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How the GOP Loses Women
Stephan Savoia / AP Photo
Dede Scozzafava’s exit from a New York House race is just the latest example of the new Republican Party’s hostility to pro-choice women. Linda Hirshman on why Sarah Palin is a club of one.
Former Republican congressional candidate Dede Scozzafava cried real tears Saturday as she conceded the right-wingers had pushed her out of her race. Even though her local party had picked her to run in Tuesday’s election for the upstate New York seat vacated by the new secretary of the Army, John McHugh, her support for abortion and gay marriage made her too liberal for the new national party. Insurgent Republicans, led by Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, mounted a candidate on the conservative line, and fought Scozzafava so effectively that she turned tail and ran. She then endorsed the Democrat.
The transformation of the Republican Party by the rise of conservative, evangelical, and Southern movements disables the Republicans from grooming a new generation of female candidates.
Watch out, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Locked in a Republican primary battle for governor of Texas, and unwilling to say women should go to jail for their abortions, she is the next duck in the barefoot and pregnant shooting gallery. All the coverage has been about the conservative attack on the Republican establishment. But Scozzafava’s defeat and the mounting campaign against Hutchison reveals a fascinating and underreported problem for the Republicans: They will only run women who will say that women should not control their reproductive fates. Although there are many male Republican candidates who easily embrace this position, politically accomplished women who believe in criminal abortion are rare, even in the Republican Party. And the ones who surface are likely to be, well, rogue.
The scene was set the day Hutchison announced her candidacy for the governorship of Texas last January. Just down the street, the incumbent governor, Rick Perry, who has shown no signs of stepping aside, was addressing the Texas Rally for Life. Perry had already started attacking Hutchison for not being anti-abortion enough. A few days later, Sarah Palin stepped in and announced her support for the anti-abortion Perry.
Hutchison’s faint liberalism on this one issue sure took her out of the running for V.P. in 2008. The Republicans could have chosen Senator Hutchison—a sophisticated and well-educated woman who would doubtless have played well on the national stage—but wound up with Sarah Palin. She may be a media darling and a political terror now, but all the polling around the actual election of 2008 reflected that her manifest ignorance and amateurishness played a substantial role in the Republican defeat.
• John Batchelor: The Last Days of the GOP
• Samuel P. Jacobs: Newt’s War of IndependenceAs the Scozzafava affair reflects, the Republicans could do nothing else. The hostility to women’s liberation is central to the contemporary Republican Party, a party that surged back into power starting in 1968 based on three crucial developments: the conservative ideological revival; the alliance of the party with conservative and orthodox Western religion; and the takeover of—and by—the American South. All three of these forces are hostile to women’s equality. At the birth of the modern conservative revival, conservative intellectual icon Richard Weaver explicitly set out the role of women in the new conservative movement. Women are rooted in nature and intuition, he wrote; they made a terrible mistake when they traded their natural place in a stable hierarchy for a superficial equality with men. In 1971, another of the pillars of the conservative takeover of the Republican Party, Phyllis Schlafly, launched a movement from her living room in St. Louis to STOP, as she put it on countless eight-sided signs, the Equal Rights Amendment, which would have put language of sexual equality in the Constitution. And STOP it she did. Years later, Schlafly boasted that she’d defeated the women’s amendment by making the first alliance of conservative Protestants, devout Catholics, and orthodox Jews—a crucial turn of events in the Republican resurgence. When the evangelical Christians decided that politics wasn’t too worldly for them to get involved in, they, too, made an alliance with the Republican Party. Evangelical teachings, which treat the Bible literally, include the Biblical injunction that women must obey their husbands. Evangelicals heavily favor women staying out of the market economy to stay home, and indeed they do disproportionately stay home.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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Linda Hirshman is a retired professor of philosophy. She is the author of Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World, and a columnist at DoubleX.com. She is writing a book about the gay revolution.
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Linda Hirshman is a retired professor of philosophy. She is the author of Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World, and a columnist at DoubleX.com. She is writing a book about the gay revolution.
Get Gay Marriage Off the Ballot
Linda Hirshman is a retired professor of philosophy. She is the author of Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World, and a columnist at DoubleX.com. She is writing a book about the gay revolution.
