Apparently, women's rights and interests just are not part of the "official" progressive agenda. I am so sorry to be writing this because the Center For American Progres (CAP) is an institution I have supported, by promoting it and by contributing to it. I have great respect for John Podesta who heads CAP and is now serving as President-elect Obama's transition team adviser. CAP has been touted as the source of an agenda for the incoming president and I'm sure it would like to play that role. Over at CAP's website, one finds this, front and foremost:   The Economy... National Security... Health Care... The Climate Crisis... See any mention of women's rights? Representation of women in government? Empowering women? While I cannot say I am surprised by this, I can say I am outraged. I can also say that I think "official" progressive voices are acting incredibly stupidly. I think they are blinkered and blindered and have no idea how many Americans will not join their enthusiasm for the President-Elect so long as he and they continue to be silent on the double-standards that continue to render women second class citizens in our own country let alone around the world. I also know, unfortunately, that in the short term, as "official" progressives bask in the Democratic victory there is almost nothing that can be done to get an Obama administration to take women's issues, rights, and empowerment seriously (let alone gay rights or the rights of D.C. residents to be represented in Congress. We knew that an Obama victory would be taken as license to ignore women's voices; that it would not matter how many women or women's organizations sold their souls (in my opinion) to put a Democrat in the White House. We knew this because we watched an entire primary and general election campaign unfold in which Senator Obama made no commitment to women's empowerment and never once spoke out against the misogyny that ran rampant through this election cycle. I am ever more convinced that Americans who care about the problem of misogyny and sexism are going to have to use the same methods - resistance, demonstration, noncooperation - that forced white Americans to heed the moral unacceptability of racism and bigotry to get male Americans to heed the moral unacceptability of sexism and racism. That this level of struggle is required is a tragedy. It is particularly tragic because Senator Obama and the "official" progressive crowd had a golden opportunity to spare us all. This year a progressive woman candidate, who also happens to have stood up repeatedly for women's rights, a woman who has the respect of millions of Americans could have been asked to play a prominent role in Obama administration or in the incoming Senate session. Her name is Hillary Rodham Clinton. But rather than ask her to play a prominent role, Senator Obama's surrogates have in fact told Senator Clinton that she is out of order for seeking a leadership role on an issue that DOES make the "official" list of progressive causes: health care. (Apparently, it is just too, too presumptious for somebody who won more votes to become the Democratic Party's candidate than any other person in the history of the Democratic Party to expect to be empowered to act in the name of a cause in which she has major expertise. Odd, because it was not considered presumptious by his fellow senators for Senator Obama to run for president as the junior Senator from Illinois with less than 200 days of experience in that position. Oh wait, not odd - Senator Obama is a man, so he was just being a brilliant politician.) Senator Clinton says her only goal is to be the best Senator from New York she can be and to do what she can to aid Senator Obama's administration. Good for Senator Clinton. She has set goals that she will attain easily - she will be, as she has been, great for the people of New York; and she's proven that she can be of tremendous assistance to Senator Obama, helping him win voters he would otherwise have been likely to lose. Now, the rest of us will have to set some goals, without the sure knowledge that we can achieve them, without yet even a sure path to how to achieve them. My list:

• Resolved: to continue to refuse to accept that we must live with a politics awash in private money;
• Resolved: to hold the media accountable and demand that they provide full information regardless of the editorial tilt of owners, editors, or reporters.
• Resolved: to continue to refuse to accept so-called progressive or liberal leaders who do not make the issues of sexism and misogyny front and central in the fight for a more just America;
• Resolved: to demand reform of the Democratic Party and particularly its leadership, or, in the alternative, work to form a rival to the current DNC if reform is unattainable;
• Resolved: to make sure that the pipeline to elected political leadership is flooded with talented women, so many that eventually no major party will be able to refuse support for a woman at the top of the ticket;
• Resolved: to use the skills and connections forged this season, including the fundraising skills, to support the aforementioned goals.

For a good read on related ideas go here, and here.

Nobody achieves all of his or her goals; nobody is perfect. But read below the excerpts from the U.S. Senate biography, and you will understand why I think our party needs a present-day Hubert Humphrey. I have no idea if there is anybody currently in office who can step up to the task - but, look, Humphrey got his start as a mayor - so you never know where we will find the next politician who combines the right mix of conscience, political savvy, and contrarianism to be the force that Humphrey was. As Democrats and former Democrats struggle to find a way forward, Humphrey offers an example of a leader whose long career spanned troubled and less troubled periods for the country; a leader who did not attain his all of his highest ambitions but accomplished a great deal of his admirable agenda; a leader who stood up for justice and ended up seeing our government catch up to his stands. If I could I would send every Democrat now scrambling for a position in the new administration a copy of Humphrey's biography, because while he was indeed a deeply ambitious politician he was first a deeply devoted public servant, demonstrating that one can be both.

Hubert H. Humphrey, 38th Vice President (1965-1969) (emphases added)

