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