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The Pennsylvania Democratic primary is today. I could be slightly more enthused.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve more or less dropped out of campaign coverage. The answer is simple: things have gotten ugly. And with apologies to Clinton supporters, I don’t understand why she is still in it (yeah, I know: “to win it”).

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Popularity: 15% [?]

Alright, alright. So I went from loving John Edwards to really hating on him. And I stand by everything I said.

But . . . dude’s starting to win me over.

I mean, he makes some excellent points; who doesn’t want to be a jet ski-riding spy? I know that I do.

Also, happy anniversary to me.

Popularity: 14% [?]

You’ve probably already read about Barack Obama’s statements regarding teen pregnancy and the outrage it has inspired in forced-birth proponents. Amanda has already wonderfully skewered the reaction. This is what Obama said:

“When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include — which should include abstinence education and teaching the children — teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include — it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.”

I mean, really, with all the talk about sex not being anything casual and engaging in sex is a “mistake,” it would seem that Obama is pandering enough to the religious right “sex-is-bad-mmkay?” crowd. But no, instead he has made them very, very angry. Honestly, I think they’re pissed because of his reasonable assertion that telling kids not to have sex doesn’t mean they’re going to listen. But in typical “the liberal made a reasonable point — quick, make everyone look over here!” fashion, they’re screaming and hollering about how Obama said that babies are punishment. They also claim that his comments were about abortion, which is blatantly false, even if the comments he made do easily carry over and most likely influence his pro-choice views.

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Popularity: 21% [?]

I don’t think there are many people, with any candidate preference, who would argue that Obama is not incredibly engaging and likable. Whether you want to vote for the guy or not, let’s face it; he has charisma.

But watch the NY Times turn “Obama is charming” into “Obama makes women giggle and swoon and he’s so cute that they’ll just have to vote for him.”

Senator Barack Obama didn’t go on “The View” on Friday solely to talk about race and the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. He also wanted to address the gender issue. And if the fluttery response of the show’s five co-hosts is any harbinger, Mr. Obama will not have any trouble assuaging female voters if Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton drops out of the Democratic race for the White House.

Barbara Walters told Mr. Obama he was “sexy-looking.” Sherri Shepherd announced that she had shifted her support from Mrs. Clinton to Mr. Obama; she made Joy Behar temporarily switch seats with her during a break so she could chat up the candidate. Even Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a Republican, told Mr. Obama how moved she was by his speech to the 2004 Democratic convention.

[. . .]

Mr. Obama used body language to bridge the gender gap. The candidate who is sometimes attacked by feminists as a golden youth passing over them on his way to the old boys’ club reminded the co-hosts that he was “surrounded by women” at home.

He patted Ms. Behar’s arm and whispered so intimately into Ms. Walters’s ear that Ms. Hasselbeck accused them of “canoodling.” Mr. Obama is an effective speaker, but he is just as smooth at wordless communication: he mixed a cool and somewhat princely demeanor with warm smiles and touches.

Oh yeah, those feminists are totally bitchy Obama-haters. But when he looks at normal women with those deep brown eyes and flashes those pearly whites . . .

You know, if Obama is the nominee (and I think he will be), I have no doubt that he will indeed win many female votes. And being good looking has never hurt. But maybe his popularity with female voters will have more to do with the facts that women tend to vote Democratic, Obama is surprisingly progressive on women’s issues and John McCain, er, hates us? It’s just a hunch I have.

[Image via The Onion.]

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A few stories I’ve recently blogged about have some updates:

Yesterday, I wrote about a woman who was forced to undergo a painful process of removing her nipple piercings before she could board a plan, apparently for the amusement of the male security officers. The TSA has responded to the situation:

The TSA said Friday in a statement on its Web site that the officers properly followed procedures, but that the procedures must change. In the future passengers can either allow a visual inspection of their piercings, or remove them, the agency said.

The statement stopped short of apologizing to Hamlin.

”TSA acknowledges that our procedures caused difficulty for the passenger involved and regrets the situation in which she found herself,” the agency said in a statement. ”We appreciate her raising awareness on this issue and we are changing the procedures to ensure that this does not happen again.”

Hamlin’s attorney said she accepted the TSA statement as an apology, and commended the agency for taking quick action. The policy change is ”an achievement for the protection of passengers’ civil rights while meeting the security goals of the TSA,” Gloria Allred said.

