2008, it’s really important we recommit ourselves to making sure that our daughters and our sons have an equal chance to lead and serve in the future.”

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“I am asking for your support, so that I can continue to fight for you, fight to finish the work that we have started,” she said, before quoting yet another message she received.

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(emphasis added)

Hillary's endless campaign is certainly colliding with the "harsh reality" that she has lost.

Barbara Ehrenreich

Hillary's Gift to Women

Posted May 12, 2008 | 10:41 AM (EST)

In Friday's New York Times, Susan Faludi rejoiced over Hillary Clinton's destruction of the myth of female prissiness and innate moral superiority, hailing Clinton's "no-holds-barred pugnacity" and her media reputation as "nasty" and "ruthless." Future female presidential candidates will owe a lot to the race of 2008, Faludi wrote, "when Hillary Clinton broke through the glass floor and got down with the boys."

I share Faludi's glee -- up to a point. Surely no one will ever dare argue that women lack the temperament for political combat. But by running a racially-tinged campaign, lying about her foreign policy experience, and repeatedly seeming to favor McCain over her Democratic opponent, Clinton didn't just break through the "glass floor," she set a new low for floors in general, and would, if she could have got within arm's reach, have rubbed the broken glass into Obama's face.

A mere decade ago Francis Fukuyama fretted in Foreign Affairs that the world was too dangerous for the West to be entrusted to graying female leaders, whose aversion to violence was, as he established with numerous examples from chimpanzee society, "rooted in biology." The counter-example of Margaret Thatcher, perhaps the first of head of state to start a war for the sole purpose of pumping up her approval ratings, led him to concede that "biology is not destiny." But it was still a good reason to vote for a prehistoric-style club-wielding male.

Not to worry though, Francis. Far from being the stereotypical feminist-pacifist of your imagination, the woman to get closest to the Oval Office has promised to "obliterate" the toddlers of Tehran -- along, of course, with the bomb-builders and Hezbollah supporters. Earlier on, Clinton foreswore even talking to presumptive bad guys, although women are supposed to be the talk addicts of the species. Watch out -- was her distinctly unladylike message to Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong-Il, and the rest of them -- or I'll rip you a new one.

There's a reason why it's been so easy for men to overlook women's capacity for aggression. As every student of Women's Studies 101 knows, what's called aggression in men is usually trivialized as "bitchiness" in women: Men get angry; women suffer from bouts of inexplicable, hormonally-driven, hostility. So give Clinton credit for defying the belittling stereotype: She's been visibly angry for months, if not decades, and it can't all have been PMS.

But did we really need another lesson in the female capacity for ruthless aggression? Any illusions I had about the innate moral superiority of women ended four years ago with Abu Ghraib. Recall that three out of the five prison guards prosecuted for the torture and sexual humiliation of prisoners were women. The prison was directed by a woman, Gen. Janis Karpinski, and the top U.S. intelligence officer in Iraq, who also was responsible for reviewing the status of detainees before their release, was Major Gen. Barbara Fast. Not to mention that the U.S. official ultimately responsible for managing the occupation of Iraq at the time was Condoleezza Rice.

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CAMPAIGN '08

Hillary Clinton failed to master the female approach, former mentor says

By Robin Abcarian, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 12, 2008

ASHLAND, ORE. -- Recently, as New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned in Eugene, her onetime friend and mentor Jean Houston was at home in her double geodesic dome, a style that is not out of place here in this town of theater lovers and spiritual seekers.

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Houston was not Clinton's spiritualist, but when Clinton was at her lowest -- after the 1994 defeat of her healthcare initiative, the Republican takeover of Congress, seemingly interminable investigations and intense vilification -- Houston, a pioneer of the human potential movement, was something of a secret emotional life raft for the first lady.

The friendship ended after Bob Woodward revealed in a 1996 book that Houston had helped guide a devastated Hillary Clinton in imaginary conversations with her hero Eleanor Roosevelt.

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Houston believes Obama is on the verge of winning the nomination partly because he has promoted himself as the embodiment of a new kind of politics, and partly because Clinton has had trouble portraying her authentic self.
"She is funny, hilarious, generous, warm, given to acts of kindness that are extraordinary," Houston said. "She is a deep woman, not just a very bright woman. But she is part of a dying breed, an archaic sensibility."

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Ironically, Clinton's problem today, Houston said, may be that Obama has given better voice to that new pattern of possibility -- that he embodies a more female, inclusive approach to problem-solving, while Clinton has become mired in proving herself capable of emulating the male model, which requires combat and the demonization of enemies.

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West Virginia Women Announce Endorsements for Obama
Leaders praise Obama’s ability to unite people for change


CHARLESTON, WV—The day after his decisive win in North Carolina and a tight finish in Indiana, women across West Virginia have announced their support for Senator Barack Obama citing his advocacy of women’s issues, successful record of fighting for working families and unique ability to bring people together for change. From the mountains to the Capitol, in small towns and large cities, women are working hard to galvanize support for Senator Obama. Endorsers include Sharon Rockefeller, wife of Senator Jay Rockefeller and Melinda Rahall, wife of Congressman Nick Rahall.

The West Virginia Women for Obama held a kick off reception this week in Charleston, where women gathered to talk about why Obama is the best candidate for women in West Virginia and throughout the country.

“Across the country, we’ve seen Barack Obama’s ability to bring all types of voters together,” said Sharon Rockefeller. “Come November, we will need a candidate who can and will unite this country, not divide it. Barack Obama has proven that he is the right leader for the voters in West Virginia and in America.”

Senator Obama has a long record of standing up for women. As a State Senator in Illinois, Obama co-sponsored and passed the Equal Pay Act, which provided that no employer may discriminate between employees on the basis of sex by paying ages solely on the basis of the employee’s gender. Addressing the needs of more than 19 million women who are uninsured in the country, Barack Obama is committed to ensuring that all Americans have health care coverage by the end of his first term in office as President. In addition, Barack Obama is an original co-sponsor and passed Johanna's Law, which educates women and increase awareness of ovarian cancer -- the fourth-leading cause of cancer-related death among women in the United States.

West Virginia Women for Obama, consisting of elected officials, activists, local community leaders, teachers, attorneys, doctors, mothers and grandmothers, will continue to help organizing support for Senator Obama in the days leading up to the May 13 primary. The women will hold Women for Obama phone banks and will feature a “mother daughter” canvassing events on Mother’s Day.

The following list is more than 130 West Virginia women who today announced their support of Obama, joining thousands of other women across the country who proudly support Barack Obama:

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