I did not become vice president with Lyndon Johnson to cause him trouble. —Hubert H. Humphrey, 1965 As vice president during 1968—arguably the United States' most politically turbulent post-World War II year—Hubert Humphrey faced an excruciating test of statesmanship. During a time of war in Southeast Asia when the stakes for this nation were great, Humphrey confronted an agonizing choice: whether to remain loyal to his president or to the dictates of his conscience. His failure to reconcile these powerful claims cost him the presidency. Yet few men, placed in his position, could have walked so agonizing a tightrope over so polarized a nation. Near the end of his long career, an Associated Press poll of one thousand congressional administrative assistants cited Hubert Humphrey as the most effective senator of the preceding fifty years. A biographer pronounced him "the premier lawmaker of his generation." Widely recognized during his career as the leading progressive in American public life, the Minnesota senator was often ahead of public opinion—which eventually caught up with him. When it did, he was able to become one of Congress' most constructive legislators and a "trail blazer for civil rights and social justice." His story is one of rich accomplishment and shattering frustration. ... A Prairie Progressive The origins of the Minnesotan's "zealous righteousness" can be found in his home state's tradition of agrarian reformism that tenaciously promoted "the disinherited" underdogs at the expense of "the interests." Humphrey personally was a warm, sincere, even "corny" populist, an old-time prairie progressive politically descended from the likes of William Jennings Bryan, George Norris, and Robert La Follette, Sr. Born in South Dakota in 1911, Humphrey learned his ideology first hand in the persistent agricultural depression of the Midwest during the 1920s and 1930s. He and his family were victims, like so many others, of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression that had evicted them from their home and business. Humphrey's poor, rural upbringing stirred both him and his pharmacist father to become politically conscious, ardent New Dealers. Thus Humphrey was "permanently marked by the Depression," which in turn stimulated him to study and teach college political science in the employ of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration. After Humphrey became an administrator in that agency, the Minnesota Democratic party recognized his oratorical talents and, in their search for "new blood," tapped him as candidate for mayor of Minneapolis. Although he lost his first race in 1943, he succeeded in 1945. This post would prove to be Humphrey's sole executive experience until the time of his vice-presidency. He made the most of it, successfully impressing his reformist principles on organized crime by stretching his mayoral powers to their limit on the strength of his personality and his ability to control the city's various factions. Hubert Humphrey's mayoral success and visibility propelled him directly into the Senate for a career that would encompass five terms. He was first elected in 1948 after gaining national attention at the Democratic National Convention with his historic plea for civil rights legislation. Although no strong constituency existed for this issue in Minnesota, the position was in line with Humphrey's championing of others among his state's underdogs, including farmers, labor, and small business. In hammering his civil rights plank into the platform, Humphrey helped to bring the breakaway progressive supporters of Henry Wallace back into the Democratic fold, while simultaneously prompting the Dixiecrats to walk out of the convention hall and the party. In the Senate Humphrey's headline-grabbing civil rights speech appealed to Minneapolis' liberal community, and his stand in favor of the Marshall Plan and against the Taft-Hartley labor-management relations law attracted the support of farmers and labor. As a result, Minnesota elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time since 1901. In his first feisty days in the Senate, Humphrey immediately moved to the cutting edge of liberalism by introducing dozens of bills in support of programs to increase aid to schools, expand the Labor Department, rescind corporate tax loopholes, and establish a health insurance program that was eventually enacted a decade and a half later as Medicare. In addition, Humphrey spoke as a freshman senator on hundreds of topics with the ardor of a moralizing reformer. Accustomed to discussing candidly and openly policy matters that disturbed him, the junior senator quickly ran afoul of the Senate's conservative establishment. He found that many senators snubbed him for his support of the Democratic party's 1948 civil rights plank .... Yet Humphrey, under the guidance of Democratic leader Lyndon Johnson, soon moderated his ways, if not his goals. As New York Times congressional correspondent William S. White observed in his classic study of the early 1950s Senate, Humphrey's

slow ascent to grace was [due to] the clear, but far from simple, fact that he had in him so many latently Senatorial qualities. Not long had he been around before it became evident that, notwithstanding his regrettable past, he had a tactile sense of the moods and the habits and the mind of the place.

By the mid-1950s, Humphrey had moved into the ranks of the Senate's "Inner Club." .... Out of defeat, the irrepressible Minnesotan snatched senatorial victory by becoming the choice of departing Majority Leader and Vice President-elect Lyndon Johnson for Senate majority whip. Humphrey used his new post to become a driving force in the Senate. Johnson had promoted Humphrey for this leadership position as a reward for his cooperation in the Senate and to solidify a relationship for the benefit of the Kennedy administration. Newly elected Majority Leader Mike Mansfield noted Humphrey's "vibrant personality and phenomenal energy." These traits, coupled with a new-found pragmatism, gained him appointment to the Appropriations Committee and a solid record of legislative accomplishment. Humphrey went on to become a major congressional supporter of a number of New Frontier programs, many of which had been originally outlined in his own bills in the 1950s. Chief among these were the Job Corps, the Peace Corps, an extension of the Food for Peace program, and "a score of progressive measures" pertaining to health, education, and welfare. Humphrey's role in pressing for the landmark 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union ranks as one of his greatest triumphs. A supporter of disarmament since the 1950s, he helped persuade President Eisenhower to follow the Soviets into a voluntary testing moratorium. Humphrey was a follower of George Kennan's geo-strategic analysis, which counselled a moderate course designed selectively and nonprovocatively to contain Soviet probes into areas vital to the United States. This middle way between provocation and disarmament also encouraged pragmatic negotiations, and Humphrey continued to prod President John F. Kennedy into the more permanent test ban treaty and the establishment of a U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. At the treaty-signing ceremony, President Kennedy recognized Humphrey's years of often lonely efforts, commenting, "Hubert, this is your treaty—and it had better work." The principal items on Humphrey's longstanding domestic legislative agenda failed to advance significantly until the so-called "Great Society" period that followed Kennedy's death. The first, and perhaps biggest, breakthrough came with passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which he managed in a Senate obstructed by southern filibusterers. In working for that legislation, Humphrey skilfully combined his talent as a soft-spoken, behind-the-scenes negotiator with a rhetorical hard sell focused on the media. Humphrey's subsequent record of legislative achievement was remarkable. With his support, federal aid to farmers and rural areas increased, as did the new food stamp program and foreign-aid food exports that benefited the farms. Congress authorized scholarships, scientific research grants, aid to schools, rehabilitation of dropouts, and vocational guidance. Legislation promoted public power projects, mass transportation, public housing, and greater unemployment benefits. While the Minnesota senator could claim credit for helping to create millions of jobs, he also reaped the scorn of critics fearful of deficit spending. Humphrey replied that "a balanced budget is a futile dream," which could not be attained anyway until "the world is in balance." Dismissing those "Scrooges" who harbored a "bookkeeper's mentality," Humphrey, a self-proclaimed "jolly Santa," reiterated his priority, people's "needs and desires." ... Perhaps the key to Humphrey's indefatigable essence was that he placed personal political ambition below his support of a larger agenda. The innumerable bills that he introduced and shepherded through Congress demonstrate that, with Humphrey, the people and their issues came first.

Recently, I wrote that it would be both refreshing and advisable to hear President-Elect Obama commit to bringing the number of women on the Supreme Court in line with the percentage of women in the general population, meaning five women on the High Court, asap. In addition the President can affect the composition of the federal judiciary at all levels. Although eight years of George W. Bush appointments has stacked the lower federal courts with conservative appointments, mostly youngish men, the next President could pledge now to consider appointing qualified women before adding any further qualified men until the composition of the federal judiciary as whole reflects the proportion of women in the country. A rather cursory web search reveals that women comprise only about 28 per cent of the federal judiciary (District Courts, Courts of Appeal and Supreme Court); women comprise just over 50% of the U.S. population as a whole.

