Tracy Russo and I have been discussing other bloggers who politically influence audiences while not being political bloggers per se. I wish we had more of them. Political blogs can be alienating, polarized, and too Inside the Beltway for most readers. Sometimes, I like my politics pop, and I like to take political advice from people I like, whether they're politicos or not. This concept is hardly new, but translating it to blogging seems to be. Blogging tends towards the niche, so if I blog about food, I probably don't blog about politics. Exceptions to this rule include a lot of parenting bloggers, and some green bloggers. But we all have opinions about politics, so why don't we all write about it? Does it have to do with search engine relevance? Audience expectations? I think unexpected punditing is a great element of Huffington Post's success- remember how strangely compelling it was to read John Cusack's thoughts on Iraq back in 2005?
Rosie O'Donnell invented the genre. Roseanne Barr tried and failed. Whose non-politico political commentary do you read? Friends? Family blogs? Those in your city or geographic region? Hobbyists?
]]>Yesterday, the Senate failed to pass the Fair Pay Act. What was almost worse than that defeat, were the out-of-touch, old-fashioned--and downright insulting--statements about women. Senator McCain, who didn’t even come to vote, said that instead of legislation allowing women to fight for equal pay, they simply need "education and training."
Lilly Ledbetter, whose Supreme Court case led to the creation of the Fair Pay Act, didn't need "training". She needed Fair Pay. Women today make up 56% of college graduates and nearly half of the labor force in this country. Yet women make only 73 cents to a man's dollar, and mothers only make 60 cents, for the exact same job.
Sign the petition below in support of the Fair Pay Act. And for good measure, send Senator McCain your resume. Our goal is to send him 100,000. Think he'll get the point?
I'm sending mine. Mindy will you? I think we should ask Meghan McCain to send her resume in too. I don't think her Dad would want the Blogette to earn less than a Blog-him.
Also, according to OpenSecrets.org, a staggering 72% of McCain's donors are men (Hillary and Obama are much more even). Senator, maybe you're missing the boat with women voters- and this won't help.
]]>More: While we love the many blog-lists that abound of amazing political blogging by women, they are difficult to sort by state, party, or digest at a glance. As Lisa Stone writes, "we got tired of trying to guess which state bloggers are from and/or which party they're in or leaning toward. That's why, as a non-partisan guide to women who blog, BlogHer has developed a widget that you can instantly categorize your blog in and find other bloggers. You can:
* Search by state
* Search by blogger's first or last name
* Search by political party using our color key:
Blue = Democrat
Green = Green
Gray = Undecided
Khaki = Libertarian
Orange = Independent
Purple = Other/Multiparty
Red = Republican
This guide is incredibly easy to use --both to list your blog and then to post on your blog, too. We've pre-loaded it with a few bloggers we know, but hey -- we don't want to make a mistake about where you live and what you think! So rather than pour all 700-ish blogs from the BlogHer Politics blogroll into the mix, we think it's better if you add your blog."
Please sign up here and spread the word.
]]>I'm just...psyched. Hopeful. As a longtime, dejected Hillary supporter, I'm proud of her.
And here's the thing: it wasn't major online ads on ohio.com that won it. Wasn't Facebook.
It was Hillary Clinton, fighting back. Is she finding her voice?
YEAH!!!!
]]>People sent back all these fantastic things and as I delved deeper I realized, there's amazing things going on: Facebook for Obama, Twitter/Google Maps mash-up things, MySpace candidate forums...I mean, I read about these events, but I don't partake of them. I still read blogs (boring- how 2004) and listen to NPR (boring) and watch clips on YouTube (boring) and sometimes give contributions online (boring, but very, very key).
So I realized, I'm over 30, don't use Facebook or Twitter much, and I'm a Hillary supporter. I wasn't quite ready for Clinton's "Town Hall" on the Hallmark channel (I'll save that one for the over 60 crowd) but I feel as if the coolest applications of new technology this campaign cycle are aimed at the young and uber-wired, whereas 2004's innovations painted a wider stroke: blogs, online ads, MoveOn.org and email. I'm so glad these tools are driving out the youth vote, but I'm wondering what the new social media has to offer that is essential to the rest of the electorate? Especially if you're not for Obama, or Ron Paul?
Am I missing something or should I just go back to my cave?
]]>I encourage you to engage in this debate online and with your local, city, and state officials. Katy and I will mail the necessary requirements to the LAPD and wait for the results.
Tomorrow we WILL be covering the Democratic debate at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, as they have credentialed us without law enforcement press passes. In comparison, before I even submitted our social security numbers to organizers for the event, I received a "we'd be pleased to have you" response almost overnight.
]]>Sound familiar? If you're a blogger, you've no doubt had to justify your "media-ness," or maybe you've had to justify your reach, audience, general worthiness to those offering credentials or entry to an event you would like to cover. My colleague from BlogHer.com, Erin Kotecki Vest, is a former news reporter in LA. Below, she reports her horrific experience trying to get a credential for tonight's GOP debate, via the Los Angeles Police Department. It's a great read, but it's an important issue: are bloggers press only when authorities want them to be?
Erin writes:
]]>BlogHer's Katy Chen and I planned on posting a video from the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley-much like you saw with BlogHer's Mary Katharine Ham and Morra Aarons from New Hampshire.
Organizers of the event credentialed BlogHer.com to cover the GOP debate, but required all credentials be picked up with a "law enforcement issued press pass."
