Koreanpower999’s Weblog

wilknetwork.com / WILK-FM; by Steve Corbett; May 16, 2008

“Operation Turndown” has deep roots in my own personal radical politics.

If Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee for president, I will not vote for him.

I will turn him down.

Judging from callers to “Corbett” yesterday, so will many other Democrats.

Democrats must follow their hearts and their heads.

I’m part of an impromptu movement born of outrage and frustration to which Democratic Party leaders need to pay very close attention. I’m a radical Democrat and proud of it.

Radical politics is one reason why I majored in “Community Development” at Penn State in 1970, after showing up there in September of 1969 with an open mind and a head loaded with ideas – not all of them good.

By November I was on the street in DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C., getting tear-gassed by National Guard troops during an anti-war protest. The next day I watched the attack on the Justice Department. The next year I watched my state cop father show up on my campus in riot gear.

I spent the next 30-some years developing my perspective and my honor as a daily newspaper columnist and broadcast commentator on television and radio.

I’ve learned from it all. I’m still learning.

And all these years later I still value my community development education and my degree from the counterculture school of hard knocks. The lessons of Kent State, My Lai, and the mean streets of Chicago under the first Mayor Richard Daley remain a part of my pledge of allegiance to real change I can believe in.

I’m not some bizarre social isolationist who’s stuck in the past, either. I value lasting friendships with a wide array of people who hold extremely different political beliefs.
I’m even friends with some conservative Republicans.

But in my heart I’m a radical Democrat.

Yet I’m a model citizen who advocates non-violence and negotiation.

Although I would have likely joined the Molly Maguires back when coal barons oppressed my Irish miner ancestors in Northeastern Pennsylvania and I publicly supported the IRA against British tyranny during my visits to Belfast during the war, I’ve evolved into a principled person who values the power of the ballot over the bullet.

That’s why I’ve decided not to vote for Barack Obama if he wins the Democratic nomination to run for president. I’m with Hillary Clinton until the end.

If she loses and Obama offers her a spot on the ticket as vice president, I’ll consider endorsing the ticket. Still, I offer no guarantees and encourage Hillary to decline the VP spot even if she’s offered the job.

Hillary is the strongest, best candidate. Hillary can beat John McCain. Hillary is my Democrat.

Even if party bosses tell me that we must get behind the nominee and that the nominee will be Obama, I have a choice. Even if family, friends and colleagues tell me I’m wrong, I have a choice. Even if you hate my decision, I have a choice.

And I will use it. To do otherwise would violate the principles I work hard to uphold. I’ve made a decision – a well-thought out, reasoned and rational decision.

Besides, I’ve been here before. I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 and endured the scorn of others who blamed me for the Democratic loss. Don’t blame me, I said. Blame yourselves for not being able to convince enough people to vote for the Democrat.

The same argument holds true today.

Don’t blame me if Obama runs and loses because too many rogue Democrats, independents and Republicans do not have faith in his ability to lead during some very tough and trying times.

Ralph’s running again today.

So are many other candidates you’ve likely never heard of.

America is caught up in a two-party madness that offers voters too few options. The same well-heeled donors contribute cash to both parties and conspire for access that most Americans can’t even dream of having.

What we do have is a choice.

And I’ve made mine.

I’m turning down Obama.

Associated Press; by Jocelyn Noveck and Beth Fouhy; May 17, 2008

NEW YORK - Philipina Heintzman, 81, drove 80 miles across the South Dakota prairie to experience history in the making: a woman running for president, something she never dreamed as a child that she would live to see.

That event, a Hillary Rodham Clinton rally in Bath on Thursday, also marked history unraveling.

As Clinton’s prospects sink in the Democratic race, Heintzman and many women like her are feeling the poignant letdown of seeing the first woman with a strong chance at the presidency fall short.

“It would hurt my feelings a lot because I think she should be No. 1, she should be president,” Heintzman said of Clinton’s likely loss to Barack Obama. “Give a woman a chance to do something good.”

From young feminist activists to the grandmothers who embrace Clinton along the rope line at her campaign events, many women who voted in large numbers for the former first lady during the primaries have begun mourning the turn of events. They know their dream of electing a female president this year probably will not come to pass — and wonder when it ever will.

“For us, getting a woman elected is major,” said Laurine Glynn, 72, of New York City. “We’ve waited, fought a lot for this. I do worry that my generation won’t see a female president.”

“Women are feeling a lot of sadness, disappointment and some anger as they look back at what happened in this race,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

And at least part of that anger, Walsh says, is directed at the sexism that some feel seriously harmed the former first lady’s candidacy — from T-shirts bearing photos of Clinton and Obama with the slogan “Bros Before Hos” to Hillary Clinton nutcrackers sold in airports.

Women — especially older white women — have been at the center of Clinton’s electoral base. During the primaries, she bested Obama among women overall 52-45 percent. Among women over 65, Clinton won by 61 percent to Obama’s 34 percent.

Obama advisers note that he defeated Clinton among women in at least 12 states during the primary contest, in part because of overwhelming support for his candidacy among black women. Obama would be the first black president.

