2008 Primaries Thread 3: The Rejecting and Denouncening

im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter
im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter
im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter
im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter
im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter
im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter
im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter
im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter
im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter
im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter
im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter im not bitter

http://thepage.time.com/statement-from-bruce-springsteen/

THANX FOR YR SUPPORT BRRROOOCE BECAUSE EVERYONE KNOWS AMERICAN VOTERS LOVE IT WHEN CELEBS BESTOW ENDORSEMENTS ON LEFT-ISH DEM CANDIDATES

Clooney knows how to do it:

...in early 2006, he spoke about Darfur with Barack Obama. (“I love that guy, I love him,” Clooney said of Obama, but he has not publicly campaigned, for fear of doing damage; he felt that his father’s campaign for Congress was undermined by “Hollywood versus the Heartland” rhetoric.)

working-class guy from the Jersey Shore /= guy who grew up related to Jose Ferrer who's now the face of Hollywood. it might not help much but it doesn't come anywhere close to hurting.

can we vote for lobster clinton if he has less than 50% of the body he had when he was our human president? I cannot resist his enormous claws

L. Clinton/D. Butter '08

mmmmmmm

What does the D stand for?!?!?

delicious!!

dipping

dipped in (i assume)

m. butter

What does the D stand for?!?!?

dude you're from RI!

Bringing in a New Era of American Deliciousness

dill

I know I'm a broken record here, but just as having an African-American guy named Obama defies conventional wisdom, his choosing the Face of Hollywood as his running mate would do so as well, in an audacious and maybe successful way.

I didn't realize you were serious about Obama/Clooney. I don't think Clooney would ever accept the offer, is the thing.

Although you know, it's hard to read that New Yorker profile and not come away thinking "goddamn that Clooney is likeable."

"the audacity of section 8 productions"

but yeah, i already thought clooney was fairly awesome and the time/new yorker articles recently just magnified that

I think he's likeable, smart, informed, and charismatic in ways that are very similar to Obama, so instead of B.O. choosing a candidate who would somehow represent old Washington Clooney would be New Post-Vietnam Paradigm x 2.

(and Post-Sensitive Guy)

hay j0hn d. would your eagerness for a female president be somewhat assuaged by the possibility of a obama/sibelius ticket?

DRAWN, ffs ppl

How about Obama/Andrew McCarthy? For the blonde vote.

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/041608DailyUpdateGraph1_bpd5ert.gif

uh ohhh

clooney = sex scandals waiting to happen

There has been movement to try to convince Clooney to run for political office in his home state of Kentucky, including talk of a Clooney candidacy for US Senate against Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2008.[29] In response, Clooney has said: "Run for office? No. I've slept with too many women, I've done too many drugs, and I've been to too many parties."

wiki

Poll Shows Obama Ahead as Candidate Dems See as Most Likely to Win in November

hay j0hn d. would your eagerness for a female president be somewhat assuaged by the possibility of a obama/sibelius ticket?

sort of, sure. I mean, here's the thing with that: the hurdle of a woman vice got jumped a long time ago - Mondale/Ferraro. (and to be an old man for a sec lol like I'm not an old man all day: I beg you to consider making an effort to replace "female" with "woman" when you can; I know it's like a minor deal but at the same time y'know just throwin' that out there) And technically the VP is the 2nd-in-command, sure. But it's hardly the office of the president. I mean - I assume that you, like me, are also kinda stoked at the idea of electing a black president. (If this is wrongheaded, OK guilty, I'm kinda antiquated/possibly stupid in the ways I think about correcting imbalances.) If I'm right in that assumption that you feel this way, would a black veep candidate carry the same resonance for you? It wouldn't for me; part of this is about symbolic power.