However, the Los Angeles Police Department denied credentials to both Katy and I on the grounds we are "online media" and BlogHer.com was not throughly investigated by the LAPD. This decision came suddenly after weeks of talks with LAPD personnel and assurances that Katy and I, as former Los Angeles news reporters, would be applying for a press pass "renewal" as we were simply changing our media affiliation.
Normally any new reporter would have to go through a background check and fingerprinting before being issued credentials, but as Katy and I have already been through this process had been issued credentials for previous employers, we were told it was only a matter of "pulling us up in the system" and issuing stickers for 2008-2010.
BlogHer.com made all the necessary arrangements from passport photos to signed letters stating Katy and I were BlogHer employees and would indeed be covering events and news inside Los Angeles. We were told to contact LAPD on Monday morning, as the woman who issues the press passes would be in at 6:30am specifically to renew media for the next two days as "everyone is coming in getting them for the GOP debate, we'll be doing it all day and night."
Monday morning came, and I called as instructed and spoke with LAPD media relations in order to set my appointment time for renewal that day. It was then I was told "we've never heard of you or this blogher thing and you need a background check."
I explained Katy and I had completed all the necessary steps, were instructed to bring our new employment letter to the police station, and that we can both be found in the LAPD "system."
I was then told "...this is online, right? We're not doing online. You have to submit the employer and show me three months of coverage in Los Angeles and I have to look at it before I can give you passes."
To be honest, I was thrown. Here we had spoken to LAPD personnel, checking and double checking for weeks if we had prepared properly and were being told, two days before the event, we had to submit three months worth of coverage and find a way to show "via tape or print" BlogHer.com's amazing coverage.
I offered to hand-deliver links, printed pages of the site and to assist in anyway possible in showing BlogHer.com as a legitimate source of information.
I was told there was no need, "submit it all by mail and I'll review it and get back to you." I asked if I could FedEx documents, given the rush and was again rebuffed with, "there is no need, I'm not going to get to it. It could take months."
Frustrated and confused I hung up with LAPD, promising to send in our information via snail mail soon. Then I made a few more calls, and this is where the real story begins.
As luck would have it, Katy and I have had the good fortune of working for several news outlets in Los Angeles. We've gotten to know many news directors , anchors, and reporters over the years. Katy and I began calling and emailing past colleagues.
My first call was to the President of the Radio and Television News Directors Association or RTNDA. It was then I learned of the ongoing battle between the LAPD and media. I was told the RTNDA and LAPD agreed last year to come up with a system for issuing credentials to bloggers and failed to reach an agreement. In the meantime, RTNDA and LAPD agreed to put online media through the same background check and fingerprinting as main stream media and they would issue press passes on a case by case basis. I was told given Katy and my background in Los Angeles news media this should not have been an issue.
Furthermore, after talking to several local news directors, the LAPD personnel's claim of "not knowing who we were" was contradicted. Each news director told me they had been approached by the LAPD and specifically asked about myself and Katy-if they knew us, when we worked for them, etc.
The confusion over the subject had Katy and I contacting the LA County Sheriff's department and the California Highway Patrol to see if they would credential us in time for the debate. New background checks were needed for the LA Sheriff's as they do not use the same system as the LAPD, and the turn-around time was months.
Then the emails and calls TO us began. I received several offers from local and national media to help us out. They would write letters saying we were their employees. They would give us unused 2008-2010 stickers. They would even let us take their well-known anchor's pass (a man) up to the check in point of the library, simply to make a statement.
I politely and with much gratitude decline their offers, and agreed with each offering party that we would tackle this together, formally, as media brethren.
We're not the only ones who have faced this issue. Frank Russo tackled this with the California Legislature in March of last year.
I understand with every new medium there are some growing pains. There is debate to be had over which entities can call themselves "media" and which are not. Over what constitutes a "legitimate" news or information source and what is just one woman and her blog, with no readers. But there is something to be said about that one woman and her blog, utilizing the freedom of the press and the officials she elects and tax dollars she contributes.
I encourage you to engage in this debate online and with your local, city, and state officials. Katy and I will mail the necessary requirements to the LAPD and wait for the results.
Tomorrow we WILL be covering the Democratic debate at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, as they have credentialed us without law enforcement press passes. In comparison, before I even submitted our social security numbers to organizers for the event, I received a "we'd be pleased to have you" response almost overnight.
I'd like to thank the Ronald Reagan Library for welcoming BlogHer.com and apologize for our absence tonight. And I'd be remiss to not publicly thank the various Los Angeles news departments that offered us their support, help, and who even vouched for us with the LAPD. I'm encouraged to see the old guard embrace and encourage the new, proving to me, once again, it's all about community-online or otherwise.
Our political team is confused by the response of presidential candidates to BlogHer, and to some other organizations and blogs by women. For the past six months, BlogHer has invited seven leading presidential candidates -- Democratic and Republican, we're non-partisan -- to participate with BlogHer's influential, passionate community of now 7.6 million techno-savvy women, who write and read thousands of influential blogs.
