Geraldine Ferraro might vote for pro-life McCain instead of ’sexist’ Obama: When party politics turns into personality cult politics
Now, this is funny - and rather sad, of course:
Geraldine Ferraro, the only woman to run on a major party presidential ticket and a supporter of Hillary Clinton, has accused Barack Obama of conducting a “terribly sexist” campaign. Miss Ferraro, the losing Democratic candidate for vice-president in 1984, said that she might abandon her lifelong party loyalties and vote for the Republican John McCain if Mr Obama is confirmed as the nominee.
Now, I’m very sure misogyny is alive and well in the USA, as it is mostly everywhere else on this fine planet of ours but I think Ms Ferraro should be advised not to complain too much about the way Obama has campaigned.
As far as I can remember he has not spread evil rumours about his opponent - this in contrast to some of the really ugly stuff coming from team Clinton. Remember the one about Obama wearing some traditional garb? Yes, that one, which had one of the Clinton people dig up the Muslim thing again. Which Hilary was good enough to - well, not to deny, of course, when she said that “as far as she knew” Obama was a Christian.
Also, I can’t seem to recall Obama suggesting Hillary would not attract enough black votes. Yes, you know: how she, more than once said Obama would never win over enough white working class votes, with the emphasis very much on ‘white.’
Oh yes, one last small thing: Obama also didn’t warn Hillary that it might not be wise to stay in the race because history had shown that candidates who didn’t know when to stop could be shot like Bobby Kennedy…
So, again, Ferraro better not start playing that ‘He was so mean’ game. I know politics is a tough (and I would argue despicable) business but they don’t come tougher (or more despicable) than team Clinton. Apart from that though, it’s all very well to play the martyr for the feminist cause, saying you’d rather vote for McCain than Obama if the latter would win the nomination but that truly would be a betrayal of all the women who fought the good fight for better laws.
Feminism is not about glitter, not about having a female president (however welcome that would be, by the way) but about laws: about equality under the law. Any spiteful vote for McCain brings closer the reality of at least four more years of a Republican hand-picking judges for the Supreme Court.
I know most Democrats live under the illusion that John McCain secretly is one of them but a feminist like Ferraro should know - and does know better, of course. This is what McCain had to say about abortion:
“I am proud of my pro-life record in public life, and I will continue to maintain it. I will not draw my children into this discussion. As a leader of a pro-life party with a pro-life position, I will persuade young Americans [to] understand the importance of the preservation of the rights of the unborn.”
So, when it comes to the abortion issue, voting for McCain really is voting for at least four more ‘Bush light’ years - and Ferraro is now saying she might be be happy to do just that. Thank you, Ms Ferraro, for that. Another great day for political personality cult posturing - another very sad day for fairness, decency and, yes, a very, very bad day indeed for the feminist cause.
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May 25th, 2008 at 18:56
Would you like some cheese to go with that whine, Geraldine?
May 25th, 2008 at 20:08
Boy, what a long way some people come. She ran against Bush Sr. for the vice-president position in the 1984 election. She’s gone out of her mind.
I am pretty sure that, when push comes to shove, the Hillary fans who grumble about Obama being the nominee will not swarm to John McCain, despite the vocal bluffs. They will fall into line and support Obama, and frankly it won’t be that hard for them either.
I remember in 2000, all those people who said they would support Ralph Nader, who was very different from a then-neutered Al Gore, only to change their minds come November and cast a reluctant “vote against Bush” for Gore. Once it’s Obama vs. McCain, the candidates’ true colors will be on display and all the idle threats to desert Obama for beating Clinton will pretty much go up in smoke. Peace with our enemies vs. bomb bomb Iran? Pretty clear choice, Hillaryites!
May 25th, 2008 at 20:15
I want to know how so many insane people get power. Bush, Cheney, McCain, Mrs. Ferraro, and that’s just scratching the surface. I mean come on people, can’t we do better than this?
May 25th, 2008 at 21:18
I dunno. I mean I get what you’re saying, I do, but I also DO think there’s a lot of rampant sexism out there. I wouldn’t agree that Obama has run a sexist campaign but I respect Ferraro’s right to think that. I also think it’s a mistake to pose this as spite vs. feminism (and a wee bit sexist, no?) MS. (not miss, btw) Ferraro (or actually better yet, Ambassador or former U.S. Representative Ferraro; really hard to make a case that you’re not being sexist when you refer to her as Miss. Would you call Mondale, “Mr. Unmarried Mondale” or “that Mondale dude” shudders) has an opinion that she prefers to vote for McCain. Her right no? Further, she says she’s doing it because she believes that Obama ran a sexist campaign? Again, I don’t agree, but to presume that the only reason “Miss Ferraro” could possibly be saying this is “spite” smacks of sexism or at least, sure makes me wince.