But. Having said that. For Obama to pick Sibelius would be read by some feminists (e.g. me) as a way of acknowledging that it really fucking sucks that there aren't women running for president in the primaries every four years - that it's frankly bizarre that a woman in the race is still even worthy of comment. And the old way-far-lefty in me gets kinda giddy about a black man/woman ticket, it appeals to my inner simpleminded radical I guess. But hell, I'm gonna vote Obama anyway, it's not like I'm gonna be all bummed out if/when he gets the nod. I think either candidacy would have important resonance on two things that in my opinion plague American culture: racism and misogyny. So short answer "not really, but it'd be nice anyhow," longer answer "sorta kinda."

the Vice Presidency is a lot different now than it was in '84. also Sebelius is closer to standard-issue Presidential age than Obama.

yes, it's different. no, it's not the same as being elected president. symbolically I think it's about the same. practically, i.e. in the sense that very involved political process watchers like yrself are concerned, sure ok. I think the symbolic distinction between "president" and "vice president" remains pretty strict.

I don't talk about how we've had man Presidents in the past, so why would I talk about the possibility of having a woman President in this election? Why is "male/female" verbiage something that one should consider correcting here?

yeah, that boggled me. is the point that 'female' is more of a modifier, while 'woman' is more of an identity?

I hope that's not the point because it only strengthens the argument for using "female" instead of "woman"!

Well, it could parse as 'president of females' in a way that woman president does not.

it could?

As opposed to "President of women"?

Female is a biological term and is used for animals, woman acknowledges the humanity and social construction of gender (this is not from me, but from my Women's Studies-related classes, though I try to follow it, clumsy though it may be).

It's one of those imperfect parts of the English language (or pretty much any language for that matter) that there isn't really a non-clumsy way to refer to women in many cases that doesn't have some sort of shitty linguistic connotation.

And yeah, technically, male isn't proper in this instance, either.

Okay that makes absolutely no sense to my understanding of the English language.

I don't talk about how we've had man Presidents in the past, so why would I talk about the possibility of having a woman President in this election?

Dan is this serious? half the human race is women, you don't find it worthy of comment that the other half is the only half that's held the highest office in the land for this country's entire history, nor that neither party has ever seen fit to even nominate one for the job?

("female" is just my sorta craw-sticking thing, never mind me when I get started on it, it just has always sounded very weird to me - why not "woman"? grammatically ok "female" is an adjective so parses cleaner, but it certainly doesn't mean "woman" & has [probably just for me, I've never heard anybody else rankle at it like I do] weird clinical connotations)

xpost yeah what en i see kay said. it's not like way high on the list of offensive stuff but it's always struck me as "really? 'a female president'?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/18/news/edsafire.php

Here's an article that explains it better than I can.

And yeah, technically, male isn't proper in this instance, either.

Okay, turns out I was wrong about this. The rest still stands, tho.

Hi J0hn, welcome to Completely Missing The Grammar Point Dan Is Making Because You're On Your Gender Politics Soapbox Theatre.

"Woman" and "man" are nouns. "Female" and "male" are adjectives. Why would I modify a noun with another noun when I could use an adjective? Or are you making the semantic point that it is more important that we are talking about a woman than it is that we are talking about a President?

I don't talk about how we've had man Presidents in the past, so why would I talk about the possibility of having a woman President in this election?

Dan is this serious? half the human race is women, you don't find it worthy of comment that the other half is the only half that's held the highest office in the land for this country's entire history, nor that neither party has ever seen fit to even nominate one for the job?

i think he was saying "the US has only had man presidents" sounds kind of ridiculous compared to "the US has only had male presidents". xposts!

I just misunderstood you Dan sorry however from the article linked:

There's nothing new about this: The use of woman as a modifier dates to 1300, with the poet John Dryden, translating Juvenal in 1697, noticing "a woman grammarian who corrects her husband for speaking false Latin." Today, usage is neck and neck, with woman as a modifier appearing to my ear as pulling ahead of female by a nose.

soo umm nyah, man male

There are plenty of words that were once strictly nouns that have found common and subsequently formal usage as adjectives, this is a case of feminists and the like trying (and more and more, successfully) using the fluidity of language to an advantage.

Every day I inch closer and closer to the opinion that poetry has done more to fuck up basic grammar than any other thing on this earth.