Hubert H. Humphrey 1948 Democratic National Convention Address In 1948 Hubert Humphrey stopped the tradition in the Democratic Party whereby the Democrats ignored Jim Crow in order to keep in coalition with the Southern States and thereby win elections. Humphrey's speech on behalf fractured the Democratic Party - it had nothing to do with unity and everything to do with justice. Today's Democratic Party is giddy on the heels of winning the Presidency. But what the Democratic Party needs is a modern-day Hubert Humphrey: somebody who will risk losing political power in the name of justice. We need a modern-day Hubert Humphrey who will use his or her existing political stature to hold the Democratic Party accountable for recognizing women's rights and GBLT rights. The current President-Elect, Barack Obama, is consistently described as risk-averse and cautious by his supporters. So now we need a politician who is not risk-averse and cautious, who is brave enough to stand up to his or her own Party and tell it that it can and must do better than it has, and it must start improving immediately. Just as Humphrey voiced controversial ideas to the very successful Democratic Party of FDR, we need a Democrat who will voice controversial ideas to the new Democratic administration. Humphrey's address appears below (emphases added). You can listen to the speech here. Mr. Chairman, fellow Democrats, fellow Americans: I realize that in speaking in behalf of the minority report on civil rights as presented by Congressman DeMiller of Wisconsin that I'm dealing with a charged issue -- with an issue which has been confused by emotionalism on all sides of the fence. I realize that there are here today friends and colleagues of mine, many of them, who feel just as deeply and keenly as I do about this issue and who are yet in complete disagreement with me. My respect and admiration for these men and their views was great when I came to this convention. It is now far greater because of the sincerity, the courtesy, and the forthrightness with which many of them have argued in our prolonged discussions in the platform committee. Because of this very great respect -- and because of my profound belief that we have a challenging task to do here -- because good conscience, decent morality, demands it -- I feel I must rise at this time to support a report -- the minority report -- a report that spells out our democracy, a report that the people of this country can and will understand, and a report that they will enthusiastically acclaim on the great issue of civil rights. Now let me say this at the outset that this proposal is made for no single region. Our proposal is made for no single class, for no single racial or religious group in mind. All of the regions of this country, all of the states have shared in our precious heritage of American freedom. All the states and all the regions have seen at least some of the infringements of that freedom -- all people -- get this -- all people, white and black, all groups, all racial groups have been the victims at time[s] in this nation of -- let me say -- vicious discrimination. The masterly statement of our keynote speaker, the distinguished United States Senator from Kentucky, Alben Barkley, made that point with great force. Speaking of the founder of our Party, Thomas Jefferson, he said this, and I quote from Alben Barkley: He did not proclaim that all the white, or the black, or the red, or the yellow men are equal; that all Christian or Jewish men are equal; that all Protestant and Catholic men are equal; that all rich and poor men are equal; that all good and bad men are equal. What he declared was that all men are equal; and the equality which he proclaimed was the equality in the right to enjoy the blessings of free government in which they may participate and to which they have given their support. Now these words of Senator Barkley’s are appropriate to this convention -- appropriate to this convention of the oldest, the most truly progressive political party in America. From the time of Thomas Jefferson, the time when that immortal American doctrine of individual rights, under just and fairly administered laws, the Democratic Party has tried hard to secure expanding freedoms for all citizens. Oh, yes, I know, other political parties may have talked more about civil rights, but the Democratic party has surely done more about civil rights. We have made progress -- we've made great progress in every part of this country. We’ve made great progress in the South; we’ve made it in the West, in the North, and in the East. But we must now focus the direction of that progress towards the -- towards the realization of a full program of civil rights to all. This convention must set out more specifically the direction in which our Party efforts are to go. We can be proud that we can be guided by the courageous trail blazing of two great Democratic Presidents. We can be proud of the fact that our great and beloved immortal leader Franklin Roosevelt gave us guidance. And we be proud of the fact -- we can be proud of the fact that Harry Truman has had the courage to give to the people of America the new emancipation proclamation. It seems to me -- It seems to me that the Democratic Party needs to to make definite pledges of the kinds suggested in the minority report, to maintain the trust and the confidence placed in it by the people of all races and all sections of this country. Sure, we’re here as Democrats. But my good friends, we’re here as Americans; we’re here as the believers in the principal and the ideology of democracy, and I firmly believe that as men concerned with our country’s future, we must specify in our platform the guarantees which we have mentioned in the minority report. Yes, this is far more than a Party matter. Every citizen in this country has a stake in the emergence of the United States as a leader in the free world. That world is being challenged by the world of slavery. For us to play our part effectively, we must be in a morally sound position. We can’t use a double standard -- There’s no room for double standards in American politics -- for measuring our own and other people’s policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantee of those practices in our own country. Friends, delegates, I do not believe that there can be any compromise on the guarantees of the civil rights which we have mentioned in the minority report. In spite of my desire for unanimous agreement on the entire platform, in spite of my desire to see everybody here in honest and unanimous agreement, there are some matters which I think must be stated clearly and without qualification. There can be no hedging -- the newspaper headlines are wrong. There will be no hedging, and there will be no watering down -- if you please -- of the instruments and the principals of the civil-rights program. My friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late. To those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights. People -- human beings -- this is the issue of the 20th century. People of all kinds -- all sorts of people -- and these people are looking to America for leadership, and they’re looking to America for precept and example. My good friends, my fellow Democrats, I ask you for a calm consideration of our historic opportunity. Let us do forget the evil passions and the blindness of the past. In these times of world economic, political, and spiritual -- above all spiritual crisis, we cannot and we must not turn from the path so plainly before us. That path has already lead us through many valleys of the shadow of death. And now is the time to recall those who were left on that path of American freedom. For all of us here, for the millions who have sent us, for the whole two billion members of the human family, our land is now, more than ever before, the last best hope on earth. And I know that we can, and I know that we shall began [sic] here the fuller and richer realization of that hope, that promise of a land where all men are truly free and equal, and each man uses his freedom and equality wisely well. My good friends, I ask my Party, I ask the Democratic Party, to march down the high road of progressive democracy. I ask this convention to say in unmistakable terms that we proudly hail, and we courageously support, our President and leader Harry Truman in his great fight for civil rights in America!

I began Heidi Li's Potpourri as an alternative to cluttering friends' email in-boxes with my thoughts and observations about the 2007-08 Democratic primary season and my support for Senator Clinton's bid for the Party's nomination. Gradually, I have expanded the scope of the writing here to go beyond Senator Clinton's candidacy and to consider progressivism and its present demands. To my delight and surprise, I have ended up with a fairly large number of regular readers, most of whom I know only through this channel. I began this Potpourri, assuming that it would end in the summer and then that it would end after the election.  I plan to continue the site. But now I must put it on a different pace, to attend to matters that I had assumed would begin receiving my full attention months ago. If you subscribe to the blog, you'll automatically know when there are new posts. If you are a person who has been checking in regularly, I hope you will still stop by from time to time. The most important thing: slowing the pace of writing here is NOT to be taken as acceptance of the current state of affairs in this country's politics. Indeed quite the opposite: the lessons I have learned from this election season have made me realize that my own efforts toward a more just politics will, like so many other people's, have to continue indefinitely. We are in a marathon, not a sprint. As we all keep running, I look forward to sharing my thoughts with others who chose to visit Heidi Li's Potpourri, even if content is added to it more gradually than has been the case to date.