Further, I’m betting there’s one or two feminists out there who are pro-life, or gasp, Republicans, or gasp gasp, aren’t single issue voters.
Hey, I’ll be voting for Obama, before you launch the attack. I just resent the sentiment, as a feminist, that to be one you HAVE to think one way, vote for one candidate, hate the same people, be against the same issues. I thought the definition of feminism was supporting equal rights for women, and a world where women have the same opportunities to thrive as men. That’s the one I’m working toward and have in my heart when I call myself one, and support fellow women, even when they make mistakes, even when they’re Hillary Clinton.
May 25th, 2008 at 21:43
Thanks for the comments.
James, the old ones still work nicely, don’t they?
Michael, I hope you’re right but there are some seriously zealotic people out there who might, as the saying goes, indeed cut their nose to spite their face. We’ll find out in November which way they chose to jump, I guess (or stay at home and pout.)
Mike, looking at the human race as a whole: No, we probably couldn’t do much better than this…
washword, because I didn’t know what honorific to choose I went with what the article called her. If they had it wrong, then my excuses for copying their mistake and passing it on.)
I agree that you can easily be a feminist and a Republican: probably not one of the social consrvative Republicans but there are still enough of those old fiscal conservatives around who wouldn’t dream of the state interefering in these circumstances (although they tend to keep realtively quiet about those particular views.)
And I’m certainly not suggesting that feminism is some strange one-issue colossus that demands its followers to speak in only one voice. Thanks to the simplicity of the media coverage it may seem that to be a feminist means you’re automatically pro this and contra that but that’s simply not true. Feminism has many branches and most of these are constantly evolving.
Still, I would think most feminists are pro-choice and are quite concerned with the direction the US have been marching in these last decades on these particular issues. So, I do think that for an old style feminist like Ferraro to say that she thinks of voting for someone who’s pro-life instead of a Democratic candidate who is pro-choice is quite outrageous.
There has been a lot of truly atrocious instances of sexism during this campaign, not the least of it by the old guard within the Democratic party. I’m not sure Obama has been guilty of that. That day that he smirked at Hillary (’likeable-gate’) was really ugly but maybe more personal than sexist, though it could have been partly the latter as well. I can’t look inside the man’s heart, so I really don’t know. Looking at his wife I’d rather doubt he can be very sexist, unless he is VERY good at hiding it but I also have no proof of that.
Anyway, it has been a very ugly campaign. I’d argue that most of the dirtiest stuff have been coming from Team Clinton but that might just be a matter of personal perspective. I’m very sad that things have gone the way they have. I was very excited when Hillary decided to run and (even though I’m not an American) I would have voted for her then and rooted for her - only to get very disappointed by her and her team’s behaviour. If anyone would have told me only a year ago I’d ever NOT vote for a Democratic woman as a presidential candidate, I’d declare him or her insane. I have come to distrust her too much though. In my eyes she’s morphed into a Democratic version of Karl Rove. (And the Iraq thing still hurts: I have to admit I lost a lot of respect for her even then.)
The irony is though, that if she would have won (or yet win) the nomination I would nevertheless have absolutely voted for her in November, for feminist and other reasons. I could never have voted for a man who was so much pro life AND pro war as McCain is. That someone like Ferraro even contemplates doing just that saddens me (almost) beyond words,
J.
May 25th, 2008 at 23:07
So far, through all the primaries, Obama and Clinton have each earned around 17 million votes.
McCain has had around 9 million votes.
If this holds true then either Obama or Clinton would win over McCain by around a 2:1 margin in the general election. That’s assuming none of the voters from “the other candidate” switched sides.
In order for dis-satisfied Clinton voters to throw the election to McCain about 1/2 of them would have to switch sides. I don’t see that happening. Maybe 10% or so are that stupid. Another 10% or so are Republican plants who have no intention of voting for Clinton in the fall.
May 25th, 2008 at 23:15
Thanks. I’m not totally sure of the maths here. I’m not doubting these figures you gave but the whole voting system is so complicated. As we all know, you don’t have to win the overall vote to become a president - and since so many states are (usually) going this way or that, it all hangs on a few crucial states. In the last two elections Florida and Ohio were of huge importance.
I don’t know how things will shape up this time around but it could be that in some crucial ’swing’ states it could make a serious difference whether a relatively small percentage of the population (in this case those fervent Clinton fans) decided to vote for McCain (or simply wouldn’t bother to vote at all.)
Again, I’m not saying this will be the case but I suppose it could happen,
J
May 26th, 2008 at 00:33
I suppose it’s sexist to call a woman “sweetie,” but not sexist to forbid the little ladies control over their own bodies.