When women vote, Democrats win.
What's particularly interesting is seeing the breakdown of polling. In one poll I looked at recently, if you take out the South, Obama is doing quite well and the Dems and Congress aren't doing too shabby.
Absurd article. Palin is neither southern...nor in her political career...been a part of the evangelical political movement (otherwise known as Christians acting as responsible citizens and voting).
It's amusing when left wing elitists pretend to know what 'women' feel or want. Obviously, Palin has enormous support around the nation from women and men alike. Liberals may not like it...but those are the facts.
Palin is loved because she took the heat from the media and didn't go down with all the punches. She is a successful mother, grandmother, a 12-year elected official, wife, marathon runner, author, speaker and business-owner. Believe it or not Daily Beast readers...such women do exist all over America and they love Sarah Palin. http://www.reagantopalin.com/
When SP ran for mayor, she did something no one in her town had ever done running for office, she was aided by an anti-abortion movement. If that ain't mixing politics and religion I don't know what is.
Absurd comment. Science (not gut instinct and religion) show that this article is dead on. The Republican party has been marginalizing pro-choice women for years. Hutchinson is the better choice for Repub in Texas, and was the better choice for VP. Snowe has been publicly disrespected since people took notice of her. And ppor Whitman - I truly believe she intentionally railroaded by Bush & Co when they placed her in charge of the EPA. She had national star power but was bad for the "party," so let's put her in a position and not let her do her job.
But somehow Guilani, Ridge and many others are celebrated.
Palin is loved because she played on small people's fears.
What isn't amusing is the radical right's ideals. The problem with the anti-choice movement is that they believe ANY life is better than NO life. I wonder how many of them were "raised" by parents who didn't want them? I betcha that would change thier mind.
Reading Comprehension Fail.
The article was not saying that women do not support Republicans. It was specifically talking about female Republican candidates for office. There are many Republican women, the article notes that there are few female Republican candidates. Also, nowhere in the article does it say that that Palin is from the South.
This is right on. I am a life long Republican, Christian, woman who has been abandoned by the GOP because I do not believe the state should be in control of my uteris. They have become a one note band that is no longer worth listening to.
And all of those women have lost credibilit, because any honest thinking person would realize that Sarah Palin ain't got what it takes!
What is there about your positions that are in any way different from the Taliban, other than the name you ascribe to God?
None. Just another propaganda drunk guy making mouth farts in an effort to recycle what you can remember from Glenn Beck who is just a really dumb guy talking down to people who are even dumber. Elites indeed!!!
Palin is not loved by all or many republicans. She is the reason most are leaving the party. I know since this is why I have. She is not a true conservative and she only is in it for the money. She is an uneducated radical who thinks many will go with her ill conceived rhetoric. I hope she does decide to run in 2012 and Obama defeats her with over 80% of the vote. Go ahead and follow her right off the cliff.
Just because your gut tells you it's true, doesn't make it so. Check your facts with an independent, non-partisan source. Of course by your elitist comment, I imagine you think sources like the Annenberg Foundation (Factcheck.org) are just part of the librul, elitist academia.
What this article overlooks is how the Democrats treat fellow Democrats who are pro-life. There is a history of well known democrats not being allowed to speak at National Conventions or who lose support once a pro-choice Demo shows up. To be balanced, that issued should also be discussed.
The article isn't about Democrats.
This ISSUE has nothing to do with WOMEN.
Unless one assumes its a rarity for a woman to be sane and intelligent.
The GOP is losing both genders, most of whom identify themselves as
independents.
If we all went back to nature, we would all be having 13 or 14 kids. Who can afford that?
It is technology, not politics that has given women options. Then politics catches up.
And I think it will be technology that will solve a lot of problems, that humans cannot solve on their own.
I think it just turned out, women as individuals, made similar choices, when the pill came out, that changed everything.
Luckily that choice is free from interference from public authorities. So far so good.
I have a question. Do you ever wonder why humans smell the way they do?
That might be a defense we have, and maybe it is natural, but it is also anti social, to let yourself stink. When you think about it, it is a big deal. Industries are built hiding the human stink.
