When Women Run for Office

(Flickr/jypsygen)

Via Andrea Grimes, this analysis from the Dallas Morning News of possible candidates to replace Dallas mayor Tome Leppert is fascinating. Can you spot the sexism?

POSSIBLE CANDIDATES

ANGELA HUNT
Dallas City Council member, Dallas lawyer

Pros: High name recognition and ability to get votes across the city. Could be dangerous if matched up against the right candidate.

Cons: Considered the enemy of some in the business elite. Ability to run an aggressive campaign could be affected by her new family. Can she raise enough money to compete? [emphasis added]

JIM MOORE
Defense attorney

Pros: As the only announced candidate in the mayor's race, he has an opportunity to get some early momentum.

Cons: He has to build recognition as he is virtually unknown throughout the city.

RON NATINSKY
Dallas City Council member, Dallas businessman

Pros: Got out the gate early and appears to be in position to get support from various Dallas business leaders. With consultant Carol Reed already on board, Natinsky has access to campaign dollars.

Cons: Could have difficulty getting southern Dallas support. Some business leaders looking for an alternative.

MIKE RAWLINGS
Park Board president, former homeless czar

Pros: Long considered to be a viable successor to Leppert. Strong ties to city's business elite and could get votes in the south.

Cons: Does he really want it? Has no campaign experience.

BRINT RYAN
Dallas businessman

Pros: Has enough money to self-finance his campaign and attract solid consultants. Could be appealing to those looking for a pro-business candidate.

Cons: Still relatively unknown to much of the city. Has to overcome being known as the guy who spent $1 million on an unsuccessful council race.

Hm, one of the female candidates seems to have a con that the male candidates don't.

Election Postmortems

It’s never too soon (or too late) to run through exit polls and try to determine who “won” the election for Barack Obama. Ruth Rosen published a controversial take that attributes Obama’s victory to women; Kevin Drum disagrees, and thinks it’s more about men.

The weird thing about the constant parsing of the general electoral vote into different groups based on gender or race is that as soon as a group of people starts voting consistently, they seem to stop mattering. Any “Intro to Poli-Sci” class will tell you that one of the most remarkably consistent voting blocs is African Americans, a group tends to vote for Democrats by above 90 percent. As a result, how African Americans were voting became more or less irrelevant (until they “passed” Prop. 8 in California) in the general election. It’s the same with unmarried women and women of color. Young people may begin to fall into that category as well given their performance in this election.

What I find useless about this kind of analysis — only looking at the “swing voters” who tend to be white and middle class — is that a lot of really relevant issues get left out of the debate, and those that are loyal to progressive causes get pushed aside in favor of claiming victory for a sub-group. I understand that this is the nature of the best when it comes to election postmortems, but let’s avoid pinning an award on the category of the electorate that made the biggest “swing” in the election.

Cross posted at Pushback.

Women's Groups, Some of Many

Over at the New York Times' Caucus blog, Sarah Wheaton makes the case that Democrats could not have won this election without the help of the women's groups. She points to the fact that women went for Obama by a higher margin than men (note that this is almost always true except when you look at the subset of married white women) and that groups like Emily's List are to thank for congressional pickups like Jeanne Shaheen*.

And I think that Wheaton is right to make sure we thank the work of groups like Emily's List. After all, women's groups (and there are a lot of them) have been around a long time. They've tapped into fundraising and organizing in ways that lots of other groups are still trying to work out. But this election wasn't thanks to just women's groups. Part of the success of this election is thanks to a lot of different pieces of infrastructure that have been building from the beginning of the Bush administration. It's not just women's groups, but youth groups, environmental groups, groups of people of color, and a new coalition of liberal media and blogs that have been pushing the agenda to the left in this country. It's hard work, but it's starting to pay off.

Wheaton's point is a valid one, but I don't think she should stop short of demanding that Democrats just "thank" women's groups. Instead, she should ask that Democrats be accountable to the interests of women: protecting the right of abortion and birth control, ensuring heath care reform and health care for children, and pursuing legislation that hopes to close the pay gap. All of these groups, including women's organizations, worked hard to elect a progressive president. Now they should go about the work of holding them accountable.

*Wow, I called her Cindy. What's wrong with me today?

Obama Victory on U Street

I, like Jesse and Ezra, found last night's celebration on U Street something of a remarkable occurrence. It made me feel lucky to be experiencing this election at this time of my life, in this city, with these people. U Street, once the site of divisive race riots in 1968, became a scene of celebration, with blacks, whites, Latinos, children, twentysomethings, the elderly, and so many other groups gathered to come together for this shared celebration.

