Feminists sharply divided between Clinton, Obama
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer Sat May 10, 10:31 AM ET
NEW YORK - No constituency is more eager to see a woman win the presidency than America's feminists, yet — despite Hillary Rodham Clinton's historic candidacy — the women's movement finds itself wrenchingly divided over the Democratic race as it heads toward the finish.
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At breakfast forums, in op-ed columns, across the blogosphere, the debate has been heartfelt and sometimes bitter. Are the activist women supporting front-runner Barack Obama betraying their gender? Are Clinton's feminist backers mired in an outdated, women's-liberation mind-set?
Ellen Bravo is a Milwaukee author and activist who advocates on behalf of working women — and is an Obama supporter. She faults Clinton for her 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq war and believes the Illinois senator would be more supportive of grass-roots political action.
At times, Bravo, 64, has been dismayed by the harsh criticism directed at women like herself from pro-Clinton feminists.
"I felt it was an ultimatum — vote for Hillary Clinton or you're betraying the women's movement," Bravo said. "It's very self-defeating and alienating, particularly to younger women who, regardless of who they support, don't like to be told, 'Do this. Do that.'"
Clinton supporter Gloria Feldt, former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, accepts that the women's movement is not single-minded, yet worries that the Obama-Clinton rift is eroding whatever clout it might have.
"We're squandering an opportunity to be seen as a voting bloc that turns elections," Feldt said. "Unless we are working together, in a strategically thought-out effort to vote in our own best interests, we are in danger of never having another election where people will say women can determine the outcome."
Overall, Clinton's now-endangered campaign has survived largely because of her 60 percent to 36 percent edge over Obama among white women voters in the primaries to date. But among college-educated white women — the demographic of many feminists and of Clinton herself — her edge is much smaller, 54 percent to 43 percent, according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and television networks.
One factor in play is generational. There is a widespread perception in the women's movement that younger feminists tilt more toward Obama while most of their elders favor Clinton.
Clinton frequently mentions the elderly women she's met on the campaign trail who were born before women were able to vote and have confided to her they thought they'd never see a woman elected president.
Indeed, 74-year-old Gloria Steinem, a Clinton supporter and icon of the women's movement, riled some younger, pro-Obama feminists with a New York Times op-ed suggesting that they were in denial about America's persisting "sexual caste system."
Ariel Garfinkel, a sophomore at Mount Holyoke College, wrote one of the many counter-arguments in an online column. She and many other young feminists supported Obama because they perceived the Clinton campaign as trying to capitalize on racial divisions and to impugn Obama's patriotism.
"This pattern of old-style politics and adherence to un-feminist values is part and parcel of the campaign Hillary Clinton has run," Garfinkel wrote. "In this race, Barack Obama is the true feminist."
New York-based author Courtney Martin, also an Obama supporter, wrote on Glamour magazine's blog Glamocracy last month that she was not backing Clinton "in part because she reminds me of being scolded by my mother."
But the 28-year-old Martin has joined in appeals for activist women in the two camps to tone down their hostilities and prepare to work together on behalf of the eventual Democratic nominee.
"I deeply respect what Clinton has endured as a woman painstakingly unknotting gender and power," Martin wrote for The American Prospect.
Another young New York-based feminist writer, Hannah Seligson, backs Clinton and feels somewhat isolated among her mostly pro-Obama peers.
"I shy away from conversations with them," said Seligson, 25. "They're so passionate and there's so much vitriol toward Hillary."
For all the divisions among individual women, there was little dissension at the best-known feminist group — the National Organization for Women — before its political action committee endorsed Clinton in March 2007.
NOW's president, Kim Gandy, sees Clinton's determination and combativeness as among her strongest attributes.
"The women who've had to struggle the hardest and run into the most difficulty because they're women are clearly gravitating to a candidate they identify with," Gandy said. "They see her fighting."
Gandy knows some feminists dismiss Clinton as a woman whose political ascension depended on her husband's career, but she rejects that thinking.
"She might have been president instead of him if things had gone a little differently," Gandy said. "No one will ever know whether her marriage to Bill Clinton held her back politically as much as it moved her forward."
While still holding out hope that Clinton can win, Gandy suggests that her defeat would be a huge blow to some feminists. "It's hard to imagine that anytime soon there will be another candidate as extraordinary as Hillary Clinton," she said.