Who makes up the rules when defining natural or being natural?
That is what having power over others is about. They get to define the rules. And that is what people try to influence.
But try running for any position without money. It is near impossible.
Once women are able to make money, they were able to get into politics and/or support other women in politics.
Both left and right and full circle. It is a process, sadly it becomes a sum zero game. Always going back to zero for someone.
It's always difficult for women from a University environment to write accurately about the grassroots; the fly over country that exists outside the coasts. Unless one is a practicing member of a religion or related to a woman who are comfortable in their skin as a religious "bigot" the limitations of language and culture and simple rhetoric seem to make communication almost impossible. We are speaking to each other across such enormous distances about subjects that all value but I find challenges just in making these issues clear to my sons whom I have raised.
There are a vast concourse of brilliant conservative women in politics in local and community politics. From the outside they read as "the other" or different from people like my my mother-in-law (upper crust San Francisco white) yet we have managed to find ways to communicate and find common ground. Most if not all of these women hale from the Mid-West towards California, where the idea of a woman in charge is considered less-threatening than in the coporate environment of the East Coast. Women pioneers, without their husbands, built much of the west and continued to lead in the best sense of the word long after men died. Look at states like Idaho, Utah, California to find a plethora of conservative women politicians who are strong in their own right and are used to dealing with the absurdities of everyday life. Most of us grow up, eventually do to live's realities, to be conservative. The small percentage of women (usually at Universities) that remain liberal, will remain caught in that mind set, but don't worry about the loss of strong, conservative women. Just look around you. The West in particular has a history of creating such women.
I would argue with the idea that 'University' women (or men for that matter) are liberals because they don't understand how real life works. It may be that living in large cities has a different set of challenges than living in small towns or rural communities, but that doesn't make those challenges any less real. One could argue that living in a large city makes one more understanding of and open to a wider variety of lifestyles and cultures, while living in small, homogenious communities make you more insular and less tolerant. Dismissing anyone who is a liberal as simply someone who doesn't understand real life or has never faced real challenges is demeaning and inaccurate.
This is the most condescending letter I ever read. At what age am I supposed to be conservative?
Perhaps this serves to highlight the problems inherent in allowing the two-party political machine in this country to define the parameters of American existence and behavior. Both parties are very good at limiting the scope of their product, and the treatment of Scozzafava today and the marginalization of Bob Casey (pro-life Democrat) in the recent past also serve to underscore the glaring fact that each party has an agenda, regardless of the personal differences that individual candidates may have. This can also be recognized in the behavior of the Congress, where it takes time to build coalitions of consent within each party in order to push various bills, subjugating individual ideas to the greater concept of party unity; it isn't so easy to do, otherwise it wouldn't take so long to accomplish. Obviously, those with greater political clout will end up on the top, with their obeisance to the party's national platform paramount rather than faithfully representing the desires of the citizens in their districts or states. I would think that the only way to break their hold on us is to refrain from giving them any more funding, and make them immediately accountable to us, rather than to their party chairman.
Pray tell - As a university educated woman who is currently unattached to a man, working in a respected job to completely support myself in a southern state, at what point do my liberal values switch to conservative?
I mean, I'm only 22 so I guess I still have plenty of years to decide that my gay friends actually shouldn't get married, I'm not really all that attached to decisions about my own uterus, I actually really hate supporting the country I love with taxes, or that equality among genders, races, ehtnicities, and sexualities isn't actually all that important to me.
So what do you think - 10, maybe 15 years?
Kayanna: Read. Some. Polls. Women vote more Democratic than men do. You can't tell me they're all students, professors, or university workers.
I have been waiting for someone, a woman preferably, who will stand up for abortion as a necessary solution to some problems. The anti-abortionists have gotten most politicians to be afraid to defend the practice.
As a woman, I will make up my own mind as to whether I will terminate a pregnancy, usually for a good reason. Abortion entered the political arena back in 1957, I believe, when there was an epidemic of German measles, which causes defects in the fetus (blindness, for one), and many women had abortions. Some Catholics got wind of this and made a stink and it has grown into a national movement, especially in the Rep party. The Reps always talk of freedom and less government control, but they want to control women. They can't have it both ways!