Uh huh. Well call me difficult to please (you wouldn’t be the first), but I do find it a little odd how the TSA website already said prior to this statement that “If you are selected for additional screening, you may ask to remove your body piercing in private as an alternative to a pat-down search.” A pat-down search was never offered to Hamlin, and was in fact refused to her when she made the offer herself to show her nipple piercings to the female guard in private — the same guard who had to look at her piercings anyway as Hamlin went through the excruciating process of removing them. So I think that TSA will have to try again. Changing a policy is totally different from beginning to enforce one that is already in place. It was previously indicated that Hamlin was considering suing if she did not receive an apology. I think that it will be a shame if a lawsuit doesn’t go through, and after all of the trouble, TSA gets off the hook with a slight wag of the finger.

I’ve also recently blogged about how Al Sharpton and the NAACP are supporting leniency for the Dunbar Village rapists. Now, Sharpton’s organization (NAN) and the NAACP are furiously denying, changing their stories and pointing fingers at each other. Sharpton has tried to rewrite history and is blaming the “misinformation” on the women of color bloggers who have raised awareness and interest about this issue, without noting that the information came from numerous objective and mainstream news sources. In other words, he’s not only ignoring the fact that women of color deserve rights equal to those of men of color, but is now also blaming his own disgusting mess on women of color rather than taking responsibility for his actions. Nice. Also, while reviewing the denials and backpedaling, check out this flier. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of who produced it, but according the the Dunbar Village blog, it was passed around at the NAN and NAACP join press conference on March 11. And even if they didn’t produce the fliers themselves, the fact remains that putting together an event with this type of bullshit propaganda being openly distributed isn’t exactly the best way to prove that you’re not supporting the rapists (and neither is standing on a stage with the rapists’ families).

Keep those letters coming, folks.

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Popularity: 15% [?]

UPDATE: The Washington Post happens to have an interesting article today on this very subject. It’s actually more intelligent than you might expect, though be forewarned that some of the quotes are really obnoxious and precisely what I rail against here.

—

I can’t say that Geraldine Ferraro should have quit while she was ahead, because I’m rather unconvinced that at any point she was ahead. But it certainly wouldn’t hurt for her to stop making things worse on herself (and despite the fact that she is no longer a part of the campaign, Hillary Clinton, too). In addition to complaining that the simple acknowledgment of her remarks about Obama being racist is in fact racist against white people, she is now apparently very offended that her name came up in Obama’s speech about race.

The former New York congresswoman and Democratic vice presidential nominee got the race debate going a few weeks ago with her comments in a California newspaper that Obama had gotten to where he was — on the verge of knocking off Ferraro’s favored candidate, Hillary Clinton — because he is a black man.

Today, she surfaced again in the same paper, the Daily Breeze in Torrance, to say that she objected vehemently to Obama’s linkage in his speech between her comments and the inflammatory excerpts of sermons by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s longtime pastor.

“To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable,” Ferraro told the paper. “He gave a very good speech on race relations, but he did not address the fact that this man is up there spewing hatred.”

Overall, Ferraro said, she thought the speech was “excellent,” but she lamented that Obama did not go further in condemning Wright. She surmised that Obama was limited in that regard because he did not want to offend black voters, which she called the base of Obama’s support.

“I think they got as far as they could go politically,” she said. “They’re looking at their base. Their base is African Americans. They’re looking at that and they’re trying to walk a very thin line. They don’t want to offend the African Americans, and this is the way he did it.”

Yeah, here’s the thing: he was defending you, asshole.

Do I think it’s a mistake that Ferraro’s name came up? Of course not, it was a deliberate move to point out that if anyone in this campaign can be accused of racism, it’s not the Obama campaign. However, the fact remains that he defended her and in fact criticized the “dismissal” of her comments by referring to them as “racist.”

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Popularity: 15% [?]

Clearly, it should go without saying that Pat Buchanan is a fucking nut. Really, I try to ignore these types more than anything. I just don’t have the time to follow the disgraceful career of every racist, misogynist, homophobic, nationalist, religious fanatic puppet of the Republican party.

But this time . . . oh, this time. Buchanan has written a column as a response to Barack Obama’s recent speech on racism in America (all emphasis in quoted text is mine). And as far as I can tell, Buchanan’s feelings are really hurt because Obama didn’t take the time to personally thank him for the fact that slavery ended and rich white dudes like himself only continue to demand slightly more subtle forms of oppression. It’s a good point; for everything else he’s said, I don’t remember Buchanan ever remarking (in public) “that slavery thing was a pretty sweet ride — why don’t we bring that back?” Why the hell aren’t all those uppity black folks sending him thank you cards?

Really, read the whole thing; it’s a fucking doozy.

The “white community,” said Barack, must start “acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination — and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past — are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds … .”