Furthermore:
And there’s more -- what really confuses us is that:
# Instead of the presidential candidates, BlogHer has been offered an opportunity to interview two candidate spouses, Ann Romney and Michelle Obama (more in our action timeline below)
# Just this week, two presidential campaigns (Senators Clinton and Obama) started marketing new Web sites devoted exclusively to women, even specifically to moms. These are the very women who populate BlogHer's conferences, visit our sites and write the blogs in our ad network. In fact, if they’re trying to reach moms, the majority of BlogHer's 1,100 BlogHer Ad Network members are mothers, and most blog about that parenting experience! (More detail, including their recruiting letters to women and moms in our action timeline below.)
You see, at BlogHer we thought the lack of interest in engaging with our community, and others like it, was about gender. Oprah is one thing, but online women's communities tend to get this kind of soft in the head treatment from campaigns, as this email promoting MomsforHillary attests:
"The holidays are in full swing - what would you want most? A night when you can put up your feet with your favorite pals and have someone throw a party for YOU! You can be that one lucky person who is randomly selected from the first moms who sign-up on the Moms for Hillary website to receive a fabulous - and very unique - prize.
I hope Mark Penn has some polling data somewhere stating that women just love this kind of stuff, because frankly, I think it's insulting for a candidate to assume the majority of the voting population wants a party rather than a good president.
But maybe the candidates' disinterest in engaging with voters online is about neither gender nor techiness: it's about resources and time. It's Iowa, New Hampshire, or bust. Sucks to be the other 48 states, but oh well. That's the game.
Oh well. I'll just tune out then, since my attention isn't needed right now (I live in Massachusetts).
]]>"NY Post: HILL SHILLS HINT AT 'BAM SLAM
By ROBERT D. NOVAKNovember 17, 2007 -- Agents of Sen. Hillary Clinton are spreading the word in Democratic circles that she has scandalous information about her principal opponent for the party's presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama, but has decided not to use it. The nature of the alleged scandal was not disclosed.
This word-of-mouth among Democrats makes Obama look vulnerable and Clinton look prudent. It comes during a dip for the front-running Clinton after she refused to take a stand on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's now discarded plan to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens."
Experienced Democratic political operatives believe Clinton wants to avoid a repetition of 2004, when attacks on each other by presidential candidates Howard Dean and Richard Gephardt were mutually destructive and facilitated John Kerry's nomination."
Obama made a statement on his website saying "But in the interest of our party, and her own reputation, Senator Clinton should either make public any and all information referred to in the item, or concede the truth: that there is none.
"She of all people, having complained so often about 'the politics of personal destruction,' should move quickly to either stand by or renounce these tactics."
What is all this in aid of? Why does this have to become a story?
In 2004, the Swift Boat veterans emerged from the bowels of the Internet, local media, and the imaginations of Bush loyalists and the world of the blogs to cripple the Kerry campaign. In the 2008 race, we have a Democratic candidate willingly using the term "Swiftboating" to accuse another Democratic candidate of nefarious action. Tomorrow, the media will likely report on the Obama-Hillary-Novak story and elevate its profile. And we will get distracted over yet another story about Beltway name calling...look, I'm doing it now.
]]>Clinton's tendency (or imperative) to doubletalk on issues means she cannot lead right now, because she is hamstrung by the handicaps of being a pioneer, yes, but also being the frontrunner. She must be too cautious, and that puts her at risk of standing for nothing, and everything, and then losing. It’s an old saw that politicians can never be too specific, lest they alienate supporters, but I think now we need more from our leaders. Can we get off the horse race and the desensitization and talk about Iran?
Like the MoveOn.org “General Betrayus” ad and censuring Pete Stark, both of which clouded real issues and consumed several news cycles, yet again political pundits and elected officials and candidates are shunning real responsibility by covering process over issues.
Hillary Clinton has to work so hard to be tough. I do think her gender and her front-runner status combine to create a horrible condition: she can’t say anything real. Even when she (or, I guess, her staff) drops the unflappable front and complains about something real, she’s attacked and has to backtrack.
Wendy Kaminer’s approach explains the calculation: “But while Clinton assures voters that she’s tough enough to face down the demented tyrants in North Korea or Iran, she appeals to their sense of chivalry when criticized by her male opponents.”
Some feminists, like Sister Toldjah, disagreed with Clinton’s stance: “as a self-proclaimed feminist woman, if she wanted to hold true to what the radical feminista sisterhood routinely preaches (but, as we see more and more, doesn’t actually practice) about women being equal to men in every way, she should stand tall and, as they say, “take it like a man…”
Conservatives (and, er, the press) had a field day after the Philly debate because it allowed them to paint the Democratic front runner (talk about working out issues) as “Hillary: Macho, Macho Woman" or, to cite another favorite title: “Hillary Vs. the Girly Men?”
But enough already. Clinton wants to be our president! And she vacillates on giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, she signs on to the hawkish Kyl-Lieberman bill that names part of Iran’s army a terrorist organization (Nancy Pelosi, bless her, won’t even bring up this bill in the House because it’s inappropriate and unprecedented)- but then couches her vote by signing on to another anti-Iran war bill, or re-frames her words.
Senator Clinton spends so much time proving how tough she is and defending her position, she forgets to actually lead. She played the gender card last week but in truth, I think she was mostly attacked at the Democratic debate in Philly because she was waffling and because she will not take a stand on things that matter. I think Obama, Edwards, et al are some of the least sexist men out there. Male, female, whatever: this is not leadership. I do believe it is painful and trying to be the first serious female candidate in America. I do think there are gender issues at play (see Cara at the Curvature). But this is not an excuse. Some of Clinton’s positions are unacceptable, because she refuses to take a stand.