Exactly! They want less government yet want to control many social issues that are frankly none of their business.
Most conservatives have long advocated that it would have been better for voters in each state (via their legislators) to determine the abortion issue. That would have taken such a devisive and personal issue out of the courts into the court of public opinion. The problem with liberals is that they don't trust the people to make these decisions and then have states rise or fall on the merits of their decisions.It would be interesting today to see which states would have thrived and which did not as a result.
All of this is true, but there are a couple key issues regarding New York's 23rd District.
Scozzafava was pretty much hand picked by GOP leaders in the district. A handful of leaders, 7 I believe. Part of what is going on up there is a sort of rebellion against the party establishment. Yes the extreme right used some harsh tactics, but there was already hostility in that district for Scozzafava because D 23 is extremely conservative over all. They like Sarah Palin there, and they would rather have thier version of Michelle Bachman than someone that can actually help them. It's a kind of "What's Wrong With Kansas" scenario.
The Conservative will likely win because that's who they want. Nevermind that he knows nothing of the local issues, he's anti abortion and that's good enough for them.
Well, lets use Palin's own quote here "Theres a place in Hell for woman who don't support other women". Now, she said she was quoting Madeline Albright, but she wasn't...... Madeline Albright said "there is a place in hell for women who don't help other women".
Now, Paline knew that, so I attribute the quote to Palin. So, by not supporting Kaye or Dede, I guess she has a place in hell reserved for her......... or does her own words just apply to other women, not herself.
By the way, I don't agree with the quote of course, just sayin.........
Yeah, well Sarah never said anything bad about Dede. She was FOR Hoffman, not against Dede. And we can't say the same about the people who continue to trash Sarah Palin.
If you can't see the difference between supporting someone you agree with and trashing someone you disagree with, then there's really no point debating with you.
What was your reaction to Mr. Limbaugh's statement regarding Mrs. Scozzafava and bestiality?
The GOP has a nasty habit of humiliating and marginalizing its few high-profile women: Condi Rice and Christine Todd Whitman, for instance. Now they've thrown Scozzafava under the bus. For this, and many other reasons, I no longer vote Republican.
Women and minorities are 'second class citizens' in the Rep party. They kowtow to men in the conservative world, who don't like women in control, even of their own bodies. They go against their own interests and don't even know it.
Except of course in the case when married women become knocked up by their local Policeman, after throwing their husbands in jail for crimes imagined, and then have abortions to cover up the affair from their husbands. It's a real world out there, you seem not to know this?
Why do women always choose to strip first and explain second? It certainly isn't proof of moral character, is it? The killing of defenseless babies is the charm women wear around their necks as they claim Motherhood for themselves. And what kind of Motherhood is this?
Can someone please explain what the f*ck this guy magicman is saying? "...Married women become knocked up by their local Policeman," "strip first and explain second"? I'm confused.
Magicman is obviously old and sick. Feel sorry for him.
unbesteveable-
Why do I think he is working from a personal history?
magicman is trying to turn the conversation back to his Mom issues again. Someone give him a referral to a therapist.
@ unbesteveable250
As it says in the posting, these are common everyday occurances, a part of real life and the full flower of what it means to be a modern woman. It has been made into a Jerry Springer world out there, simply because you have made the choices that have allowed it to become that way.
It is not that women are second class citizens, it is that second class citizens become that way through their own thoughts, deeds and actions taken in the course of an ordinary day.
Scozzafava endorsed a Democrat. How Republican could she really be? Aren't traitors to Party and Principle always going to be second class citizens? Or, can you reverse that idea with simple wishful thinking?
That Scozzafava endorsed a Democrat, after seeking and receiving a back room Republican endorsement from 11 County representatives and not in a Primary Campaign, is testamony to her character. You wouldn't want to serve in the front lines of Afghanistan with this one, she might point the rifle at you if she doesn't get what she wants, or better yet jump to the other side in the middle of battle. Not a team player....apparently, and good reason for her new designation as a second class citizen of the Republican Party.