And among women under 30, Obama beat Clinton overall by a margin of 56-43 percent — suggesting that they were more inspired by Obama’s message of hope and political change than they were by the prospect of electing one of their own.

Paula Horwitz, 84, of Pittsburgh, said some younger women “just don’t understand. They’ll elect a man, and the men will keep on telling the women what to do.” Horwitz displayed a Clinton sign in her front yard for the Pennsylvania primary won by the New York senator.

The generational rift became even more apparent last week, when NARAL Pro-Choice America, a leading abortion rights advocacy organization dominated by white female activists, endorsed Obama over Clinton — producing an outcry among many in the women’s movement who felt the group had betrayed one of its own.

Kate Michelman, the former president of NARAL who supports Obama, said Clinton didn’t stand for the new direction that voters — including many women — now crave.

“Hillary Clinton represents the status quo at best, and keeps us rooted in a place we need to move from,” Michelman said. “I’ve watched younger women come into their adult lives from a different set of experiences, and Hillary Clinton was not the president to make the transition to the newly inspired movement that we need.”

For many women, Clinton’s likely fate has also brought nagging questions for the future: Has the former first lady blazed a path, making it easier for the next wave of female candidates? Or has she merely shown how difficult it will be? And who might succeed her?

“What Hillary has done — win, lose or draw — has permanently changed the picture,” says Marie Wilson, president of the White House Project, which trains women to run for office. “Next time, we’re not going to have to prove that the public will vote for a woman. We won’t have to prove competency. She has succeeded at that level.”

Wilson pointed to several women with promising political futures who could one day seek the White House: Democratic Govs. Kathleen Sibelius of Kansas and Janet Napolitano of Arizona; Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; and Republicans like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and business executive Carly Fiorina. However, none has the name recognition, fundraising network or political connections Clinton was able to draw upon from the early days of her run.

Clinton’s pioneering candidacy also won’t necessarily mean the next female contender is going to have an easier time of it, warns Walsh.

“It will still be rough for women to come after her,” she says. “They’ll have to walk that balance of being strong and tough, compassionate and soft. When you’re tough, you’re called shrill, and the B-word. When you mist over, they say you’re weeping.”

To feminist writer Linda Hirshman, Clinton’s likely defeat signals a harsh reality that future female candidates will need to consider.

“It shows how fragile the loyalty and commitment of women to a female candidate is. That’s a pretty scary thing,” says Hirshman. “She can count on the female electorate to divide badly and not be reliable.”

For their part, Obama advisers said they believe that most of Clinton’s female supporters will come their way eventually and won’t throw their backing to Republican John McCain. The New York senator has already pledged to work actively on behalf of the Democratic nominee.

Many Clinton supporters hold out hope that Obama might consider choosing Clinton as his running mate. And since she is still relatively young at 60, some can envision another presidential bid.

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who is supporting Obama, said his campaign was well aware of the disappointment Clinton’s female supporters are likely to feel if she loses the race.

“I think the most important thing is that we stay focused on being incredibly respectful and admiring of who Hillary Clinton is as a person and what she represents as a leader,” McCaskill said. “She’s run a very strong race and deserves the passionate support she’s received. I think the respect in the Obama campaign is genuine — we don’t have any problem understanding why millions support Hillary Clinton.”

This is Hillary Clinton’s new ad playing in Kentucky. Real Clear Politics has Clinton ahead of Obama by an average of 28.7% in the polls in Kentucky. Barack Obama just doesn’t excite me. He may be the messiah for the latte liberals and makes left wing elites in the media and academia swoon with his fluffy words of hope and change. But his lofty rhetoric just doesn’t connect with me and to the everyday needs of working people. Maybe he’ll change my mind as time goes on. Until then, I will stay loyal to the populist fighter with substantive policies named Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton supporters on the “O’Reilly Factor” threatening to boycott the election or vote for John McCain if Barack Obama is the nominee. Is this a microcosm of women who support Hillary Clinton who will defect from the Democratic Party if Barack Obama becomes the nominee?

Also, here’s a new blog that is being promoted by Hillary Clinton bloggers in light of Obama’s multiple “sweetie” comments: Sweeties Against Obama

Caution: O’Reilly drops the “f” bomb multiple times. We see the bully, Bill O’Reilly, in his true colors.

This is Barack Obama at a GM plant in Michigan. He calls a female reporter “sweetie” and dodges her question. You can tell by the tone of the reporter’s voice, she didn’t appreciate it at all. Reading some of the pro-Hillary Clinton feminist blogs, it has fired them and it just gives them another reason not to vote for Obama in the fall. However, Obama did eventually apologize to the news station after it was apparent that this incident had become a hot topic in the blogosphere.

Hillary Clinton victory speech after she thoroughly destroys Barack Obama by 41% in West Virginia.

West Virginia Primary
Clinton 239,062 67%
Obama 91,652 26%

Real Clear Politics; by Froma Harrop; May 13, 2008

Many in the Obama camp, having outfoxed the apparently not-so-formidable Clinton machine, can’t seem to get the hang of winning gracefully. They feel a need to drive a stake in Hillary Clinton’s reputation, then dance. If they were smart, they’d heap praise on Clinton and let her finish out the race, however she chooses to do so.

