So McCain has nominated a woman Republican for vice president and upstaged the Democrats' change message to some degree. In 2006, I predicted that if the Democrats did not nominate a woman in 2008 then the Republicans would do so, if only for the tactical advantage it might provide.  Before I was banned from participation at DailyKos for failing to make a contribution there, I pointed it out in an essay at DailyKos on Friday, July 28, 2006 that if Hillary Clinton or another woman were not on the Democratic ticket, the Republicans would use the issue to upstage Democrats in 2008.  I said,

If the Democrats are indifferent or averse to the value of [women] "firsts", there is a significant political history suggesting that the Republicans might grab and claim this ground for women before the Democrats do, because they typically have arrived first in the past. The Republicans historically have been the first to elevate women. The first women in the US Senate, the US House of Representatives and the US Supreme Court were Republicans. "In 1917, Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, entered the U.S. House of Representatives, the first woman ever elected to Congress." In 1978, "Nancy Landon Kassebaum, a Kansas Republican, was elected to the United States Senate in her own right. In 1981, "Sandra Day O'Connor, a former Republican state legislator from Arizona who had served on a state appeals court, was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as the first woman ever to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court." Prior to the election of Nancy Kassebaum to the US Senate in 1978, all women who had ever served in the US Senate had succeeded their husbands in Congress or had first been appointed to fill out unexpired terms of somebody else." [ http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/... ]

So, if the Republicans have been first to elect women to the US Senate, the US House and to appoint a woman to the US Supreme Court, will the be the first to nominate and elect an woman President? I certainly hope not, because her name might be Condoleezza Rice. Yes, most Americans expect that US Senator Hillary Clinton will be nominated by the Democrats in 2008, but she is not then Condoleeza Rice or another Republican could become the first female president of the United States. [ http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/... ] That's something for Democrats to ponder as they weigh whether "firsts" have any remaining value in the post-Jackie Robinson age.

It is unfortunate that the only way that women could make strides into public office historically was when their husbands had held those offices first. Yet we must be grateful for those historic first because without them women might still be precluded, by custom if by nothing else, from participating at all. Certainly, our country should have been more "free" and it should be more free today. But, to lament and criticize the "husband route" is effectively to say that all-male leadership was and is preferable - a proposition that I hope few of us are yet ready to support. Criticism of the "husband route" has the damnable effect of supporting and advocating the sexist status quo.  DailyKos, July 28, 2006

Cross Posted to Clintonistas for Obama

Cross Posted to Daily Kos

Well, today has brought an interesting selection of a Vice Presidential nominee. John McBush went out on a limb and selected Governor Sarah "Panderbear" Palin as his Vice Presidential candidate, citing her as the running mate who can "best help him shake up Washington".

Or she could be the running mate that "best helps him pander in an intellectually dishonest way" to disillusioned Hillary voters. Sarah went right to work on that today, of course, comparing herself to Hillary and Geraldine Ferraro as a "groundbreaker" and telling us how she's going to finish Hillary's job and break the glass celing that has 18 million cracks in it.

(Proudly cross-posted at Clintonistas for Obama)

OK, now that the convention is over... It's time for us to get back to work! And for us here at C4O, this means getting more & better Democrats elected. So today, I'd like to introduce you to a truly awesome person who will make a fantastic Senator from New Hampshire.

Are you ready to meet her?

Let's compare some quotes:

Fox's profile of Palin: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/08/29/ sarah-palin-seen-as-gop-rising-star/

Almanac of American Politics: http://www.nationaljournal.com/almanac/2 008/people/ak/akgv.php

FOX:

Palin grew up in Wasilla, just outside of Anchorage, played on Wasilla's state champion girls' basketball team in 1982, wore the crown of Miss Wasilla in 1984 and competed in the Miss Alaska contest.

AoAP:

She grew up in Wasilla, just outside of Anchorage, played on Wasilla's state championship girls basketball team in 1982, wore the crown of Miss Wasilla in 1984 and competed in the Miss Alaska contest.

Firing someone for not doing family favors (not knowing why she fired him does not cut it); knowingly promoting a sexual harasser; creationism, only two meeting with McJoke, inexperience, endangered species killer, potsmoker, etc., etc. We learn all this is in only four hours. Tomorrow we will have a tome.  I have a bold prediction from a reeling mind and BTW: McJoke truly lost his marbles-in comparison to Q, at least Quayle had a foot in the ground (he was inexperenced but got a bad break- the potato spelling thing- please: he was a two term Senator from a major state coming from an important family- and he did have some important accomplishments)- the convention may be postponed- and if it is, the hurricane is only part of the reason-This time next week Palin will no longer be the VP nominee- you heard it here first.  

The Nutter Center in Dayton, on the Wright State campus near Wright Patterson AFB, was filled to capacity (~12K) for McCain's first appearance with running mate Sara Palin. The Republican Party in Ohio appears to have some life in it yet.

This should be a wake-up call to Ohioans that it will take superior organizational effort to win here. From what I've seen in Franklin County at least, Obama definitely has the edge there.

Here are some photos from the event:

My roommates and I (except for the one lifelong republican) watched Obama's speech last night, and loved it. One of my roommates, Neil, liked it so much was genuinely inspired. The lines about how Republicans have made these last three elections about small issues that don't matter got him, and Clinton's line about power through good example, rather than making an example of our power stirred him too. So much that last night he was proposing constructing an Obama sign on our prime real-estate (intersection of 3 major highways in Birmingham, Alabama) and asking how he could volunteer.

I told him to go down to the Obama campaign headquarters in downtown Birmingham today. He did, and it was closed for Labor Day. He said as he was standing outside the building, calling the number listed in the window, 3 other people approached and looked puzzled as the why the HQ was closed. He said they looked up at the marquee, and then down at the locked door again, wondering why the HQ wouldn't be open to capitalize on the inspiration from last night's speech.

It seems a silly move, to me, to have that place closed. I didn't know what to tell Neil, other than "wait five days and we'll go down there together", but still it sucked. Just thought I'd pass along my frustrations.

-Madison

One way to combat the McCain/Palin ticket and the fact that they will syphon off some of the disgruntled Clinton supporters.

If Hillary was Senate Majority Leader - SOON - it would help bolster her position within the Democratic Party and she could speak out more boldly from a position of POWER right now.

The fact that Obama by-passed her for VP in some odd way shows the DEMOCRATS to be the sexists, not the Republicans.

But

If Hillary took on a power position RIGHT NOW as Senate Majority leader (say) - this would be history making and put her in a very powerful position to combat the issues of a McCain/Palin ticket that are trying to grab some of her voters.