So far, none have been announced. It appears that President-Elect Obama that Representative Rahm Emanuel will be the new President's Chief of Staff. The public face of the administration will also be a man, it appears, as Obama campaign communications director Robert Gibbs is the reported pick for press secretary. Apparently, President-Elect Obama is not sensitive to the fact that announcing or leaking the names of appointments before any women are included in the top ranks - IF any women are to be included - is further alienating to Democrats who already believe him insensitive (at best) to equal political representation for women. To my mind, this makes it all important that the Democratic Senators vote Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to the position of Senate Majority Leader assuming she is willing to take the position. Senator Clinton's fellow Senator from New York, Chuck Schumer, currently second in line in to Senator Harry Reid, Democratic Senate leadership, would ordinarily be considered a natural successor to Reid. Both of these gentlemen should agree to step aside; we know that if they do not and Senator Clinton makes it known she would take the position, let alone that she might actually want it, she will be accused of overstepping. This is an annoying fact, but since it is a fact Reid and Schumer should deal with it and make way for nationally recognized Democrat to lead the Senate in 2009. For some time now I have been urging voters and Democratic Senators to get involved in this cause. From the website dedicated to it:

Statement of Purpose

…. The majority leader has the right to be called upon first if several senators are seeking recognition by the presiding officer, which enables him to offer motions or amendments before any other senator. Although party floor leadership posts carry great responsibility, they provide few specific powers. Instead, floor leaders have largely had to depend on their individual skill, intelligence, and personality. Majority leaders seek to balance the needs of senators of both parties to express their views fully on a bill with the pressures to move the bill as quickly as possible toward enactment. These conflicting demands have required majority leaders to develop skills in compromise, accommodation, and diplomacy. Lyndon Johnson, who held the post in the 1950s, once said that the greatest power of the majority leader was "the power of persuasion." The majority leader usually works closely with the minority leader so that, as Senator Bob Dole explained, "we never surprise each other on the floor." The party leaders meet frequently with the president and with the leaders of the House of Representatives. The majority leader also greets foreign dignitaries visiting the Capitol. The power of the Senate Majority turns largely on the talents of the Majority Leader who must be a person with great ideas and extremely political savvy. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton fits the bill perfectly. Her ideas and policy positions have won a clear mandate from the voters of America. She has demonstrated repeatedly an ability to work across the aisle to attain major legislative accomplishments; but she has also demonstrated that she will not simply cave to expediency (e.g. her vote on the FISA bill, her ongoing fight to ensure reproductive rights for all). As for meeting with foreign dignitaries, Senator Clinton is known and respected around the world. If her peers elect her as majority leader, this will send the message to all those abroad that she is just as respected here at home. To become the Senate Majority Leader in 2009, Senator Clinton must win election to that position by being voted into it by her fellow Democratic Senators, a vote that usually occurs in early January. You can direct others to this website by giving them this URL: www.hrcforsenatemajorityleader09.com There are instructions at that website for how to become a signatory. I urge you to contact your own Senators if they are Democrats and urge them to get behind this effort.

Right now, via every channel we each used to communicate our preferences and our desires from the public servants who sought our votes, we need to tell those who have been elected what we expect from them. We need to begin to beat our drums until they ring so loudly they cannot be ignored. I live in Washington D.C. I have no representation in the Senate and my House member does not have voting rights. (To learn more, look here.) Talk about disenfranchisement. With no representation in the U.S. Congress, I am especially reliant on the President of the United States to represent my interests. The President is the only federal level official who represents the people not only of all the United States but especially of the Washington, D.C. So as our President-Elect starts making plans and pondering appointments, I have a request. As we were continually reminded up through yesterday, this President-Elect will probably have the chance to make multiple Supreme Court appointments. I expect him, and his successors if he does not have the opportunity to make sufficient appointments, to appoint women and only women until the make-up of the court approximates the make-up of the general population: that is until there are five women justices and four men. With a robust Democratic presence in the Senate and a huge pool of talented women from which to draw, this would be one of the easiest ways for President-Elect Obama to demonstrate genuine recognition of gender imbalance in political life. Oh, and Mr. Obama, you have the power to ask Congress to remedy that disenfranchisement problem we folks in the nation's capital suffer from. My voteless representative will be working to make sure legislation is introduced to solve the problem. I expect you to support this legislation unreservedly.

Notes to President-Elect Obama: Last night I urged you to turn your attention to full civil and economic rights for women. Today I write to remind you of another group within American society that will now need the full support of their President in order gain full legal standing: gay and lesbian Americans. Along with thousands of others I donated funds to defeat Proposition 8 in California (a referendum banning gay marriage, and which passed despite your win in California). One of the reasons I supported Senator Clinton's bid for the Democratic nomination is her steadfast commitment to stand with GBLT community, by marching in PRIDE parades and, during the primary seasons, consistently speaking with GBLT press about issues of particular concern to the GBLT community. You chose a different path, declining to give interviews and you did not raise your voice against Proposition 8. I know that not every gay or lesbian person agrees that gay marriage is of the highest priority on the issues facing gays and lesbians. I, however, believe that denying same sex couples the right to marry is the moral equivalent of denying people of different races the right to marry. There is no basis in civil society (as opposed to particular religious traditions) to deny the civil benefits of marriage to same sex couples. In my own wedding ceremony, we asked the judge to quote large portions of Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court decision that struck down state laws against interrracial marriage. We made this request because we believe the institution of civil marriage is of political and legal import and that when two people join in that institution they should do so in recognition and honor of that fact. But the institution becomes less worthy of honor when it is infected with bigotry and discrimination. Proposition 8 carries this malignancy. As I wrote yesterday, when I congratulated you on your victory, my hope is that you will live up to the highest hopes of your most fervent supporters. I believe they supported you because you promised to bring unity where there was division and to create a more just America, and they believed your promise. Now that you have won election to the Presidency, I hope that you become a leader in the fight for full legal and social standing for members of the GBLT community. They are among the many Americans who must be encompassed by the unity and justice that for which you have claimed to stand.  

(source for image) Senator Obama: Congratulations on your victory.  May you live up to the highest and best hopes of your most fervent supporters. May you make this country the better place you have said you want it to be. Kay Hagan, Jeanne Shaheen: heartiest congratulations upon your respective elections to the United States Senate. A number of Democratic women with terrific policy positions who were running for House seats have, unfortunately, lost their bids. It appears that Alice Kryzan (NY), Victoria Wulsin (OH), and Lisa Stender (NJ) are among these losers. At the time of this writing, it is less clear how women running in the western states will do. Even if all women running for the Senate yesterday were to prevail, only one additional woman in the Senate, will be added at best (source). Best case scenario for the house, 5 additional women (source). Governors, no matter what, one fewer woman holding that position (source). This is not good news for those still hoping to see a woman President any time soon. Nevertheless, human rights advocates of both genders will now be working to win the fight for full political and economic recognition of women, both in the U.S. and abroad.  President-Elect Obama: What will you be doing to increase representation by women in elected office? Will you support a woman who clearly supports such increased representation to head the DNC? Will you support Senator Clinton for Senate Majority Leader? Will you support a change to the Democratic Party rules that makes for winner-take-all primaries and eliminates caucuses? Will you and Senator Biden support women to fill your Senate seats? Will you create a Presidential Commission on Women?   Will you announce that you will send Congress the Equal Rights Amendment for passage during your first hundred days? Will you be sending Congress a new version of the Lily Ledbetter law and other legislation aimed at eliminating the wage gap between men and women? Will you go on record as opposing the creeping restrictions on women's access to abortion that the Supreme Court's post-Roe jurisprudence allows? Will you speak out against regimes around the world that deny women the right to the ballot, that force women as a matter of law to wear required garb? Having won the Presidency, will you, Senator Obama, prove that you are going to join us in the greatest civil rights battle of our time, the fight for full political and economic recognition of women both in the U.S. and abroad?