And what deeds must we perform to heal ourselves and our country?

The “white community” must invest more money in black schools and communities, enforce civil rights laws, ensure fairness in the criminal justice system and provide this generation of blacks with “ladders of opportunity” that were “unavailable” to Barack’s and the Rev. Wright’s generations.

What is wrong with Barack’s prognosis and Barack’s cure?

Only this. It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, “everybody but the rioters themselves.”

Was “white racism” really responsible for those black men looting auto dealerships and liquor stories, and burning down their own communities, as Otto Kerner said — that liberal icon until the feds put him away for bribery.

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

Aww. Buchanan feels he isn’t being listened to and has to remind the entire world that he presumably has a white penis. I’d feel so terribly bad for him if a single word of it was true. But please, wait, because that’s the intro. It gets about ten times worse.

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Popularity: 18% [?]

I’m pissed off about the Spitzer thing, if you haven’t noticed. Happy that he resigned, but still really pissed. And so right about now, my patience for Democratic politicians who are going to act like absolute fucking morons is virtually non-existent.

Sorry about that, Geraldine Ferraro and those hellbent on defending her for absolutely no good reason. I’m not going to play it nice.

Regardless of my mood, the comments that Ferraro made are outrageously offensive. If you somehow haven’t heard them, here you go:

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

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So, I’m tired, too lazy to write a real post — especially since I haven’t even read the friggen news today — and yet still have too many thoughts floating around in my head. Therefore, I am going to share those scattered and probably pointless thoughts on the primary. Lucky you.

In no hugely particular order:

Voting is anti-climactic. This may be because I don’t have anyone to vote with. The only person I know in my district who I would be happy to vote with is my husband. Unfortunately, he doesn’t love America enough to be able to vote (eh, some citizenship thing) and is reduced to saying to me as I walk out the door “if you don’t vote for Obama, I’ll kick your ass,” while I tell him that I’ll vote for Mike Gravel just to spite him. (um, no, I didn’t)

The bastards didn’t even give me a sticker. I didn’t get one in 2006, either. Where is my fucking sticker? How can I feel righteous and superior to everyone else if I don’t have an ugly cheap sticky thing hanging off of my lapel?

I witnessed no vote stealing or disenfranchisement. In fact, things were pretty dead. The worst I came across was as I entered, an obviously Democratic voter was talking to a Republican volunteer and said “I feel like the odd one out,” and the volunteer joked “maybe its time to switch parties.” Which I thought was inappropriate. But it’s also a very small town, and I’m about 80% sure that the two knew each other. Which still makes it inappropriate but hardly something to call a voting hotline about.

But here is something that did bother me. When you went in, the voting booths were not split up between Republican and Democrat (if they were, the Dem side would probably get a dull pencil and a scrap of paper), nor were the check-in tables. In the very small room in the very small town, they asked you which party you were with and you had to give your answer out loud. This didn’t bother me because I couldn’t care less if someone knows which party I’m registered with. I don’t actually consider myself a Democrat (if that ever happens, the Dems have either become a different party or someone needs to shoot me). But I also sure as hell don’t want anyone thinking that I’m a Republican. I didn’t mind being the odd one out, and in fact felt quite proud and relieved that I have a brain in my head. But I still had to wonder about a person who did mind. Could that keep someone from voting? The thing is, everyone has the right to a secret ballot and accepts that what you do in the voting booth is their own business. In an actual election. Yeah, asking what party you’re with doesn’t say who you’re voting for, but it could serve as a kind of outing. Again, especially in a small town. What do you think? And how does your district do it? Are there better ways? Do you think that this is a legitimate concern?

A silly musing: how is the order of the candidates on the ballot decided? Because In NY, Clinton’s name is right at the top, and with the lever voting machines, pretty much at eye level. Obama’s name was down at my rib cage crowded by all of the other candidates who are no longer in the race but still on the ballot. It actually took me a good 10 to 15 seconds to find his name. That’s not long, but here’s the thing: do you think that gives Clinton an advantage? You know, like how they put Coke at eye level in the store so that you’re more likely to buy it; that works. Just saying.

