I can’t call this race. Two weeks out and I just don’t know who is going to win it. I knew by this time already in 1992, ‘96, 2000, and ‘04. I’m not a pollster and have no skills in statistics, but I had a real intuitive sense in those elections of who would win. The first Clinton win was easy–Perot was gonna split the difference slightly in his favor, which is what happened. I actually felt bad for Dole, and thought the Republican Party shamelessly threw their weakest candidate into a race they knew they couldn’t win directly. Gore could never win because he comes with an aura about him, as if he’s been anticipating the role his whole life. Americans weren’t going to let that happen; they hate that shit. Unless it’s a tough guy. And face it, Gore was no tough guy. Anyway, Kerry gave it away because he was weak and ineffectual.
But this election I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m in too deep to see it, or if I’ve been confused between the signs and the signals. As I said, my political prophesy skills are entirely intuitive. I can’t quite get a handle on that this year, I suspect due to all of the haka thrown around by the campaigns and the media. I wish I had Murphy’s enthusiasm in that regard. She is certain McCain will win. I only hope he does. I can see a glimmer of possibility emerging, though.
I have long held a secret hope, and it’s time to share it here. Something has been happening behind the scenes, at least as far as P&L blog stats are concerned, and it has been giving me hope all summer. I mentioned it in Denver to the crew. Check out these blog stats from today and yesterday. These are the search terms people used to find my blog.
<!–[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]–><!–[if gte mso 9]> <![endif]–>
Today
silent sentinels
peacocks and lilies
alice paul jail
who does the 19th amendment targets
alice paul force feeding
Yesterday
the’night of terror’ on nov. 15, 1917,
women democrats
wo5odrow wilson quote and 19th amendment
suffragists force feed
alice paul after 19th amendment
opposition to suffrage britain
frederick douglas and suffragettes
peacocks lillies
what actions were made for the 19th amen
19th amendment
Notice how nine of the 15 searches are searches for information on women’s history, generally searches associated with the 19th Amendment. Near as I can tell, women want to know about this stuff. I am so glad I posted those articles on the history of the First Wave this summer, because every day I wake up and I have two-four-or-six new searches like these. Searches for information on the history of the 19th Amendment account for more than half of the top 10 blog searches of all time here at P&L. Women want to know. And I see more and more of them speaking up on blogs across the Internet, their awareness and outrage building with each new offense in the war on women this year.
This is a GREAT development, because I think our unwillingness to speak up was part of the problem with Hillary’s campaign. I was reading comments somewhere and saw someone post how she’d had finally gotten brave enough to put a McCain sign in her yard, and how she wished she hadn’t been too afraid to put a Hillary sticker on her car during the campaign, but she was. And we were afraid, because the drum beat and haka started way back in November of last year, and by February, Clinton voters were pariahs online, subject to ridicule and arrogant condescension when they attempted to go about their daily online business.
But we’re finding our voice now. Or our way, rather. I secretly hope that women will bring it home for Palin. I think I have some reason to hope in that regard, but it’s not quite strong enough yet to give me that intuitive cultural in, the thing that will tell me, finally, how the cards will fall.
Maybe we’ll be like the Silent Sentinels. They were the group of women who started the ball rolling on the 19th Amendment, the women who stood in front of the White House every single day (except Sunday) for two years. Their dedication and courage—they too stood their ground in the face of enormous public vitriol—in many ways mirrors our own here in the PUMA movement. The Silent Sentinels where the moonbeams that tugged at the calming sea of the First Wave, roiling the surface, daring it to build its power once again for one last challenge. I like to see PUMA as moonbeams for the Fourth Wave. I just hope the wave is big enough in time.
October 24, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Anna,
SO so glad you’re back. Yes, that’s what did it for me too, your posts on the history of the women’s rights movement is what got your blog a permanent place on my feedreader.
Especially in those times when all the other supposed ‘feminist’ blogs and groups were busy fellatiating Barack Obama and trashing Hillary Clinton and her campaign, for her clothes, for her ‘rejection of feminity’ (blood boiling right about now), for her single-minded ambition and her ‘lack of genuineness’…..all in the name of “intersections of feminism” and other stupidity….. I cannot forget the number of times I heard, from FEMINISTS, that gender descrimination was nothing compared to racial discrimination in this country.
I loved that you & a handful others brought actual facts, logic and a sense of perspective along with the outrage. Thanks.
October 25, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Thanks, Chev. There’s still just a few of us hanging on. The wheels seem to be coming off the PUMA bus in recent days. We all need to take a deep breath and focus for the last push.
October 25, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Anna Belle, August 23, 2008:
“It’s official. Obama does not want to win. As I’m sure you know now, Biden has been selected…”
CognitiveDissonance, August 29, 2008 at 7:31 pm:
“…stick a fork in Obama now. He’s really, really done.”
Anna Belle, August 29, 2008 at 8:19 pm:
“Couldn’t agree more, CD. Abso-fucking-lutely!”
Anna Belle, October 24, 2008:
I can’t call this race. Two weeks out and I just don’t know who is going to win it.
—–
Whether or not NObama will make a good president is genuinely hard to know.
But as you bravely have, allow me to stick my neck out a little and say it’s almost certain that he will be president.
As in, stick a fork in McCainPalin, they’re abso-fucking-lutely done.
And this will have come about, because of all the available candidates, NObama was much better than the rest. He will have merited his victory. Hillary and McCain both fluffed their lines. HRC backed the war and then failed to understand the role caucuses play in the nomination process. While McCain, in a tough year for Republicans, suicidally played to the wingnut base with his VP pick. NObama made none of these mistakes and did a whole lot right besides.