Senator Clinton is not leading on Iran. She is vacillating. “I’m not in favor of this rush to war. But I’m also not in favor of doing nothing,” as Frank Rich quoted her Sunday. That's not an answer! How does that win voters in the long run? What does that even mean?
Besides, even if Hillary doesn’t bring up the gender issue, others will do it for her, because it’s real. But it’s not leadership. In our culture, leaders don’t complain, even if they have reason to. They are brave and they take stands. She can’t win the process war and shirk responsibility on issues. We have Congress for that.
Some other perspectives:
Kat’s Korner doesn’t even like Hillary, but she feels sorry for Hillary “as a woman” and thinks Obama’s response was pathetic: “Instead of trying to spin it, Barack Obama should drop it and find something else to push because he and Edwards look like trash right now. And this isn't something women are going to forget or let go of.”
Susan UnPC doesn’t see it as vacillating. She notes that Hillary “was also being the “wonkish” Hillary we’ve heard so much about: She likes to look into the complexities of issues and express all sides. To me, that’s an admirable trait.”
What do you think? Is it fair and honest for Hillary to bring up gender?
Cross posted from BlogHer.com
]]>]]>Because men are more interested in wasting time in debating abstract ideas, principles, and other high-sounding but vaporous stuff. Women are more interested in the concrete work of dealing with real people and real relationships...
Because men are more interested in wasting time in debating abstract ideas, principles, and other high-sounding but vaporous stuff. Women are more interested in the concrete work of dealing with real people and real relationships...
or, do
Men just have too much time on their hands! Perhaps if women had wives to pick up their socks and cook their dinners, they would have more time to argue politics online. But we DO vote and that’s the important thing!!
Or perhaps,
Three primary reasons men are more engaged:
1. Look around the shopping malls. Its hard to do two things at once. Yes, women could blackberry into blogs, but then they’d have to put down all those shopping bags.
2. A far small proportion of women than men are capable of the type of articulate reasoning widely found in blogs discussions.
3. A large bloc of women are more bogged down in housework, specifically, single mothers. Half a generation of American women poorly reasoned that they impregnate themselves by their disinterested “bad boys” rather than sincere romantic suitors. Now those same women are stuck raising kids alone - and truly short on time for intellectual pursuits.
— Posted by Andrew
Gee, thanks Andrew for that pearl of wisdom. Seelye's article is now live on the Times site with quotes from me and Emily McKhann, who was one of the only bloggers credentialed to cover the Clinton Global Initiative last week. Before the article came out, I wrote about this topic on BlogHer, in the context of an interview I did with Marie Wilson, President of the White House Project and a seriously amazing woman. She gave me some advice: if I want to be taken more seriously as a political blogger, maybe I should blog less about traditional "women's issues."
Now what do you think of that one? I think of Emily McKhann's fantastic coverage of the Clinton Global Initiative. I think of Virginia Debolt's techy take on "One Laptop per Child." And Kim Pearson on the Jena 6, and the general "dailyness" of the media and news cycle.
In her book the Second Stage, Betty Friedan writes about famed Congresswoman and activist Bella Abzug:
Fired as head of the President's Advisory Committee on Women when she (Abzug) insisted that inflation, unemployment, and the federal budget were women's issues, she was now trying to start a new women's power base...."
Maybe the Internet is our new "power base." I'm still debating how seriously I take the online "women's issues" ghetto notion. But in the meantime, here are some more great women political bloggers:
* Professor Kim's News Notes
* The new Silicon Valley mom's Momocrats (pro-John Edwards)-she wrote, "Trust me, we're out there" in the NYT comments section.
* Gloria Feldt's new blog on Huffington Post
* MediaLizzy, Fred Thompson supporter and smart, funny writer.
My Republican co-editor Dana Tuske started out with this mission: "Since so many Republican bloggers are men, my idea became a quest for female conserva-bloggers."
Her finds range from the lame and venal.
]]>My Republican co-editor Dana Tuske started out with this mission: "Since so many Republican bloggers are men, my idea became a quest for female conserva-bloggers."
Her finds range from the lame and venal:
Raven of And Rightly So! tells us, "I used to be a liberal (cough) (choke) (gag me) but saw them for who they really are after September, 11 2001 (limp dicked wussbags). I consider myself to be a conservative who leans a little to the far right."
to the forthright, from MediaLizzy, who also has a great podcast on her site:
When it comes right down to it, the RNC and the California GOP are suffering from the same thing: repeated hijackings by liberals posing as loyal Republicans. I don't see the attraction, as there is a thriving party in California eager to embrace more liberals. This same party is guilty of having run the state into the ground. I ask the liberal "Republicans" to expend your energy in the other party. You are the ones creating the voter apathy among conservatives. Why should they vote for you when you smell just like a Democrat?
]]>Today I want to write about Red State Women- even the ones who don’t live in Red States. One of the saddest things about the Petraeus hearings has been the complete, nasty, partisanship of it all. Discussion about the War is not about reality, or a hopeful resolution. It’s bickering. I find it hard not to be angry with those in my rival political party, every single member.