Like many other Democrats who will conscientiously abstain from voting in this year's presidential election, I have been asked, sometimes politely, sometimes less so, to put aside my objections to how the Democratic Party ended up selecting its candidate and refusing to allow his main rival, who happened to be a woman, the equal opportunity to be voted the Party's nominee at its Convention. When the primary season ended, neither Senator Clinton nor Senator Obama had sufficient votes to qualify automatically as the Party's nominee. Senator Clinton had a small lead in the popular vote; Senator Obama a small lead in the pledged delegate count. Popular Vote Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: 17,857,446,  (48.04%) Senator Barack Obama: 17,584,649  (47.31%) Pledged delegates Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: 1,730.5 (39.17%) Senator Barack Obama:  1,747.5 (39.55%)* I do not know what the Democratic Party would have done if this situation had arisen between two men in contention for the nomination. I only know what the Party did when one of the candidates was male and the other female. Beginning in June, almost three full months before the nominating convention in Denver, the DNC leadership began insisting that the primaries HAD produced a candidate, and that candidate was Barack Obama. Along with millions of other Democrats, I spent from May through the Convention attempting to get the Democratic Party to fess up to its own rules and to the fact that the Party Chairman, Howard Dean, was playing fast and loose with them rather than following their requirements. The Party never did apply its rules: rather than hold open, noncoercive floor votes to determine the Democratic nominee, the Party staged a "roll call", a play act that bore as much resemblance to a genuine vote as Monopoly money does to actual currency. I cannot read Howard Dean's mind, so I cannot say why he permitted a counterfeit Convention. I do not know whether he meant to discriminate against Senator Clinton on the basis of her gender. All I know for sure is that for the first time in the Democratic Party's history when there was a meaningful possibility that its candidate would be a woman, the Party chose to rig its nomination procedure against her to the benefit of a male candidate. I certainly did not want the Democratic Party to rig the roll call vote against the male candidate and for the female one. I just wanted a free and fair nomination contest held according to pre-established, written party rules. As Election Day draws closer, I am more comfortable than ever with denying the Democratic Party's faux nominee my vote. What makes me uncomfortable is that it seems to me that even if Senator Obama loses, the Democratic Party will not consider the possibility that this has happened because they put him on the ticket under false pretences and at the expense of the first female candidate in the Party's history to have had a chance to be there had there been an honest Convention. At the moment, the Party's official line is that they do not have to worry about wondering why Senator Obama will have lost, because he clearly will win. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. In a free and fair election, we cannot know until the vote actually happens. What is making me even more uncomfortable is the feeling that I have been complacent in the manner of my objection to the corruption of the Democratic Party, especially when that corruption came at the expense of the first woman in the Party's history to have been in genuine contentention for the nomination at the end of the primary season. I have withstood the pressure to vote for Democrat just because he is the Democratic Party's official nominee. I have encouraged others to do likewise. I have spent money and time in these efforts. But I have not risked much in taking these steps. The women who fought for my right to vote risked much more. Some of them went to jail over the issue. Others suffered physical violence. These women went to battle for equality for their gender. So now, I must ask myself: Whatever the result come this Election Day, what am I willing and able to do for the fight for equality for my gender? What am I willing and able to do to insist that Democratic Party clean up its act or shut itself down? I have not yet figured out the answers to these questions. But asking of them of myself, squarely and straightforwardly, seems like a constructive step toward thinking beyond November 4. I believe that all Democrats, even if those who plan on voting for the designated Democratic nomimee, should be asking themselves these questions. Because whether or not Senator Obama wins or loses the upcoming election, the Democratic Party itself has lost its honor in the way the Party put him in the position to do so. ____ *source

Read this and this by Professor Hutchinson. In a reply to a comment, Professor Hutchinson notes that he wants Senator Obama's supporters to realize that Senator Obama's candidacy is "politics as usual". That's the best that can be said of it. While rigged elections, changes in stance, and forming new alliances have, at times, been part of usual politics, there is much about this election that goes beyond the usual - and not in a positive way. To be continued...