Gloria Feldt conveyed similar sentiment.
"I'd feel very sad to miss this enormous opportunity to bring the United States of America into the circle of nations that have had women as their leaders," she said. "I feel strongly when you have the opportunity to support a women so clearly qualified and capable, do it. Do it for your daughter."
The campaign has brought the women's movement to a crossroads, according to Obama supporter Kate Michelman, the former head of the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America.
"We're at a time and place where we don't have to base everything we think about in terms of gender, and that's a sign of progress," she said. "This rigid view that when any woman runs, we have to all fall into line — that's contradictory to what I consider feminism to be about."
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Obama outlines plans for race against McCain
Obama outlines plans for race against McCain
By CHARLES BABINGTON and SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writers 41 minutes ago
BEND, Ore. - Barack Obama began sketching the outlines of his expected presidential contest against Republican John McCain on Saturday, saying the fall election will be more about specific plans and priorities than about questions of political ideology or who is more patriotic.
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Barely mentioning Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama said he was open to campaigning with McCain in "town hall" events. But he also warned that controversial issues such as McCain's ties to the Keating Five savings and loan scandal are fair game, and he called McCain's proposal for a temporary halt in the federal gasoline tax a pander and a gimmick.
He did not mention that Clinton supports a similar plan.
Obama also said he soon will campaign in Michigan and Florida, two battleground states whose Democratic primaries were essentially nullified by party disputes, angering many voters. He is scheduled to campaign Tuesday in Missouri, marking the first such visit to a state where the primary is over and McCain awaits him in the fall.
Saying he still has not secured the nomination, Obama nonetheless entertained several questions about the likely outlines of a contest against McCain. As he campaigned in Oregon, whose primary is May 20, Obama picked up four superdelegate endorsements, erasing Clinton's once-substantial lead among the party leaders who will determine the nominee.
Many party leaders feel it is only a matter of time before the former first lady must concede defeat. But Clinton forged ahead Saturday, holding a fundraiser in New York.
"Let's keep going, stay with me, this is a great adventure and we're going to make history," she told the crowd.
Speaking with reporters in Bend, Ore., Obama brushed aside suggestions that the fall campaign may be largely about his race, liberalism or patriotism.
"In a contest between myself and John McCain," he said, "there is going to be a very clear choice on policy that I don't think is going to have to do with ideology and who theoretically is more liberal or who's more conservative. I think it is going to have to do with who has a plan to provide relief to people when it comes to their gas prices, who has a real plan to make sure that everybody has health insurance, who's got a real plan to deal with college affordability."
"So rather than an abstract set of questions about, 'Is he too liberal, is he too conservative, how do voters handle an African American, et cetera,' I think this is going to be a very concrete contest around very specific plans for how we improve the lives of Americans and our vision for the future," he said.
Obama said he realizes he must continue introducing himself to millions of Americans who do not know him well, and acknowledged that some question his patriotism because he no longer wears a lapel flag pin.
He said the test of patriotism "is whether we are true to the ideals and values upon which this country was founded," and willing to fight for them "even when it's politically inconvenient."
Obama said McCain has received "a free pass" while he and Clinton have battled for months.
McCain, he said, "has a straight-talker image, but it's not clear that lately he's been following through on that image. I mean, this gas tax holiday was a pander. He didn't even have a way of paying for it."
The McCain campaign noted that Obama, as an Illinois state senator, once voted for a temporary gas tax suspension. Obama now says he made a mistake.
Obama was asked Saturday if the fall campaign might touch on the 1987 Keating Five scandal, in which the Senate Ethics Committee said McCain used "poor judgment" for allegedly pressing regulators to go easy on the owner of a failed Arizona savings and loan who was also a campaign contributor.
Obama said there is no doubt the Keating Five case is "germane to the presidency."
"I can't quarrel with the American people wanting to know more about that," he said.
Clinton, meanwhile, spent the afternoon in Manhattan raising money for her cash-strapped campaign.
She made her pitch to a crowd of several hundred people, most of them women — appealing to the group that has largely been responsible for keeping her in the race this long. In the primaries to date, Clinton has held a 60 percent to 36 percent edge over Obama among white female voters.