Perhaps as a hint that I need to grow up and expand my vantage point, Denise just sent me a big list of Conservative and libertarian leaning women bloggers to read. I am very biased about who Republican women might be. I'm a Northeastern liberal; I tend to assume they aren’t in my midst. My time at Harvard (where I am a grad student), ironically enough, is altering this perception. Guess what: there are Republican women around me (even in Massachusetts), and some even care about child care, good health care for all, and a sensible resolution for Iraq.
read more...And then there are the young Republican women online. I have a lot of respect for them. Sometimes I do CNN with Mary Katharine Ham, who blogs at the ultra-conservative Townhall.com. I think Ham is really smart, and she's funny, so that blunts the repugnance of many of her views. And Mary Katharine's colleague Amanda Carpenter has been tearing up the airways, because she's been covering the Petraeus hearings. Like Ham, Amanda is young, glamorous and hot, and funny. She's completely NOT what I expect from a radical Conservative. I'm parochial like that. I tend to assume all young, hot, glamorous and funny women are like me (I also have low self-esteem).
But thanks to Denise, I trawled through the blogs of women who don't share my political views, to learn what they think of the Petraeus hearings, and the events of the past few days. I set out to read these ten or so blogs in hopes that I would find some common ground, and that they would be less polemical, snarky, or preachy than some of their male counterparts (and that includes the lefty DailyKos to righty Hugh Hewitt). And hopefully, much less rude than Michelle Malkin.
Funny…the Conservative bloggers I just read wrote less about Petraeus than about 9/11. Their lefty counterparts- I’d say they wrote more about Petraeus. Echoes Obama's claim that holding the Petraeus hearings on 9/10 and 9/11 only perpetuates the myth that Iraq and 9/11 are related.
Sister Toldjah writes, “Congressional Democrats don’t have the courage of their convictions to say that they think the General is a liar themselves, so they let their far left groups speak for them, thinking that somehow people won’t put two and two together and understand that those groups are working together to undermine the Commander in Chief and General Petraeus.”
Amen, sister!
Lawyer Conservative Princess likes Prada, Malkin, and attacks Dennis Kucinich. Sorry, Kucinich is too easy a mark; that’s not true punditry. Next.
Webutante writes “I believe that the surge is working and we should support our troops in every way possible now. I also believe daily prayer for them and our success in Iraq is a powerful tool for us to employ.” I’m sorry, Webutante, but I can’t agree with you. I do, however, wish peace and safety for your friend’s son, serving in Iraq.
Lorie Byrd doesn’t cover Petraeus, but she does ask us to “Stand by the Mission” and support the Victory Caucus , a petition that states “Iraq is now the central front in the War on Terrorism - not because Americans want it to be but because America's enemies have said so and made it so.” Some would say the war effort in Iraq has made it so, but oh well. I wouldn’t want to be called unpatriotic.
GOP Vixen has a button on her blog boasting: “I heart NeoCons.”
Fred Thompson supporter Blonde Sagacity (who looks hot and blonde on her photo) doesn’t mention Petraeus. But she has an allegorical guest post that states:
"Imagine you grew up with a Bully in your neighborhood. At first he just called you names with an occasional stick or stone thrown in for effect...no big deal. As the years went by he became more aggressive…. You said you had seen enough, vowed to do something...actually called the Bully and threatened to do something ...but did nothing.
Then he started harassing the neighbors...threatening everybody that wasn't in his small circle of friends. The next thing you know, he shows up at your front door with a gun, shoots you in the leg and flees. Before you had even recuperated he actually drives his car into your house, burning half of it to the ground! And...tells you he'll be back soon to burn the rest down!
That was it. You called the neighbors together, told them you were going to go over to the Bully's house, confront him and put an end to it...once and for all. They all supported you doing it...but they were also afraid.
You actually did it! And a huge fight ensues and goes on for much longer than anyone expected. In fact...it is still going on and the neighbors are really getting nervous.
Guess what some of the neighbors and the Democrats say now..."you should have never called him a Bully...and you certainly shouldn't have gone over to his house...you just made him madder."
Laughable isn't it...but true."
Jennifer Gallagher writes (and I assume she’s targeting anti-war folks, here) “We need to show our troops that there are tough Americans that support them and do not falter in their support for their country and the men and women that protect it.”
I hate this line from Conservatives: if one wants an end to the war, one does not support the troops? That is pure propaganda.
Some more Conservative voices:
http://razorsharpclaws.blogspot.com/
Thompson supporter: http://myrepublicanblog.blogspot.com/
An American Front Porch: http://www.anamericanfrontporch.com/“Since when was the American Dream defined by one’s status as a home owner or not?” Smart.
Now, one and a half libertarians worth reading:
Megan McCardle (also at) Asymetrical Information responds to this question:” just because we haven't experienced tragedy does not prove we are doing things right,” thusly”
Who knows, perhaps it is that our security folks have really Gotten Serious and are catching all sorts of terrorists. But it seems to me that the more likely explanation is this: we don't have as many Muslims as Europe, and these days, we're letting in a lot fewer than we used to. And the Muslims we do have are, by and large, much better integrated than those in Europe.
I'm very fond of America's policy towards immigrants, which is to say, we don't have one. No one will try to force you to assimilate, but no one's going to help you keep from assimilating either. This policy of benign neglect considerably alleviates both sorts of Muslim/Christian tension found in Europe: the populations that have been positively encouraged not to see themselves as part of the larger culture, and the populations that feel their traditions are under attack.
ok, I can see that.