You probably have your own rationale for why things have panned out like they have. But I’ll presumptuously contend, that the same flawed rationale that hindered your ability to see the manifest skill and potential of NObama all along, is what is preventing you now from clearly seeing what way both this election and public sentiment are heading.
October 25, 2008 at 5:38 pm
You might believe that fairy tale, bub, but the rest of us saw the fraud that happened during the primaries. We know that Obama didn’t win – he was drug across the finish line by the most fraudulent convention and caucuses ever held in the democratic party. He was given the nomination, because that’s what happens with pre-chosen puppets.
While so many seem to be of the impression that McCain can’t win, I don’t share that feeling. The polls have been too blatantly skewed. Really check out the cross tabs and you’ll see it. Notice all the screeching about Palin, and then ask yourself why they would even bother if Obama has it won. Ditto with the half hour coronation he bought himself before the world series opens. The anger of the PUMA’s is real and isn’t just confined to the PUMA’s anymore. It’s all over the place, even among people who don’t know what happened in the primaries, but still smell a rat. The bias has been so blatant, and the refusal to vet Obama so profound, that regular people – those of us the media ignores – are not going to buy it. Unless there is even more voting fraud than we already know about, I’m feeling that it’s going to be a comfortable McPalin win.
October 25, 2008 at 6:00 pm
CD, I’ve looked at a lot of polls. Even the ones Matt Drudge has been digging up. And while there is some discrepancy out there, if the underlying trends indicated hold true, McCain is in deep shit.
Real Clear Politics, which is considered right leaning, and FiveThirtyEight, which is lefty, both do poll averages, and both have NObama at >50%, 300+ electoral votes and ahead in all the battleground states.
To say that it’s going to be a comfortable win for McCainPalin defies logic, and is clearly not based on anything more concrete than gut instinct. You may turn out to be right. And fair play if you are, but you gotta say it’s looking like an unlikely fairy tale at this point.
October 25, 2008 at 6:20 pm
There was fraud in the caucuses, and the strategy the Obama team came up with barely got him across the finish line, and would have never gotten him across without the hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes he and his crew spread around Superdelagates, as well as the whole of the corrupt “new Democratic” power structure. What’s more, that same strategy left a significant number of Democratic soldiers dead on the field–these are people like me who will not vote for Obama no matter what, and will now no longer vote for any Democrat who doesn’t have a vagina or a very clear record of fighting against the corruption of Democrats and Republicans. To violently alienate a core group of your base on purpose is about as stupid as one can get.
October 25, 2008 at 6:37 pm
CD, and if polls aren’t your thing, here’s David Frum’s spin on what’s happening http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102302081.html.
And this is the what a sinking ship sounds like http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14929.html.
Anna Belle, I agree that corruption in both parties is a problem, though I’d guess we may disagree on whether Hillary receiving all of the Michigan votes and her opponent none would have been a corruption of the democratic process. But I struggle to see how a candidate’s lack of a vagina is pertinent. Surely merit and ability are gender agnostic?
October 26, 2008 at 9:37 am
bub,
WAY to ignore the facts, dude. There was NO WAY Obama was anywhere close to winning before the financial meltdown. The ONLY, repeat ONLY reason he’s doing so well now and the ONLY reason he may win is because the economy collapsed at such a perfect time. Before the economic collapse, McCain and he were tied (example:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/110668/Gallup-Daily-Race-Back-Tie-46-Each.aspx)
And to all those myths about why Obama is such an amazing figure, that he’s energized hordes of new people in the election and in politics, etc.:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/111331/No-Increase-Proportion-First-Time-Voters.aspx
The only reason Hillary isn’t the nominee is that she refused to use the scorched-earth tactics to destroy Barack’s reputation that she so easily could use, at the same time that Obama’s campaign whole-heartedly threw piles of shit at her and Bill Clinton.
The only reason John McCain is not leading in the polls is because he has forbidden his campaign to use Rev. Wright and go after Barack where it hurts. In the same position, Barack would’ve, as he’s shown so often, had NO compunctions flinging mud at John McCain – as he and his stooges have at Joe the Plumber.
You’re the one believing in fairy tales – Barack is a nightmare to the rest of us that still think.
October 26, 2008 at 10:27 am
Bub, I am on board with the 30% solution. You should definitely check that out, ftr.
Every woman, regardless of party, gets my vote first until there is parity. I’m actually on board with voting that way until women represent 50-full% of all elected positions. Merit and ability should be measurements for a fair society, where women and minorities already hold positions statistically equal to their representation in society. Until that happens, merit and ability will be measurements used to ensure further patriarchy.
If you’re down with patriarchy, go right ahead and vote your conscious. You own your vote.
Also, regarding Michigan, the corruption was with Dean, who never should had pulled that petulant bullshit anyway. Obama himself FURTHER corrupted the process when he took his name off the ballot. He did that for reasons of political opportunism (Iowa loved it) and cowardly fear (he was afraid a lose that big would have sunk his campaign). He did not have to do that, and other, more sensible leaders, would eventually come to see the folly of it and could have corrected it fairly. You’re right, though, I do think an ambitious coward jacking with electoral systems and playing games with voters is corrupt, and that’s the number one reason I can’t vote for Obama. It’s called–in the words of the honorable Martin Luther King, Jr.–character. He doesn’t have it.
October 26, 2008 at 7:30 pm
AB,
I think it is reasonable to think that a multiplier greater than 1 will amplify the Bradley effect in this election. The incessant name calling of “racist” employed by the Obama campaign, its supporters, and the media promoting Obama, has caused a silencing chill to fall over the electorate. It is difficult to say how pronounced this effect is, until the ballots are cast, as the silenced want to avoid the unjust social shaming that comes to those who are not choosing to vote for Obama.
SM