Appearing with her daughter, Chelsea, Clinton took questions from the audience after a short speech that touched on issues like equal pay for women and balancing work outside the home with family responsibilities. She barely mentioned Obama, only noting their differences on health care and the gas tax.
She said it would be "exciting to have the first mother in the White House."
"Part of what that would mean is that we would have someone who has lived the experiences that many of us share," she said.
Clinton has struggled to raise money in recent weeks, and was set back further this week when she squeaked by with a narrow win in Indiana while Obama won handily in North Carolina. Aides also disclosed that Clinton had lent her campaign $6.4 million since mid-April, and said she had not ruled out doing so again. The recent loans come after a separate $5 million loan in February.
Clinton is favored to win Tuesday's primary in West Virginia, and on Saturday she implored her audience to stick with her.
By CHARLES BABINGTON and SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writers 41 minutes ago
BEND, Ore. - Barack Obama began sketching the outlines of his expected presidential contest against Republican John McCain on Saturday, saying the fall election will be more about specific plans and priorities than about questions of political ideology or who is more patriotic.
ADVERTISEMENT
Barely mentioning Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama said he was open to campaigning with McCain in "town hall" events. But he also warned that controversial issues such as McCain's ties to the Keating Five savings and loan scandal are fair game, and he called McCain's proposal for a temporary halt in the federal gasoline tax a pander and a gimmick.
He did not mention that Clinton supports a similar plan.
Obama also said he soon will campaign in Michigan and Florida, two battleground states whose Democratic primaries were essentially nullified by party disputes, angering many voters. He is scheduled to campaign Tuesday in Missouri, marking the first such visit to a state where the primary is over and McCain awaits him in the fall.
Saying he still has not secured the nomination, Obama nonetheless entertained several questions about the likely outlines of a contest against McCain. As he campaigned in Oregon, whose primary is May 20, Obama picked up four superdelegate endorsements, erasing Clinton's once-substantial lead among the party leaders who will determine the nominee.
Many party leaders feel it is only a matter of time before the former first lady must concede defeat. But Clinton forged ahead Saturday, holding a fundraiser in New York.
"Let's keep going, stay with me, this is a great adventure and we're going to make history," she told the crowd.
Speaking with reporters in Bend, Ore., Obama brushed aside suggestions that the fall campaign may be largely about his race, liberalism or patriotism.
"In a contest between myself and John McCain," he said, "there is going to be a very clear choice on policy that I don't think is going to have to do with ideology and who theoretically is more liberal or who's more conservative. I think it is going to have to do with who has a plan to provide relief to people when it comes to their gas prices, who has a real plan to make sure that everybody has health insurance, who's got a real plan to deal with college affordability."
"So rather than an abstract set of questions about, 'Is he too liberal, is he too conservative, how do voters handle an African American, et cetera,' I think this is going to be a very concrete contest around very specific plans for how we improve the lives of Americans and our vision for the future," he said.
Obama said he realizes he must continue introducing himself to millions of Americans who do not know him well, and acknowledged that some question his patriotism because he no longer wears a lapel flag pin.
He said the test of patriotism "is whether we are true to the ideals and values upon which this country was founded," and willing to fight for them "even when it's politically inconvenient."
Obama said McCain has received "a free pass" while he and Clinton have battled for months.
McCain, he said, "has a straight-talker image, but it's not clear that lately he's been following through on that image. I mean, this gas tax holiday was a pander. He didn't even have a way of paying for it."
The McCain campaign noted that Obama, as an Illinois state senator, once voted for a temporary gas tax suspension. Obama now says he made a mistake.
Obama was asked Saturday if the fall campaign might touch on the 1987 Keating Five scandal, in which the Senate Ethics Committee said McCain used "poor judgment" for allegedly pressing regulators to go easy on the owner of a failed Arizona savings and loan who was also a campaign contributor.
Obama said there is no doubt the Keating Five case is "germane to the presidency."
"I can't quarrel with the American people wanting to know more about that," he said.
Clinton, meanwhile, spent the afternoon in Manhattan raising money for her cash-strapped campaign.
She made her pitch to a crowd of several hundred people, most of them women — appealing to the group that has largely been responsible for keeping her in the race this long. In the primaries to date, Clinton has held a 60 percent to 36 percent edge over Obama among white female voters.