That’s sage advice, even though offered by Republican mastermind-turned-pundit Karl Rove. Treat Clinton shabbily, he says, and many of her supporters “will remember it by November.”

Nonetheless, Obamacans are throwing victory parties over the impending defeat of a fellow Democrat who has thus far pulled in over 47 percent of their party’s primary and caucus participants. Some take a more direct approach. In anticipation of the West Virginia primary, college students for Obama were hurling insults at farmers and truck drivers holding signs for Clinton.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, unable to contain himself, administered one last kick to Clinton’s dignity by opining that the New York senator lacks the “real leadership” needed for the job of vice president. He said that Obama should pick someone who is “in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people.”

So much for the nobility of aspirations held by his own state’s Democratic primary voters, who preferred Clinton over Obama by 15 percentage points. Next door in Rhode Island, Rep. Patrick Kennedy dittoes Dad as an unwavering super-delegate for Obama — this despite Clinton’s 18-point win in that state’s primary. It’s as if the voters are invisible.

Disrespecting the nearly 17 million who have supported Clinton is politically unwise, but turning them into “the enemy” is insane. Last week’s enemy was working-class white people. The Democrats can win without a majority of white voters — as Obama strategists undiplomatically note — but they can’t win without a strong showing among them.

So Obama partisans do not help their cause by willfully misrepresenting Clinton’s reference to “hard-working Americans, white Americans” as racist rather than as a poorly worded observation made in a state of utter exhaustion. The fervor of their outrage suggests that some regard the mere consideration of white people, particularly white men, as a demographic needing a special message is an act of bigotry. (That’s as opposed to a thousand other racial and socio-economic groups that politicos routinely slice and dice.)

We now hear pained remarks from the Obama camp that many white men won’t vote for any black. Oh really? No one was complaining during the early races in Iowa, Maryland, Virginia and Wisconsin, when most of the white male participants backed Obama. That was before the Rev. Jeremiah Wright ugliness became public.

Weirdly, Obamacan triumphalism seems to be merging with the festivities on the Republican side. You can understand why the right would welcome what it prays is “the end of the Clinton era.” Bill Clinton presided over the longest peacetime expansion since World War II. His budget surpluses put his so-called conservative predecessors and successor to shame. Wouldn’t a vow to build on the Clinton legacy, rather than dismantle it, be a better tack for the Obama campaign?

By the way, Clinton’s continued sparring with Obama does not hurt the Illinois senator’s chances in November. It only crowds out Republican efforts along that line. Believe me, you’d rather have the Clinton version.

Obama can’t beat John McCain without large chunks of Clinton’s core constituency: women, Hispanics and the white working class. Dumping on their candidate is one step removed from dumping on them — and some of the Obama people don’t even bother with that step. Rove must be enjoying the show.

Real Clear Politics; by Marie Cocco; May 13, 2008

WASHINGTON — As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it’s time to take stock of what I will not miss.

I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan “Bros before Hos.” The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and they are widely sold on the Internet.

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless steel thighs that, well, bust nuts. I won’t miss television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item.

I won’t miss episodes like the one in which the liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a “big f—in’ whore” and said the same about former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Rhodes was appearing at an event sponsored by a San Francisco radio station, before an audience of appreciative Obama supporters — one of whom had promoted the evening on the presumptive Democratic nominee’s official campaign Web site.

I won’t miss Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone.

Political discourse will at last be free of jokes like this one, told last week by magician Penn Jillette on MSNBC: “Obama did great in February, and that’s because that was Black History Month. And now Hillary’s doing much better ’cause it’s White B—- Month, right?” Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski rebuked Jillette.

I won’t miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie “Fatal Attraction.” In the iconic 1987 film, Close played an independent New York woman who has an affair with a married man played by Michael Douglas. When the liaison ends, the jilted woman becomes a deranged, knife-wielding stalker who terrorizes the man’s blissful suburban family. Message: Psychopathic home-wrecker, be gone.

The airwaves will at last be free of comments that liken Clinton to a “she-devil” (Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who helpfully supplied an on-screen mockup of Clinton sprouting horns). Or those who offer that she’s “looking like everyone’s first wife standing outside a probate court” (Mike Barnicle, also on MSNBC).

But perhaps it is not wives who are so very problematic. Maybe it’s mothers. Because, after all, Clinton is more like “a scolding mother, talking down to a child” (Jack Cafferty on CNN).

When all other images fail, there is one other I will not miss. That is, the down-to-the-basics, simplest one: “White women are a problem, that’s — you know, we all live with that” (William Kristol of Fox News).

I won’t miss reading another treatise by a man or woman, of the left or right, who says that sexism has had not even a teeny-weeny bit of influence on the course of the Democratic campaign. To hint that sexism might possibly have had a minimal role is to play that risible “gender card.”

Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven’t uttered a word of public outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

Would the silence prevail if Obama’s likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they’d compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama’s sex organs play?

There are many reasons why Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for “change.” But for all Clinton’s political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.