Like many people at this moment - regardless of who they will vote for or have early-voted for - I am not feeling particularly joyful about November 4. Since the conventions, I have had little enthusiasm for the available presidential candidates, which came as a letdown because of the great enthusiasm I had for the candidate I am still convinced was the best qualified and who I know was not given an equal opportunity by her own Party to become its nominee. Senator Clinton has publicly stated that there is almost no chance that she will run again for the Presidency and it seems clear that she neither expects nor desires a position in an Obama administration should there be one. It appears that Senator Clinton intends to focus her political career on the Senate. That bodes well for the Senate. But now ask yourself, if Senator Clinton is not available for a presidential run in four or eight years, can you think of a woman who would, somebody who the Democratic Party could be grooming, as it groomed Senator Obama after his 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Party Convention? If you are stumped, I suggest you read this column by Susie Tompkins Buell, excerpted below (emphases added): The apparel company I started in the 1960s, and eventually sold in 1996, was all about women. The fact that I had two daughters and two nieces played into my interest in the full integration of women into U.S. life. But it was the example of Ann Richards, the late and great governor of Texas, that first got me focused on women running for--and winning--elective office. Watching Ann Richards in 1994, as she defended her incumbency against George W. Bush, I saw the urgency and need for female candidates. Ann's political life also exemplified the joy of politics, if practiced with the right sense of individual flair and unquestionable sincerity. Who can forget her famous line at the '88 Democratic National Convention, delivered with high humor and impeccable timing against the elder President Bush: "Poor George. He cain't help it--he was born with a silver foot in his mouth." ... But as important as Ann and Barbara [Boxer] have been in my political life, no one equals the impact of Hillary Rodham Clinton. I met her that same year, 1992, when her husband was making his first run for the White House. Like so many who met Hillary--so many women especially--I wondered, "Wait a minute. Why isn't she the one who's running?" I stayed in close touch with Hillary during the Clinton years in the White House and stepped up both my giving to Democratic causes and my personal involvement in politics. I became active in the party's Women's Leadership Forum. I was still rather fresh and new to politics, so I tended to do things a bit differently. Part of my involvement was to host events for various Democratic candidates and committees in my San Francisco home. As I did more and more fundraisers for and with women, I deepened my belief--which stemmed back to the female culture of my business--that when women get together, whether in business or politics or other aspects of life, things somehow become more soulful, more personal. And we also get things done. ... A good example of that is a women's organization that I support called Emerge America. It is a training program for Democratic women aspiring to run for public office, which started in California. Now, there are affiliates in seven states and appears to be on track to train women in more states in the years to come. As time goes by my conviction only grows that women's leadership holds great promise for our nation, and for the world. So it was only natural that I would support Hillary's run for president full-throttle. Like the candidate herself, and so many others, I put my heart and soul into her historic candidacy. The fact that Hillary ran so well did not surprise me. But I was dismayed to see the sexism that arose continually along the campaign trail. That Hillary would be called on to withdraw from the Democratic race when it was still so tight was the straw that broke the camel's back. No one would have asked a man to drop out. I had to do something in response. I joined with other women to start a new political action committee, WomenCount PAC, which ran ads protesting sexist attacks on Hillary and gained enormous press attention. It has since evolved into a multi-candidate PAC that supports female candidates who champion women's issues. We have also formed a nonprofit arm called WomenCount, an online women's political movement that is a kind of Moveon.org for women. We'll be creating awareness campaigns and mobilizing women around issues that matter to them as well as around female candidates. ... Recently I made an analogy at a women's luncheon between government and house management. The political leadership of our government today is about 20 percent female. Imagine a household where 20 percent of the management is female. Imagine decisions around budget, health, schools and community under leadership that's 20 percent female. It's unimaginable. I've run both a business and a household, and I'm here to tell you they, as well as our nation, stand to gain a great deal when at least 50 percent of the leadership is female. I believe we cross a threshold for social change when women are actively involved in leading the way. That's why I'm funding serious political change. Too much is at stake, and we've come too far to turn back. I myself have donated to WomenCount PAC. I took particular joy in doing so because WomenCount has decided to conscientiously abstain from endorsing a candidate this year. As the organization's website explains: "We are often asked whether we have made an endorsement in the presidential election. We have decided to hold off for now – not because we’re avoiding it, but because we do not want that to be our focus. Instead, we want to shine the spotlight on the critical issues that emerged from the primary. Thus, our “stop the silence” campaign. Once we’ve achieved our goals on that issue, we’ll turn to you for advice on what to tackle next."(Buell herself writes in the complete version of her column that "in time, [she] came out publicly in support of Sen. Barack Obama.") Today I read about how hard Senator Clinton is working for downticket Democrats and how she is seen as having "done more for Obama than any losing candidate has ever done for a presidential nominee." I found myself demoralized. I realize that it is both in Senator Clinton's character and to her advantage to work hard for the Democratic Party and its presidential nominee, regardless of how the Party or the nominee treated her or her candidacy. Perhaps I should be uplifted by Senator Clinton's show of loyalty. But to me the current dynamic is an all too familiar one: the woman is lauded when she works for the man, villified when she worked for herself. So I am with WomenCount in believing that the more important issue is how to make sure that our political leadership include proportionate representation for women as for men - meaning that over 50% of our political leaders should be women. While I do not have Susie Buell's means, I am dedicating myself to use whatever resources I have at my disposal to realizing this goal. Reading Susie Buell's words made me realize that I can dedicate myself to this goal, and that lifted my spirits. I can see a way to find joy in politics again. I look forward to hosting my first dinner party or sherry hour or afternoon tea for a woman candidate running for office. Maybe, eventually, the person I aid might even be groomed by my Party to be President of the United States of America. [Special thanks to the friend who sent me Susie Tompkins Buell's column.]

In an earlier post, I pointed out that Senator Obama, who wants to be the chief executive of a country the majority of whose citizens are women, has yet to stand up and demonstrate that he appreciates the evil of misogyny and will speak out against it. Then I learned about the event described in the Cleveland Plain Dealer's website as follows. Jay-Z, LeBron James to lead free rally, concert for Barack Obama The Last Chance for Change rally is set for Wednesday at The Q. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Seven-time Grammy winner Jay-Z will put on a concert that promises to pump up support for Obama while James will serve as the host. The event is free and open to all Ohio residents and students, but a ticket is needed to get in. Finally, I urged:  Tell Senator Obama that you expect him to take this opportunity to show us that realizes what misogyny is or is trying to learn to, and that he will dedicate himself to fighting it in all its forms. You can contact the Obama campaign online or at (866) 675-2008 or by mail: Obama for America, P.O. Box 8102, Chicago, IL 6068  (Obama for America will only accept #10 envelopes. All other mail will be returned to sender.) I myself phoned the Obama campaign and had a polite conversation with the volunteer who took my call. I explained that I am a registered Democrat and that it disturbed me that the Party's candidate is allowing himself to be promoted by a rap musician who recently dedicated to John McCain and Sarah Pailin a song with the lyrics: "If you're havin' girl problems I feel bad for you son I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one." The volunteer seemed taken aback when I told her about this. She said she personally had never heard of Jay-Z or the event I was describing, and that she did not follow rap music. She seemed startled by the news that these events had anything at all to do with Senator Obama. I started to give her links to the sources where I had learned about the concert and the dedication of the song but she was already doing a web search and immediately verified the events for herself. Then she patiently and courteously took down my concern and what I would like to see Senator Obama do to address it. I have little reason to believe that the message I left with the volunteer will ever be read by anybody with the power to pay attention to my point that if Senator Obama wanted to step up and say that he either appreciates the problem of misogyny or plans to learn about it, this free concert would seem to provide a good occasion to do so. And I am a little surprised that somebody actively volunteering for Senator Obama would not be aware of who Jay-Z is since Senator Obama Jay-Z already performed a similar rally/concert for Senator Obama in Detroit earlier this month, and Barack Obama's apparent allusion to Jay-Z's song Dirt Off Your Shoulder (lyrics here, warning explicit language) during the height of the primary season received major press attention. But I want to thank that Obama volunteer for two very important things: she obviously took my inquiry quite seriously and she treated my concern with great respect. Now, if only I could get the candidate she supports to treat the matter the same way.