Appearing with her daughter, Chelsea, Clinton took questions from the audience after a short speech that touched on issues like equal pay for women and balancing work outside the home with family responsibilities. She barely mentioned Obama, only noting their differences on health care and the gas tax.
She said it would be "exciting to have the first mother in the White House."
"Part of what that would mean is that we would have someone who has lived the experiences that many of us share," she said.
Clinton has struggled to raise money in recent weeks, and was set back further this week when she squeaked by with a narrow win in Indiana while Obama won handily in North Carolina. Aides also disclosed that Clinton had lent her campaign $6.4 million since mid-April, and said she had not ruled out doing so again. The recent loans come after a separate $5 million loan in February.
Clinton is favored to win Tuesday's primary in West Virginia, and on Saturday she implored her audience to stick with her.
One dead at Afghan demo against US-led soldiers: witnesses
One dead at Afghan demo against US-led soldiers: witnesses
by Samoon Miakhial Sat May 10, 7:22 AM ET
MARCO, Afghanistan (AFP) - At least one person was killed and several wounded in Afghanistan Saturday when police opened fire to disperse a protest accusing US-commanded soldiers of killing civilians, witnesses said.
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The clash erupted in the eastern province of Nangarhar as up to 1,000 demonstrators tried to block a road with rocks to protest against the killing of three men in a military operation overnight, witnesses said.
"Police tried to stop them, they threw stones at the police. Police then fired at the crowd. One person was killed and three others were injured," said a local, Darya Khan.
An AFP reporter was shown the body of a man whom protestors said was killed in the police action. Other demonstrators alleged three people were killed but this could not be confirmed.
A doctor in the nearby city of Jalalabad said six people were admitted to hospitals. "They were all wounded by gunshots but their wounds were not deep. They were treated and released," doctor Baz Mohammad Sherzad said.
Provincial police chief Sayed Abdul Ghafar denied his men had caused any casualties, saying they had only fired into the air after being shot at from the crowd. Two policemen were wounded, he said.
Ghafar however said that -- contrary to US-led coalition claims -- the men killed in an operation overnight in the Shinwar district were not militants or from the extremist Taliban movement.
"The coalition conducted independent operations in Shinwar and martyred three people. They were civilians," he told AFP.
Before the demonstration was dispersed, protestors chanted slogans against foreign troops, US President George W. Bush and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
"The Americans killed three civilians," said demonstrator Pizwan Khan. "They were my neighbours and I knew they were not Taliban," he told AFP above shouts of "Death to America, death to Bush, death to Karzai."
Others said the dead were an elderly man shot in a mosque and two other men, employed as drivers, shot in their homes.
But the US-led military coalition said it had only killed militants who had attacked troops searching for a "foreign fighter network."
"During the operation, several militants were killed when they attacked coalition forces. Nine militants suspected of foreign fighter facilitation were detained," it said.
It is often difficult to verify events in Afghanistan, where thousands of Afghan and international soldiers are working against several rebel networks, some with Al-Qaeda backing.
International troops are often accused of mistaking civilians for rebels or being heavy-handed in their operations; the soldiers say they work on verified information and have the right to self-protection if attacked.
The issue of civilian casualties is deeply sensitive with many Afghans already wary of the presence of foreign troops seven years after they helped to drive out the extremist Taliban government.
The Al-Qaeda-linked Taliban are fighting to topple the US-supported government in Kabul and have demanded the removal of the international troops, most of them Westerners, on which the country relies.
by Samoon Miakhial Sat May 10, 7:22 AM ET
MARCO, Afghanistan (AFP) - At least one person was killed and several wounded in Afghanistan Saturday when police opened fire to disperse a protest accusing US-commanded soldiers of killing civilians, witnesses said.
ADVERTISEMENT
The clash erupted in the eastern province of Nangarhar as up to 1,000 demonstrators tried to block a road with rocks to protest against the killing of three men in a military operation overnight, witnesses said.
"Police tried to stop them, they threw stones at the police. Police then fired at the crowd. One person was killed and three others were injured," said a local, Darya Khan.
An AFP reporter was shown the body of a man whom protestors said was killed in the police action. Other demonstrators alleged three people were killed but this could not be confirmed.
A doctor in the nearby city of Jalalabad said six people were admitted to hospitals. "They were all wounded by gunshots but their wounds were not deep. They were treated and released," doctor Baz Mohammad Sherzad said.