A largely pointless quandary: my dad didn’t vote. I expected him to, and asked if he did, and he shook his head and said “is there supposed to be a candidate that I like?” Now, first thoughts label this good. I think I’ve mentioned on more than one occasion that I do not agree on . . . anything . . . with my dad when it comes to politics, and that he is a lifelong Republican. In 2004, he actually considered not voting for the first time. In the end, he apparently became frightened by Kerry’s East Coat Liberal ways (*scoffs*), but he was so unhappy with Bush that he considered sitting it out. Again, this says that progress is being made. Though I still disagree with him on everything, it seems that even he is starting to realize what a sad, pathetic, incompetent bunch the Republicans have become. And yet, I’m still left with the question: should I be happy that my dad no longer feels strongly Republican enough to vote in the primaries, or sad that the one and only other voter in my family is giving up on the political process? My mom isn’t coming around, and you couldn’t get my 20-year-old brother to act like he cares if you threatened to set his hair on fire. My dad and I may have been at each other’s throats over everything (we don’t talk politics anymore), but voting was the one thing that we both believed in.

But hey, maybe the anticipation weariness is making me stupidly nostalgic.

I stand by my previous assertion that I cannot wait until I never have to see or hear Ron Paul’s racist, misogynist, xenophobic, delusional name ever again. No more signs along the highway, or banners hanging from the overpass? No more angry letters to magazines or comments on blogs because someone dared to point out that the guy is severely fucked in the head? Ah. That will be the day. But I don’t really expect him to concede until the very last delegate is counted.

I can’t promise that this will be the last useless Super Tuesday post for the evening, nor can I promise that any others will be written 100% sober. Though I do promise that if I can no longer type coherently, I’ll spare you. Because that’s just the kind of thoughtful person I am.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Yeah, obviously I know that it’s more complicated than this, but do you think that it might have anything to do with the fact that you’re likely to head down to the polling station on your way to work at 9:30 in the morning and find out that they’re not open until noon? Maybe? Not having polling stations open when they’re going to be most convenient for some people, and then having them only open for 9 hours so that if you work in the evening and don’t live close to your district location, you’re fucked?

So, now I get to go back on my way home from work. I wasn’t the only one there and pissed off, and there were more cars pulling in as I left. I live in a very conservative district, so no this isn’t a Repubs screwing the Dems issue, but it’s still bullshit. In fact, I just found out that it’s the same for the whole area, so I can only assume that it’s a NY State thing. Seriously, noon? On a Tuesday? The dentist’s office isn’t that damn inflexible. I guess that’s what I get for not watching the local news.

We live in a country where less than half the population votes regularly and where only a tiny fraction of people bother to vote in the primaries. You’d think that politicians might have an interest in fixing that, but I guess it’s much easier to pander to the same old voters than to try to get new ones.

Firstly, voting days need to be public holidays. The end, non-negotiable. Secondly, the polls should be open for at least 12 hours, probably from 8a.m. to 8/9p.m., so that people still have a chance to vote even if they work early or late because their job is too shitty to give them public holidays off. Thirdly, I get the whole efficiency and nonexistant voter-fraud issue, but I feel like there really has to be a better way of doing things than assigning each person to one polling location and one location only, because people don’t always work where they live. And god knows that you have to fight tooth and nail to obtain your damn right to a provisional ballot. Really, I’m sure that we could work this out if we wanted to.

And there you go, my morning rant. How is your day so far?

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As a large number of you probably know, tomorrow February 5th is “Super Tuesday” — the day on which the citizens of more than 20 different states vote for their presidential candidate of choice in the primaries.

I’ll be one of those voters; I’m sure that a lot of you will be, too.

As many other bloggers have been promoting, there is a hotline to call if you or someone else experiences trouble voting. If you witness anything that could possibly constitute voter disenfranchisement, on either side of the political fence, call 866-OUR-VOTE. The Democrats have their own hotline and a list of rights that all voters should know.

As I’ve expressed before, I’m eager to get the primaries over and done with. It would be really nice if, after tomorrow, we could have a nominee decided (though I’m not certain that this will be the case). I just want to come to terms with whoever the nominee is, latch on and find a way to become enthusiastic.

I’ve decided that I will be voting for Obama. It’s still more likely that Clinton will take it, but by no means certain. In the end, I will be satisfied with whoever wins. I think that Clinton is stronger on health care. I think that Obama is stronger on the war, in terms of personality/likability/campaigning, and perhaps on immigration and civil liberties. I appreciate his background as a community organizer. I also think that while he has by no means run a clean campaign (and has disappointed me numberous times on that front), he has managed to maintain a higher degree of decorum. And on most other issues that matter to me — poverty, reproductive rights, the environment — I haven’t found a huge difference between the two.

If you care to share, what’s your take? Who will you be voting for? Do you think that Clinton has it all wrapped up or that Obama still has a good chance of pulling through? Who do you think has the better chance of beating McCain (who will almost certainly be the GOP nominee)? And are you just as happy as I am to see this hellishly long primary season coming to an end?

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