@ nortonclybourn
Would you have been happier in life had your mother believed in overpopulation and of 'free-choice' and simply had you aborted? You make it sound as such.
@ OffenbachStutz
You know nothing about me, yet you claim to. You read very little and write nothing of consequence. But I do thank you for revealing your character. Sadly, it took only one written line for you to reveal who you are and what little character you truly possess. You should have held out for two lines, your retort would have added suspense to the conclusion.
No, no, magicman, Thank YOU!
She should have run on the Dem. ticket. She's a RINO like Mike Bloomberg.
Does the G.O.P lose men too? See the problem is using women, as I stated during the election and wrote to Mrs.Palin-Clinton herself, she was used for her gender- a "female" candidate- it was labeled publicly. She had no problem with that, it was a way to get ahead. I guess it makes the men look nice for allowing it to happen. then again maybe they lose their position because it doesn't work out- is that based on gender or performance? And besides when it comes to performing- the world's a stage for today's political players.
It always made me laugh that the Reps nominated Palin as a contrast to Hillary. In other words, if women don't vote for Hillary, then they will vote for Palin!! No way. Women voted for Hillary because they admired her smarts and because she was a Dem and agreed with their views.
Palin was a rock star, but had no knowledge of what it took to be V,P. I still don't think she will run again and get caught up in the politics of a campaign.
Why should she when she can speak at events and make $100,000 doing it?
The only thing Hillary achieved was being First Lady of the USA, She rode in on the NY senate seat on her husband's coattails, and the DNC cleared the path for her and knocked Nina Lowery out of the way. She isn't any smarter then Sarah Palin; at least Sarah ran a state. I feel the same way you do about speaking engagement's paying high fees to Bill Clinton, whom sexually molested women and was accused of rape is disgusting.
The only thing Hillary achieved was being First Lady of the USA, She rode into her senate seat on her husband's coattails, and the DNC cleared the path for her and knocked Nina Lowery out of the way. She isn't any smarter then Sarah Palin; at least Sarah ran a state. I do feel the same way you do about speaking engagement's, paying high fees to Bill Clinton, whom sexually molested women and is accused of rape that is a disgrace.
Incoherence twice! Well alright!
@winston1: "Hillary Clinton isn't any smarter then [sic, if you know what that means] Sarah Palin"???!!
What is there to say to such nonsense?
"Hillary...She isn't any smarter then Sarah Palin"... ??
Well there's one more poster who's posts will henceforth be skipped by me as measured and come up short.
Very true and totally insulting.
The extreme evangelicals will be the downfall of the Republican party no matter their gender. America is changing and they will be and are being left behind. They will either accept the ever changing world or continue to be a minority in it.
The Republican party is in a very tight spot because their entire platform has been built around the extremists view points. They won't change because their base will refuse to change. It's really that simple. As in NY, they will continue to divide the party and possibly try and build a strong conservative party. They will not be successful. They just haven't realized that their just aren't that many people who share their views.
Bingo
rtwyatt3 - "The extreme evangelicals will be the downfall of the Republican party no matter their gender. America is changing and they will be and are being left behind. They will either accept the ever changing world or continue to be a minority in it."
Double bingo.
We need Ralph Reed back to put a cute puppet face on these evil people.
I'd love to see Amy Siskind respond to this.
Kay Bailey Hutchison is a joke. Why even mention her? We have a joke of a governers race in Texas.
Meaning what ... that the liberal Democrats in Texas could not field a credible candidate? (granted, such would be an oxymoron)
you are the ox-like moron..
Hey, we have liberal Dems in Tx!!! But yeah, we can't field a credible candidate. The ones with the money to run (very limited fund-raising opps) all have something really wrong with them and the ones the true progressives like couldn't win an election for dog catcher. Too liberal for most of the state.
Bill White (mayor of Houston) would be a great democratic candidate for governor.. but he is running for Kay's senate seat.. o but he's not so liberal.. is that part of your argument? ..that they have to be a liberal democrat, or are you assuming all democrats are liberal?
Hey did ya hear the one about that downhome good ole boy rancher -
from Kennebunkport? Yuk Yuk.