In my previous post, I pointed out that Senator Obama, who wants to be the chief executive of a country the majority of whose citizens are women, has yet to stand up and demonstrate that he appreciates the evil of misogyny and will speak out against it. I just had a chance to read this, from an  October 23 blog entry from ABC News Senior Correspondent Jake Tapper (emphases added): The Obama campaign announced today that Jay-Z and NBA star LeBron James will hold a "Last Chance for Change" concert in Cleveland next Wednesday. The announcement about Jay-Z comes a few days after he dedicated his 2003 song "99 Problems" to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The lyrics to "99 Problems" include the famous line: "If you're havin' girl problems I feel bad for you son I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one." According to MTV News Jay recently dedicated the song to McCain and a "homegirl," whom he described as "the one who says 'You betcha.' " "I'm gonna get in trouble for this," Jay said, laughing, "but f--- it, this is freedom of speech." Message to Senator Obama: Next Wednesday visit the concert with JayZ,  and please,  exercise your right to free speech - and even if it gets you trouble with some folks. Use your famed powers of oratory to explain misogyny, why the lyrics to "99 cents" smack of it, why JayZ's comments smack of it, and why you as somebody who claims to be a progressive who wants to lead a majority-female country will not tolerate it. Then, take a bow and leave. ********* I am serious. Tell Senator Obama that you expect him to take this opportunity to show us that realizes what misogyny is or is trying to learn to, and that he will dedicate himself to fighting it in all its forms. You can contact the Obama campaign online or at (866) 675-2008 or by mail: Obama for America P.O. Box 8102 Chicago, IL 60680 Obama for America will only accept #10 envelopes. All other mail will be returned to sender.

President Truman is famous for the sign he kept on his desk, and his references to the idea that once one becomes President, one simply has to step up and make the best decisions one can. President Truman certainly had some hard ones to make: whether to use the atomic bomb, whether to racially integrate armed forces, whether to recognize the State of Israel, how to handle the Soviet Union's decision to blockade Berlin. Some of Truman's decisions were roundly criticized at the time he made them; the merits of others have been debated by historians ever since. But the point is that when President Truman came to power he realized one key fact about power: it demands that one reflect and then decide. We live in a country where, at least according to the letter of the law, the President is not above the law, not a monarch. The President is one citizen among others. While not all of us have to make decisions as complicated as the ones a President must make, we each have a piece of the power that the President-qua-citizen has. The more often we understand our votes as moments of power, the more often we will vote not on the basis of spin or peer pressure but as an act of agency and of personal responsibility. When we vote - not just for Presidents but for all officeholders - we occupy a moment of political power. This is why when we vote we must ultimately answer to our own consciences. Because with every ballot cast we can say "the buck stops here." Oh, and here's a little known fact: the words on the opposite side of the famous desk sign:   This year Missouri will play a decisive role in choosing our next president. Let us hope the voters in that state remember a President who made tough calls and took responsibility for making them.

Perhaps you have heard about or received a fundraising message from Senator Obama's campaign encouraging you to donate funds to him by midnight October 23 so that he can pour more resources into Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, Florida, North Carolina, and Nevada? If you donate at least 15 dollars, the campaign promises to send you a special edition Obama-Biden car magnet. If, like me, you regard the idea of a limited edition car magnet as simultaneously a silly ploy aimed to attract donations from the sixteen year olds from whom Senator Obama accepts contributions and as another in a string of insults to thoughtful voters, you might consider this suggestion. It adopts the strategy of answering the absurd with a simple action - about which, more below. Let us return Senator Obama's generous offer of a magnet by mailing him one of our own. (Surely you have a magnet of some kind in your junk drawer or lingering on your refrigerator - perhaps a magnetized business card or an alphabet magnet of the sort sold to children.) If you have a magnet, why not send it to Senator Obama? His campaign donation mailing address is Obama for America, P.O. Box 802798, Chicago, IL 60680. Help Senator Obama understand the true power of magnetism On a more serious note: Democrats and former Democrats who have been and are appalled by the tactics and methods used by the DNC, the Democratic Party apparatus, and the Obama campaign in this presidential election can take specific actions to force change both within the Democratic Party and within American politics more generally. I believe we will need a Salt March of our own. The original Salt March was organized by M.K. Gandhi after he issued India's Declaration of Independence in 1930. In contrast to the events that followed the American Declaration of Independence, Gandhi wanted to fulfill the demands of India's declaration nonviolently. Toward that end he organized the Salt March to Dandi. Gandhi used the Salt March to illustrate the senselessness of British rule over Indians. At the time, it was illegal for Indians to make salt; indeed the sale or production of salt by anyone but the British government was a criminal offense punishable by law. Gandhi, at age 61, led a procession of marchers, who walked over 200 miles, to the coast, where Gandhi made salt from seawater, an act for which he was arrested. While the Salt March took place in 1930, Indian Independence was not achieved for another seventeen years, in 1947. But the Salt March forced the British to negotiate directly with Gandhi (the first time they did so with an Indian) and gained Gandhi respect from other Indian leaders, such as Nehru, who understood the symbolic emancipation the Salt march represented. (source) Contrary to the attitude of the Democratic leadership, they do not literally rule rank and file Democrats, so in this respect there is no parallel between India's struggle for independence from British rule and the present political moment in the United States. But precisely because this year the official Democratic leadership has repeatedly acted as if they rule rank and file voters, we need to make it clear that this is a serious misunderstanding of the relationship between voters and politicians. The demand of many rank-and-file Democrats and freshly-minted-former-Democrats: freedom from political hubris and highhandedness, particularly from the Party we thought we had reason to expect better from. It may take 17 years, or 27, but the American people can, and I believe will, gain this freedom.

Anybody who has donated online to a candidate this political season has become used to seeing eligibility requirements for donating. Some of these are mandated by federal law, but some provisions include room for discretion. One is the age a candidate requires contributors to be.

I note the difference in the following candidates' approach just as food for thought.

Over at Senator Clinton's  Senate reelection website the eligibility requirements are: (emphasis added)

1. This contribution is made from my own funds, and not those of another.
2. This contribution is not made from the general treasury funds of a corporation, labor organization or national bank.
3. I am not a Federal government contractor.
4. I am not a foreign national who lacks permanent resident status in the United States.
5. I am at least 18 years of age.
6. This contribution is made on a personal credit or debit card for which I have the legal obligation to pay, and is made neither on a corporate or business entity card nor on the card of another.

At Senator Obama's Presidential election website this is how the eligibility requirements appear: (empahsis added)

1. I am a United States citizen or a lawfully-admitted permanent resident.
2. I am at least 16 years old.
3. This contribution is not made from the general treasury funds of a corporation, labor organization or national bank.
4. This contribution is not made from the funds of a political action committee.
5. This contribution is not made from the treasury of an entity or person who is a federal contractor.
6. This contribution is not made from the funds of an individual registered as a federal lobbyist or a foreign agent, or an entity that is a federally registered lobbying firm or foreign agent.
7. The funds I am donating are not being provided to me by another person or entity for the purpose of making this contribution.