More libertarians:
http://thatgirltasha.blogspot.com/http://girlinshortshorts.blogspot.com/
I liked Atheist Hussy
On a side note, one can only imagine if blogging had been around during Bill Clinton’s presidencies. I saw the War Room the other night. When Gennifer Flowers made her allegations against Bill Clinton, she only had the National Enquirer to back her up. Today, that would never happen. Something would break on a blog, and boom, it would be in the New York Times. Online conversations have put the conversations we have about our candidates, our celebrities, or even our neighbors online. And this is a new challenge for campaigns.
Elizabeth and John Edwards have done more than any candidate to break down barriers between themselves and the voting public, and now they are paying the price. Elizabeth is a well-known blogger and one of the most amazing things about her is her willingness to participate in online conversations. But the thing is, if you participate online, you cannot expect to maintain polite barriers. And when your parenting is in question, you’d better be prepared for a grilling.
As Rebecca Eisenberg writes “public figures make public choices, and ask us to approve or disapprove.” It started when, on the influential Silicon Valley Moms blog, Rebecca addressed Mrs. Edwards:
“TAKE YOUR KIDS HOME. Get off the freakin' campaign trail. Your husband is NOT going to be the candidate, and he is NOT going to be president. He is NOT ahead in the polls. He is NOT going to make it. We need a Democratic in office desperately, and you are harming that chance by going around saying negative things about the TOP candidates and splitting the vote. Worst of all, you are being a terrible mother, forcing your young children, who should be in SCHOOL, to ride in buses and talk to the press when they obviously don't want to. This election is NOT ABOUT THEM. They deserve some peace, not time with nannies and campaign-trail daycare providers, since, as the Times article describes, you don't have time to see them when you are busy campaigning too.
The comments that follow are by and large, supportive of Mrs. Edwards. I like Liz from Mom101’s response:
“…one thing no one has mentioned is that this is not some Hollywood star dragging his kid on a shoot. Or even me - a mom who often travels for work and has indeed taken my daughter along, even if it meant I could only see her an hour each morning. (Tool that I am.)
This is a family who, I believe, genuinely feels compelled to serve.
I've never felt a higher calling to service to this degree and I can't quite put myself in the Edwards' shoes. But thank God there are people like this in our country--overall decent people still willing to run for office to try to effect positive change, in spite of the the vitriol, the intense scrutiny, the brutal personal attacks they have to endure to get there.”
And as Emily writes on BeenThere, Elizabeth commented right back:
“With all due respect, what you would choose to do is relevant only once: when you choose how to spend your remaining days. I made my choice; because of our lives it was a public choice, but the choice doesn't belong to the public, it belongs to me. And with all due respect, you have no idea what the quality or amount of the time I spend with my children is. I am reasonably confident your information is wrong because a reporter from the New York Times who was with us for less than one hour is your source. A reporter, by the way, who asked for time with our children and who, because our children are in fact children, saw good behavior and bad and who reported our wonderful advantures together as if the children and I were ships passing in the night, which is simply not true.”
So yes, discussion of family values and the candidates—Democrat and Republican-- is alive and well online. Blogs are going to be a rich source of family values discussion in 2007-2008, and not just from the usual suspects (eg, moral majority types). Family values is about more than abortion and gay marriage this cycle, and thank God for that.
Last week Michelle Obama infamously said, “If you can’t run your own house, you can’t run the White House.” In this comment, she was targeting many assumed she was targeting Hillary Clinton. But perhaps the larger goal behind the Obama campaign’s use of Mrs. Obama (she is, after all, the major spokesperson for "Women for Obama") is to present an ideal of the modern mom: smart, sassy, high earning and able to have a baby on one hip, a blackberry in hand, and a stream of cutely chiding comments for your husband.
I really liked this post from Rikyrah on Jack and Jill politics,
“And, that's where Michelle Obama comes in, and that has been her major task: To show the common universality of the 'American Experience', and point out that we're not all so different. Using herself as an example, not only within the context of how SHE, was skeptical about Barack Obama in the beginning, not knowing what to make of this 'Skinny Black Guy with a funny name who grew up in Hawaii', thus relating herself to the general audience - both BLACK and WHITE - but, also by bringing up her OWN background.
Another important part of the challenge of the Obama campaign, in its quest to reach out to the General American populace, is that they have had to try and reshape the very IMAGE of the BLACK FAMILY.”
That’s a big task.
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney’s wife Ann’s online presence takes a different tack. Top Google result for Ann Romney?
“Ann Romney places primary importance on her role as a wife, a mother and a grandmother.”
On his website , Mitt writes of his wife, “she has an extraordinary capability to communicate and to provide advice and counsel. I've tried to figure out where that comes from. She's smart, but it's not like either one of us is Einstein.”
I don’t expect any diatribes against Ann’s parenting on blogs. But Judi Giuliani…well, the discussion is off and running. And it ain’t pretty. Same for Geri Thompson.
It’s often said that we elect candidates because of their personal appeal to us. This includes their partners and families (let's not forget Mr. Clinton). They enter our lives, and we feel free to dissect their choices. In 2008, bloggers will lead these discussions, fan flames, and offer support.
]]>Indeed, there’s a growing chorus bubbling up online. I think Garance Franke-Ruta summed it up brilliantly with the title of her recent Yearly Kos panel: “Blogging while Female.” Political blogging, while female, is not the norm.
]]>This column will attempt to explain. This might be like sticking a finger in a dam, considering the huge breadth and presence of women online, but here goes. And I’d love your feedback if you think I’ve missed major pockets.
