2008 Primaries Thread

I think it will be a while still before a woman is able to exist in national politics in the charismatic natural-charmer way that people like Bill and Barack are

i honestly don't know what the 'motivation' for her 'outburst' is. i can't bring myself to watch the video of it. i'm predisposed to a fair amount of dislike for HRC, so i'm tempted to think it's largely frustration. but, i have no idea what it's really about. shit, i tear up at the right commercial at the wrong time sometimes.

now, as an event, 'stumbles' and/or 'emotional moments' like these are fresh bloody chum to the dim and simplistic end of the media -- local television, crucially -- so sadly enough, this will be an important moment. if i were running a rival campaign, i'd keep my collective trap shut and not give it much air. the temptation to swat at the (deceptively) easy pitch is right there (edwards!!) but if you want to play your own tune for the time being you can't get sucked into this kinda thing.

xps, obv

maybe for "able" in that last post of mine you should substitute "allowed" or "allowed successfully"

probably the definitive chuck-as-pundit moment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IpCuucaZBI

(tracer i wasn't referring to your arguments but your tone. but i'm sorry, i wasn't adding to anything by saying it.)

possible, but there are lots of women who if not quite stars are perfectly capable political performers - condi, sebelius, whitman, napolitano, hutchison, etc.

BOXER

I haven't watched it either but judging from the transcript, yeh I kinda think bbc presenter IS otm. what, she cries when someone asks her who does her hair?? wtf

gabbneb otm re: women. hillary /= all women in politics.

BOXER is a perfectly capable political performer in the way DEAN is

or, er, Thatcher.

Have you seen Hillary's hair lately? She should cry when someone asks her about it!

(cue rage at making hair joke about someone with bad hair who also happens to have a vagina)

dude, she has great helmet hair

why is there ennio morricone-style music in that chuck norris/mike huckabee ad? i don't recall chuck being in any westerns. are they hoping people will confuse him with clint eastwood?

i suppose it's some generalized movie/machismo/lone wolf/stand up for what's right sort of thing.

http://www.ladyofthecake.com/mel/space/images/shothair.jpg

Feinstein WAY more Thatcheresque than Boxer. I pretty much hate her tho (and Thatcher too! quel surprise)

would Thatcher fly here? I'm not so sure.

oh probably not - she struck some particularly British chords in her ascendancy.

I think my favorite nat'l level woman-in-politics is probably Mikulski, actually.

we want our prez to be 'likeable'. even HW was sort of amiable in his country club wimpy thing.

http://www.micklebring.com/bml/images/victoria66brithday.jpg

no, i don't think hrc is driven by ambition. i think she's absolutely driven by the right things

every politician is driven by ambition, kucinich or paul no less than hillary or obama or huckabee. it doesn't necessarily cancel out also being "driven by the right thing," though.

wtf Mikulski's a lesbian??! I had no idea

really hillary is more blatantly ambitious than any candidate running now except maybe giuliani, it's hard to imagine how anyone could miss it

i'm merely explaining to tracer that attacking hillary on style is not the same as the standard rightwing fear-based attack on her as craven harpy

meanwhile Thompson's doin' it so that the Mainstream Media can admire what fine pussy he gets every night.

but if you want to play just to play, i'd suggest that the guy who was a state senator a few years ago might have her beat there

thx for that image Alfred

xpost

That list would be 100% more convincing to me if it didn't contain, like, Condi, who is perceived as even more screened-back / robotic / inhuman than Hillary is: are you seriously imagining Rice making warm forthright connections with people at pancake breakfasts here? The reasons I say that kind of thing isn't yet a wide-open option for women all go kind of double for someone like Rice.

I'd also note that I say that not solely in terms of some kind of suspicion of women or anti-woman bias, but because the current models we have of Likable Politician are all male/masculine models, and there's no reason they SHOULD map neatly onto women, who are still in the process of creating models of whatever kind of persona is the best one for a woman to communicate with an electorate.

Even the Thatcher model here is ... again, it involves not having the warm-human-connection thing someone like Bill Clinton had; one of the selling points of her persona was STERNNESS, for god's sake

Thompson, once again, is just helping out his good buddy Johnny Mac

Condi has her own challenges, sure. Maybe she doesn't belong on the list. But I can totally see her talking football with the folks.

or about pussy with Thompson.

oh DEAR

She talks about pussy with everyone so that's not a stretch.

oh the zings

did I mention I have a family member serving as Condi's bodyguard

oh the stories I wish he would tell me

picard.jpg

http://www.impawards.com/1996/posters/bound_ver1.jpg

can we get back to race relations again for a minute.

i know this was covered in this thread and the old one, but how do blacks view obama's background in terms of race and class? (not there is one answer for one group of people, obv)

i ask because i was watching a some reruns of the chapelle show late last night. and i was watching this "race draft" skit. tiger woods, played by chappelle w/the 'dorky white guy voice', is drafted by the blacks and it occurred to me that, like tiger woods, obama isn't (at least in one sense) 'black'

I don't think Mikulski is out.

(quite a revelation, i know)

oops that was an xpost to myself

there were many many months in the media (i.e. FOX) where the headlines were all like "IS OBAMA BLACK ENOUGH?" as though there would suddenly be some anti-Obama backlash and every black person would vote for Fred Thompson

I've heard a few black people say they weren't sure Obama was black enough but they also went on to say that they never voted anyway so I kind of tuned them out.

lol

obviously obama is 'blacker' than alan keys

i was watching one of the cable news channels and on the news scrawl it said jesse jackson is supporting obama, but his wife did a radio ad for hillary in south carolina

so maybe its just bros vs hos

obama is black enough to not get elected.

thats controversial