Because John McCain opted into public funding, he cannot accept private contributions for a general election campaign but he can accept funds for "compliance expenses" (to defray legal and accounting compliance costs and  thereby preserve the Campaign's public grant for media, mail, phones, and get-out-the-vote programs.) At the McCain compliance fund, these are the eligibility requirements:

At Senator Clinton's debt relief site: (emphasis added)

1. I designate this contribution for 2008 primary election debt retirement.
2. This contribution is made from my own funds, and not those of another.
3. This contribution is not made from the general treasury funds of a corporation, labor organization or national bank.
4. I am not a Federal government contractor.
5. I am not a foreign national who lacks permanent resident status in the United States.
6. I am at least 18 years of age.
7. This contribution is made on a personal credit or debit card for which I have the legal obligation to pay, and is made neither on a corporate or business entity card nor on the card of another.

There is never an obvious time to begin resisting the status quo. Indeed that is part of what makes the status quo seem unchangeable: that there is no obvious or easy or convenient time to refuse to accept it. But whether it is a decision to refuse to move to the back of the bus or a decision to demand equal pay or a refusal to collaborate with the powers that be for fear of reprisal, there have been hundreds of people at different times and in different places who have - for whatever constellation of reasons and motives - chosen to reject the way things are as the way they must be.

Over the past few days, in various ways, different people have told me that I should simply accept Senator Obama's (and, for that matter, Senator McCain's) campaign tactics as "the way things are" or "politics as it is actually practiced".  I have been told I am unrealistic or idealistic, too much so for "how things are".  Often this is followed by a "lesser of two evils" argument.  The supposedly realistic, pragmatic person speaking to me says something along the following lines: "Yes, you are correct. Senator Obama is a lousy candidate, who has no record and who will not stick his neck out for anything, let alone speak up against the sexism and misogyny run rampant this election cycle. But, he's better than Senator McCain because____."  That _____ gets filled in a variety of ways: Senator Obama is less of a war monger; more likely not to veto legislation passed by a majority Democrat Congress, less likely to appoint ant-Roe justices to the Supreme Court.

Sorry. I am not voting for a ______. If the best that you can tell me about a candidate who you concede is lousy is that he at least is or  will _____, that simply is not compelling.

If we voters continue to cast our ballots for candidates who are essentially _____, then we get ______ leadership.  Empty, blank leadership.

This year one Party had the opportunity to nominate a candidate who, whatever her drawbacks as a person or a poltician, is not a ______. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton took policy positions and stuck to them throughout the primary season as she has throughout her tenure as as Senator. The DNC, Senator Reid, and Speaker Pelosi decided they preferred a candidate who is a _______. They decided - and they may be right - that the Democrats were more likely to take the White House with a ______ than with a candidate of substance, with clear positions, and a track record.

I have repeatedly said that the most important issue in this Presidential election is not whether Senator McCain or Senator Obama wins. The most important issue is whether we as a people are willing to tolerate mediocrity and blankness rather than demand guts and leadership.

If we citizens do not demand guts and leadership, we will not get either. We will get what everybody tells me we must accept: craven politicians interested only in their own self-advancement rather than the public weal.

But this is tautology. And tautology can be transcended. We have had American politicians who have risen about pettiness and narrow self-interest to show real leadership. Other countries have also had such leaders.

I think I am more realistic, more practical, more pragmatic than those who tell me that given the options I should accept the lesser of two evils. I believe that the most realistic, most pragmatic response to evil of any kind is to refuse to tolerate it, not to condone it, to flat out reject it. Because a deal with a devil is still a deal with a devil even if there are more heinous devils out there. We need not and should not demand perfection from politicians. But we must, can, and should demand that they hold themselves to a standard by which we want to be governed.

The message that we citizens must send to politicians - both those who hold office now and those who aspire to hold office - is that we will not accept evil or mediocrity or cowardice. We must not reward these qualities. If no candidate for a particular office offers more than these quailities, we have an option. We can conscientiously abstain from endorsing any candidate for that office. We can begin to develop the habit of noncooperation, the refusal to be co-opted by the status quo simply because it is the status quo.

At the present moment I am among those who are resisting powerful voices from the Democratic Party and pressure and intimidation from fellow Democrats, who say I MUST vote for Senator Obama or else...or else somehow I am a lesser Democrat. Balderdash.

Not much more than half a century ago, another political party was dominated by a figure who used fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear to advance his personal power and supposedly the power of his Party. That figure was Joseph McCarthy and he was a Republican. Many Democrats today know about Joe McCarthy and his witch hunts. But fewer, I think know of, Senator Margaret Chase Smith - possibly the most successful woman politician in twentieth century American federal politics - who not only took on Joe McCarthy, but also Barry Goldwater, when, in the 1960s she refused to take her name off the ballot for the Republican nomination for Presidency at the 1964 Republican National Convention, thereby denying Barry Goldwater unanimous consent to his nomination.

Among Senator Chase Smith's many accomplishments:

• After four terms in the House, she won election to the United States Senate in 1948. In so doing, she became the first woman elected to both houses of Congress.
• She introduced legislation granting permanent status for women in the armed forces.
• She cosponsored the Equal Rights Amendment.
• She was the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for the presidency by either of the two major parties.

Read more about Senator Chase Smith at the website of the Margaret Chase Smith Library

For now, read the speech delivered in her first term as a U.S. Senator, standing up to a far more powerful Republican than she was. Margaret Chase Smith may have been less power powerful than Joe McCarthy. But her defiance of his tactics and methods certainly made her no lesser a Republican.

Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear. It is a condition that comes from the lack of effective leadership in either the legislative branch or the executive branch of our Government.

That leadership is so lacking that serious and responsible proposals are being made that national advisory commissions be appointed to provide such critically needed leadership.

I speak as briefly as possible because too much harm has already been done with irresponsible words of bitterness and selfish political opportunism. I speak as simply as possible because the issue is too great to be obscured by eloquence. I speak simply and briefly in the hope that my words will be taken to heart.

I speak as a Republican. I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States Senator. I speak as an American.

The United States Senate has long enjoyed worldwide respect as the greatest deliberative body in the world. But recently that deliberative character has too often been debased to the level of a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of congressional immunity.

It is ironical that we Senators can debate in the Senate directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to any American, who is not a Senator, any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming an American—and without that non-Senator American having any legal redress against it—yet if we say the same thing in the Senate about our colleagues we can be stopped on the grounds of being out of order.

It is strange that we can verbally attack anyone else without restraint and with full protection and yet we hold ourselves above the same type of criticism here on the Senate floor. Surely the United States Senate is big enough to take self-criticism and self-appraisal. Surely we should be able to take the same kind of character attacks that we “dish out” to outsiders.

I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its Members to do some soul searching—for us to weigh our consciences—on the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of America; on the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges.

I think that it is high time that we remembered that we have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. I think that it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech, but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation.

Whether it be a criminal prosecution in court or a character prosecution in the Senate, there is little practical distinction when the life of a person has been ruined.

Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism—

The right to criticize;

The right to hold unpopular beliefs;

The right to protest;

The right of independent thought.

The exercise of these rights