Gender is seeping into discussion of the netroots in a major way. As today’s Washington Post quotes Yearly Kos Executive Director Gina Cooper on her conference: "It's mostly white. More male than female," says the former high school math and science teacher turned activist. "It's not very diverse."
Indeed, there’s a growing chorus bubbling up online. I think Garance Franke-Ruta summed it up brilliantly with the title of her recent Yearly Kos panel: “Blogging while Female.” Political blogging, while female, is not the norm. Each day, I’m hearing this: “Where are the female political bloggers”? But it’s a risky business, this gender aware blogging. Are we whiny, or just noting the obvious? Are we missing something when we highlight the extreme maleness of political blogging?
I’m not sure the “Blogging While Female” argument is good for women bloggers’ public perception (in the same way that feminism can become “Femme-Nazism” when spun), but I do feel it’s necessary. And it’s valid.
Most media accounts portray the netroots right now as a monolithic bloc, and a powerful one at that. Anyone who’s participated in an online community knows there is certainly not one netroots bloc, nor is there one blogosphere. That’s why the Internet is so great: public participation becomes as vertical and diverse as human interests. But as political gatherings such as Yearly Kos become more powerful, women must be firmly present. It’s ironic that the Party of the big tent seems to be expressing itself online as the Party of the white male. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Today, Garance wrote this on women and political blogging.
“…Obama, whose campaign is headquartered in Chicago, sent no one to the largest gathering of women bloggers in the country (the BlogHer 2007 conference, which took place in Chicago on July 27-29, right before Yearly Kos). It seemed like an odd political decision, but, some suggested, perhaps he was just not trying to make much of a play for blogger affections.Well, think again. During today’s Hillary Clinton noontime break-out session at Yearly Kos, Barack Obama held a quiet get-together with 13 or 14 top bloggers, according to two attendees, of whom Ali Savino (who is not a blogger per se but is deeply involved with the Center for Independent Media, which she co-founded, and the Townhouse blogger list-serv) was the only female. The Atlantic’s Matthew Yglesias was there, as were my colleague Ezra Klein and his roommate Brian Buetler, of the Media Consortium, The New Yorker’s Hendrick Hertzberg, Huffington Post foreign policy blogger Alex Rossmiller, and others…”
There’s a complicated follow up to the original figures Garance reports, but suffice it to say, it’s an issue.
The upside to such gripes is this, as the National Women’s Editorial Forum blog points out: “Coming on the heels of last week's BlogHer conference, what I'm seeing is an ever-widening circle of women bloggers, reporters and media-reform advocates who gave begun to connect and inter-connect their efforts.”
As I mentioned in an earlier column, women are the majority of participants online, and we’re half the bloggers. When we are participating, writing, and blogging, do we hang out in the same places online as men? Is it derogatory to call women who blog about being parents “mommybloggers”?
Let’s delve in.
Women and blogging: trend lines
Women used to be the true minority in blogging, but we have caught up. The most recent Pew Internet and American Life survey shows that women make up 51 percent of Internet users, according to the survey, and represent 46 percent of bloggers. Fifty-four percent of bloggers, male and female, are between the ages of 18-29, the survey found; 60 percent are white, and 51 percent live in suburbia. Men are more “intense” Internet users than women, but women talk more online.
The same Pew report notes, “Women are more likely to see the vast array of online information as a “glut” and to penetrate deeper into areas where they have the greatest interest, including health and religion. Women tend to treat information gathering online as a more textured and interactive process – one that includes gathering and exchanging information through support groups and personal email exchanges.” In short, women are social networkers online as well as offline, but the context in which we have these interactions is even more important online.
I don’t have any empirical research on women and political blogging. I’d love to see some. Personally, I often feel political blogging is quite clubby and wonkish (and I’m at the Kennedy School of Government, for goodness’ sake). It takes balls (and seemingly, a Master’s Degree or near-constant attention to CSPAN) to participate on the homepage of the Daily Kos. As the Election hots up, political discussion will seep out beyond strictly political blogs, and this is when online voter-generated content will get really exciting and fresh.
Popular portals for women bloggers
As you see with the increasingly popularity of diary or “group” blogs, increasingly women bloggers coalesce online. Of course, many women blog at places where their gender isn’t a point of interest, but it’s important to keep tabs on women’s online communities.
If you are searching for nodes of powerful women bloggers, I recommend:
Feministing.com
BlogHer.org
WIMN’s Voices blog. This blog has a great blogroll of women bloggers too.
Culture Kitchen
and Liza Sabater’s other sites...
BlogsbyWomen
MotherTalkers
DotMoms
Also, Suzanne Reisman is a funny, smart feminist/political blogger.
Postscript: Mommybloggers!
When I worked in the private sector, nearly every large corporate client I had was desperate to “reach” moms who blog. The likes of Dove, Nintendo, Kraft, GM, and every consumer packaged good company sends product, press releases, and swag to powerful moms who blog.
Several years ago, a movement started online. It’s equally powerful as the “netroots” and if you’re involved in social change in this country, you should know about it. I won’t describe it here, since I am not qualified. For one of the best summaries on the semantics behind the term Mommyblogging, read this post from Liz Gumbinner:
“I have never once called myself a Mommyblogger, not without a heavy dose of irony. I admit in fact to cringing when I hear myself described that way. I tend to say instead, "I have a parenting blog."
