Barack Obama’s campaign benefited greatly in the Democratic primary from the caucus system, which effectively disenfranchised large numbers of Hillary Clinton’s supporters including seniors, the disabled, shift workers, and members of the military.
The LA Times reports that party leadership, firmly under Obama’s control, beat back an attempt to amend the Democratic platform to ban caucuses in favor of state primaries:
“But the party's platform committee refused to allow a vote on the amendment or even a discussion. Co-chair Patricia Madrid, a former New Mexico attorney general, said the matter would instead be taken up at a later date by the party's rules committee.”
The Times article details discussions on other issues in contention among Obama and Clinton loyalists in constructing the party’s platform, including universal health care, a signature issue for Clinton.
Read More.
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Showing posts with label Democratic platform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democratic platform. Show all posts
Monday, August 11, 2008
Friday, August 1, 2008
It’s 2008: Will Democratic Platform Condemn the Media’s Sexist Bias?
1960s feminist icon Gloria Steinem must be shaking her head at how long it takes for so-called liberals to wake up and call the media to account.People, it’s 2008. Can you believe that after all these years the political party that has long claimed the mantle of liberalism has to be prodded to even acknowledge the sexist assaults Hillary Clinton endured from a blatantly biased media throughout the Democratic primary?
Part of the problem has to be the subtext here: Democratic Party leaders colluded with the media for months in their efforts to force Hillary Clinton out of the race, even warning her - while she was still a contender - not to be overly critical of her opponent. As Gloria Steinem and others have since pointed out, this is the first presidential race in the nation’s history in which the media had the gall to repeatedly ask a serious candidate to drop out.
So here we are on Aug. 1, 2008 linking to an article in the Los Angeles Times that sounds as if it might have been pulled from the paper’s 1960s archives. Written by staff writer Peter Nicholas, For Clinton supporters, it's a gender issue begins:
‘“WASHINGTON -- As her chances of becoming vice president recede, some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters are pushing for the Democratic Party's new platform to state that the primary elections "exposed pervasive gender bias in the media" and to call on party leaders to take ‘immediate and public steps’ to condemn future perceived instances of bias.
“The push for the plank in the party's statement of principles reflects a lingering unhappiness over Clinton's treatment during the Democratic primary, and over what her supporters say was an inadequate response from party leaders.”
Nicholas continues:
‘“Some Clinton supporters have complained of jibes against the New York senator by TV talk show hosts, off-color novelty items and incidents such as the time when hecklers yelled ‘Iron my shirt!’ at a Clinton rally.
“A Democratic committee devoted to writing the platform is to meet today in Cleveland to hear presentations from policy advocates, then draft the document.
“There were so many examples in the media of sexist comments where we never heard from the party leadership or Barack Obama,’ said Stacy Mason, executive director of a political action committee called WomenCount, which claims thousands of members. The group ran newspaper ads in the spring urging Clinton to stay in the contest.
‘“We're focused on why the Democratic leadership was so silent about it during the campaign,’ Mason said. ‘It was their obligation to come to the defense of one of their own primary candidates, and they didn't. They stayed silent during the campaign, and that's not OK.”’
To read more, go here.
Part of the problem has to be the subtext here: Democratic Party leaders colluded with the media for months in their efforts to force Hillary Clinton out of the race, even warning her - while she was still a contender - not to be overly critical of her opponent. As Gloria Steinem and others have since pointed out, this is the first presidential race in the nation’s history in which the media had the gall to repeatedly ask a serious candidate to drop out.
So here we are on Aug. 1, 2008 linking to an article in the Los Angeles Times that sounds as if it might have been pulled from the paper’s 1960s archives. Written by staff writer Peter Nicholas, For Clinton supporters, it's a gender issue begins:
‘“WASHINGTON -- As her chances of becoming vice president recede, some of Hillary Rodham Clinton's supporters are pushing for the Democratic Party's new platform to state that the primary elections "exposed pervasive gender bias in the media" and to call on party leaders to take ‘immediate and public steps’ to condemn future perceived instances of bias.
“The push for the plank in the party's statement of principles reflects a lingering unhappiness over Clinton's treatment during the Democratic primary, and over what her supporters say was an inadequate response from party leaders.”
Nicholas continues:
‘“Some Clinton supporters have complained of jibes against the New York senator by TV talk show hosts, off-color novelty items and incidents such as the time when hecklers yelled ‘Iron my shirt!’ at a Clinton rally.
“A Democratic committee devoted to writing the platform is to meet today in Cleveland to hear presentations from policy advocates, then draft the document.
“There were so many examples in the media of sexist comments where we never heard from the party leadership or Barack Obama,’ said Stacy Mason, executive director of a political action committee called WomenCount, which claims thousands of members. The group ran newspaper ads in the spring urging Clinton to stay in the contest.
‘“We're focused on why the Democratic leadership was so silent about it during the campaign,’ Mason said. ‘It was their obligation to come to the defense of one of their own primary candidates, and they didn't. They stayed silent during the campaign, and that's not OK.”’
To read more, go here.
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