Provincial police chief Sayed Abdul Ghafar denied his men had caused any casualties, saying they had only fired into the air after being shot at from the crowd. Two policemen were wounded, he said.
Ghafar however said that -- contrary to US-led coalition claims -- the men killed in an operation overnight in the Shinwar district were not militants or from the extremist Taliban movement.
"The coalition conducted independent operations in Shinwar and martyred three people. They were civilians," he told AFP.
Before the demonstration was dispersed, protestors chanted slogans against foreign troops, US President George W. Bush and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
"The Americans killed three civilians," said demonstrator Pizwan Khan. "They were my neighbours and I knew they were not Taliban," he told AFP above shouts of "Death to America, death to Bush, death to Karzai."
Others said the dead were an elderly man shot in a mosque and two other men, employed as drivers, shot in their homes.
But the US-led military coalition said it had only killed militants who had attacked troops searching for a "foreign fighter network."
"During the operation, several militants were killed when they attacked coalition forces. Nine militants suspected of foreign fighter facilitation were detained," it said.
It is often difficult to verify events in Afghanistan, where thousands of Afghan and international soldiers are working against several rebel networks, some with Al-Qaeda backing.
International troops are often accused of mistaking civilians for rebels or being heavy-handed in their operations; the soldiers say they work on verified information and have the right to self-protection if attacked.
The issue of civilian casualties is deeply sensitive with many Afghans already wary of the presence of foreign troops seven years after they helped to drive out the extremist Taliban government.
The Al-Qaeda-linked Taliban are fighting to topple the US-supported government in Kabul and have demanded the removal of the international troops, most of them Westerners, on which the country relies.
US official in Abkhazia to seek restored dialogue: report
MOSCOW (AFP) - A senior US State Department official arrived in Abkhazia on Saturday to try to help to restore dialogue between the breakaway region and Georgia, Russian news agencies reported.
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Matthew Bryza, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, was quoted by the Ria Novsoti news agency as describing the situation as tense but not beyond a solution.
Bryza spoke to journalists ahead of meetings with leaders of the breakaway territory where tensions have been mounting and where neighbouring Russia -- seen as backing the separatists -- has military forces.
They reached new heights Thursday as Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili warned of a risk of war with Russia.
Foreign ministers from five EU member state -- Slovenia, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia -- were expected Monday to travel to Tbilisi to try to mediate between Georgia and Russia.
The US official was quoted Saturday as saying it was essential to restore and stimulate negotiations between the Georgian government in Tbilisi and the Abkhaz side, suggesting that Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and others might mediate.
The Abkhaz leadership has claimed the downing of five unmanned Georgian spy planes in the last two months, while Georgia has only acknowledged one such shooting, carried out it said by a Russian fighter jet.
Abkhaz officials said Friday that an Georgian drone shot down the day before was carrying an air-to-air missile.
As deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, Bryza is responsible for policy supervision and management of relations with countries in the Caucasus and southern Europe.
This includes leading US efforts to advance peaceful settlements of the separatist conflicts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia.
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Matthew Bryza, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, was quoted by the Ria Novsoti news agency as describing the situation as tense but not beyond a solution.
Bryza spoke to journalists ahead of meetings with leaders of the breakaway territory where tensions have been mounting and where neighbouring Russia -- seen as backing the separatists -- has military forces.
They reached new heights Thursday as Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili warned of a risk of war with Russia.
Foreign ministers from five EU member state -- Slovenia, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia -- were expected Monday to travel to Tbilisi to try to mediate between Georgia and Russia.
The US official was quoted Saturday as saying it was essential to restore and stimulate negotiations between the Georgian government in Tbilisi and the Abkhaz side, suggesting that Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and others might mediate.
The Abkhaz leadership has claimed the downing of five unmanned Georgian spy planes in the last two months, while Georgia has only acknowledged one such shooting, carried out it said by a Russian fighter jet.
Abkhaz officials said Friday that an Georgian drone shot down the day before was carrying an air-to-air missile.
As deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, Bryza is responsible for policy supervision and management of relations with countries in the Caucasus and southern Europe.
This includes leading US efforts to advance peaceful settlements of the separatist conflicts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia.
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