Of course, this one victory doesn't mean that social justice is a reality. Even as we took to the streets dancing, shouting, and crying, thousands of marriages between gay couples disappeared in California. Sen. Ted Stevens quietly won his re-election campaign. It's a reminder that progressives need to continue fighting for causes they believe in. But for now, let's remember this moment.



Cross posted on Pushback.

South Dakota Measure 11

Via Feministe, the South Dakota abortion ban is up two points -- that's still a narrow enough margin to be a statistical tie.

If Other Countries Could Vote (In U.S. Elections) ...

McCain's approval ratings are pretty dismal in other countries.

Debating the Value of Debates

Today over at Campus Progress I have an article about the debates, and why we probably shouldn't expect them to be very exciting:

The first of the general election debates tonight will be very different from the long series of multi-issue, multimedia, multi-candidate debates viewers saw during the primary season. Instead, the audience will likely see two candidates in a very controlled environment. The CPD sounds very official and independent—its title suggests an organization dedicated solely the important role debates play in our democracy. But the organization is little more than a sham.

For years, debates were conducted by the League of Women Voters (LWV). Now, under the CPD, the debates have essentially become “bi-partisan press conferences,” according to George Farah, executive director of Open Debates and author of the book, No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates. “[The two major national parties] did not like that a women’s organization was telling their boys what to do,” Farah said.

Read the whole thing here.

No Debate Over Debates

Today the Barack McCain and John Obama campaigns released a joint statement that officially announcing the debate dates (although they've been known for a while). The debates will be sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a group that is bipartisan and nonprofit, but activist and author George Farah wrote an entire book, called No Debate, making the case against the CPD:

The CPD is not the honorable institution it claims to be. In fact, the CPD is a corporate-funded, bipartisan cartel that secretly awards the control of the presidential debates to the Republican and Democratic candidates, perpetuating the domination of a two-party system and restricting subject matters of political discourse. Through the CPD, the Republican and Democratic candidates exclude popular third-party candidates, eliminate challenging debate formats, and avoid addressing many important national issues. The presidential debates become exchanges of sound bites rather than exchanges of ideas. The CPD represents the Republican and Democratic nominees, not the American people.

While I'd say that Farah is probably on the extreme end of those advocating the democratization of debates--he argues that third-party candidates like Ross Perot and Ralph Nader should be allowed into debates--current rules state a third-party candidate must be polling above 15 percent nationally to make it into the debate, making it nearly impossible for them to get in. I'm not overly interested in making sure Bob Barr, Ralph Nader, or Ron Paul are included in the debates this year, but I think Farah does make some good points about the lack of real back-and-forth at the general election debates.

This Nightline video from 2004 summarizes some of the great debate moments of the past---and talks about how we're not likely to see anything like them in the future.



Cross posted at pushback.

OMG Cookiegate!

Really, aren't we beyond wives of presidential candidates staying home and baking their own cookies? I guess not.

More Webb Bashing (well, not really)

Webb has been tossed around as a possible VP to Obama for a while now, but the disagreement over Webb's potential candidacy is finally starting to come to a head. Kathy G. outlined a very articulate case against Webb as a VP candidate, so you should just go and read the whole thing. Melissa McEwan at Shakesville uses some pretty strong language to protest the idea of a Webb VP candidacy:

I cannot begin to express what a terrible, terrible, terrible idea it would be for the Democratic Party to allow Jim Webb onto the national ticket after this primary season, for reasons I'm guessing I don't need to explain. I resent the idea that sticking any old pair of boobs in the veep slot is going to mollify the women who are rightfully angry with the way Clinton has been treated by her own party during this primary (yeah, I'm looking at you, Leahy, just for a start), but I resent even more the notion that it doesn't matter at all. Handing the veep slot to Webb on an Obama ticket would be a huge slap in the face to feminists.

But I have to say that I think Ezra's case against Webb on the national ticket is better:

Happily, there's another institution where individuals of strong conviction and substantial political talent can shape national policy: the United States Senate, where Webb currently serves.

Removing Webb from the Senate, where he's already shown really great leadership on a number of issues that really need to be addressed. Besides, another hard-fought battle in Virginia for a Senate seat is hardly something the party needs amid an intensive election year.

Rove Secretly Works for McCain

Amanda Terkel and Matt Corley have the goods on Salon.

Media Watch

Proof that Democratic presidential candidates are more interesting (or at least allow more fodder for discussion).