And yet, I often feel the need to offer a disclaimer. "I have a parenting blog, but..."
But...it's funny.
But...I can also discuss Bush's heinous disregard for the Kyoto treaty and the potential impact for generations to come.
But...hey, do you like Journey? Wait til you hear my new ringtone!
Saying "while I write about my child, I think really what I do is look at social issues, politics, pop culture, and my own feelings about work and the world through the eyes of a new mother" is a wee bit verbose in most contexts. Mommyblogger it is. Blech.
Liz also writes:
There isn't mommyblogging, there is mommybloggings.There are two groups as far as I can see. There are writers who came to blogs as another medium in which to hone their craft. The community of kindred spirits found through blogging is a wonderful and rewarding but altogether unexpected side benefit. These are the women - me included - for whom the term is inherently limiting. It tells men, older parents, the childless, this writing is not for you. And there is no writer who wants to alienate a potential reader before he or she has even read word one.
The second group of mommybloggers are women who came to blogs as a way to find a community of like-minded people and develop more meaningful relationships than those found in a chat room or an online message board. The writing itself was perhaps secondary to the friendships--or maybe it became more important as time went on. For these women, mommyblogging is entirely the opposite of limiting. It's downright freeing. It's a portal to wonderful things, opening far more doors than it closes.”
Memo to political campaign staff: these women vote, they are vocal, and they’re mobilized. Reach out to them! Take a page from Corporate America, for once- these women bloggers drive change!
]]>Then, tonight at the BlogHer Conference pre-party, I spoke with Jennifer Pozner, editor of WIMN’s Voices blog . She referred me to this post she wrote:
“Even during a campaign in which a woman is, for the first time, considered the front-runner for a major party’s presidential nomination, only 12 of the 39 questions selected were asked by women, according to Macklay’s tally, men asked approx. 70% of the questions. [NOTE: I have not independently verified these tallies.]
Update/correction to Mackley’s numbers: Rachel Joy Larris, in a National Women’s Editorial Board blog post, puts the number of women’s questions at 11, not 12, as follows:
The questions women were shown asking: question #7 on race and class being a factor in the Katrina disaster, #9 on gay marriage, #13 a mother asking how many soldiers have to die in Iraq, #19 a young woman asking the candidates to name their favorite teacher, #22 a Planned Parenthood worker from Pennsylvania asking whether the candidates talk to their kids about sex, #25 about energy consumption by the U.S., #27 about whether they would work for minimum wage, #29 a quick one on paying Social Security to those earning over $97,500, #29 featuring two women and two men asking health care-related questions and, lastly, #34 a woman asking, she said, on behalf of “friends,” about whether their health care plans would include undocumented workers.”
And then I came across Jen Moseley's post on Feministing.com :
“The breathless coverage of presidential campaign “hot chick” videos continues. I really really tried to ignore the whole Obama Girl craziness, hoping it would just go away. But no, now videos of scantily clad women have somehow become emblematic of new media in this presidential election cycle. Letting anyone submit debate questions via YouTube? Oh, interesting. But damn, hot girls dancing and singing? This is groundbreaking political discourse. Oh, wait. They’re just supposed to be “funny.” Oh, I get it. Just had to take my humorless feminist hat off.The latest in this string of videos really takes it to the next level. That’s right, folks. What you’ve all been waiting for, a cat fight. Obama Girl and Giuliani Girl get it on. And what a surprise, there’s
a pillow fight…”
WTF? I’m not saying that a woman’s presence on YouTube should consist of Celine Dion songs (sorry, Senator Clinton). But if YouTube’s continued prominence in politics continues to consist of mainly men (who aren't the majority of the electorate) submitting questions and fake-hip hopper videos with women in bikinis, this does not bode well for the future of citizen journalism.
Frankly, I didn't notice the lack of women's questions during the CNN/YouTube debate, but the numbers are stark. And if I have to watch another slutty YouTube political video, I'm going to be sick.
]]>As I wrote on BlogHer, is this debate... a shift, or is it a stunt?
]]>As I wrote on BlogHer, is this debate...
a shift, or is it a stunt?Speaking of, Time's Ana Marie Cox was pretty snarky about the Web 2.0 nature of the debate: "Attentive readers will recall that excitement among the internetters is about as heated as it appears to be among journalists. Their best hope, I think, is if they get "Obama Girl" to moderate." Oh, snap.
Lou Cabron scoffs,
"while it's morbidly amusing to imagine candidates groveling for LonelyGirl15's endorsement, YouTube is slyly attempting to appear democratic without actually accomplishing anything. But maybe that's YouTube's cynical comment on democracy itself. Maybe they're imagining the event's slogan as: "It's participatory! It's YouTube! And it's stupid! Just like voting..."
Now, come on, Lou. Don't be snarky. There are One Million Strong for Obama on Facebook!
I think this is the problem: not enough women asking questions. In one of our forums, Women's Voices, Women's Vote noted that "of the first 200 [video] submissions, only 34 were from women!" Yuck. I'd love to ask Anderson why he thinks men are rushing to the camcorder...and I must admit, the whole YouTube Debate site does have a very boy feel to it.
Data I've seen shows that hardcore YouTubers are young (avg age 27) and skew male, so I guess it's to be expected that video questioners would be mostly male. On the other hand, if a YouTube debate helps get young men to the polls, hallelujah.
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