This article along with the posts above are just asanine. GOP tough on women???? Any women that runs as a republican is trashed in the MSM and by sexist lefties who think unless a women is in favor of crushing a baby's skull and sucking out of the womb at 7 months with a straw she is evil and must be destroyed. Shows you how messed up you loonie lefties are, to think a baby traveling 6 inches in the birth canal is the determination of life and discarded waste saved for the next facial creme to remove the wrinkles from around pelozi's eyes.
It's not the GOP trashing there women, its the loonie left scared of the smart intelligent women the right have to offer that don't follow the feminist template on how to live.
Scofazza - pro-abortion, pro card check, maried to a afl-cio leader and you think she was republican? She even endorses the democrat. thats why this seat wil go to the GOP in a landslide. People are seeing what life would be in a liberal society and they are not liking it. 53% of the vote was not a landslide or a mandate, someone should have told the dems that, they wouldn't be in so much trouble nationally otherwise.
You are assuming that abortion is the only thing women care about. What about equal pay for equal work? What about education for themselves and their children? What about access to daycare? What about health care for themselves and their families?
Women care about many more issues than abortion and the GOP has not addressed those issues. In fact, they don't see a problem or have any answers for any of the issues I just stated.
Oh yes they do...the GOP has answers to these questions: "Hey women! Stay home barefoot and pregnant -- your vastly superior god-husband will fix everything! Ignore the past where a woman and children were owned by her husband - no matter if he was a drunk, beat-her, whored, and then died leaving the family destitute..."
Oh the good old days *rolls eyes*
All of what you mention above is what PALIN has fought for all her political life (12 years as an elected public servant)....so why don't you support her? She actually went out and did something about it....unlike opinion writers here who only talk and complain.
What record? Please, do tell.
Palin appointed a guy to be Attorney General who said "If a guy can't rape his wife...who's he gonna rape?" and "There wouldn't be an issue with domestic violence if women would learn to keep their mouths shut."
She hired a guy as public safety commissoner who later quit because it was learned that he had a sexual harassment case against him.
Alaska ranks # 46 in the nation on education. Her own child dropped out. Alaska ranks # 39 in the nation for having the least healthy citizens.
She also told Katie Couric that she didn't support the Lily Ledbetter Pay Act.
.
You are an obvious manifestation of the problem the GOP has. You are a radical right wing nut job who tries to cast everybody else who is not, according to your stilted and xenophobic perceptions, like YOU, as some kind of evil wacko. I would posit that the evil wackos infact have manifested themselves in disproportionate number in the republican party. This is why you are slipping into the abyss. You think you represent most americans thinking, when in fact, most americans are moderates, and we find your stilted radical ideals both offensive and abhorent. You people like to yell and scream and call names, but you don't have any time for thoughtful reasoned debate. That is because your radical nutty ideas won't hold up to rational analysis.
Right on!
Palin; "The Bush Doctrine? Does he have a Dentrist too?
there you go again using complete sentences and big words!!! commi liberal devils make me sick! tryin to make me read books and brush my teeth! i burn them books and use tooth brushes to clean my gun!
There you go, baddchild, spouting the antiabortion line. Late term abortions are very, very rarely done and only when the fetus cannot live outside the womb. You know this but continue to talk about 'crushing a baby's skull', etc. just to make abortion sound like it is ALWAYS done this way, when we know it isn't. Tell me, baddchild, howmany children have you had?? I suspect you don't know squat about the situation. Why is it always men who are so anti choice? (I assume you are not a woman).
Have you been pregnant, Baddchild? Have you had to decide whether to grow a fetus inside your body that was going to kill you? Have you had to decide whether it made sense to bring to term a pregnancy where the fetus, if it survived until birth, would be severely physically and mentally handicapped?
If you did, and you made that choice... isn't it wonderful that you had the choice about what you were forced to grow in your body?
Or wait... is it just that you really think pregnancy is a punishment for sex? Do you think sex is bad and dirty, baddchild?
Well said; and how sad it has to keep on being said; to counter act SO MANY LIES.
The Repubs have built a coalition with a basis in anti-intellectualism, anti-science, demagoguery, pandering to the nativist and the fundamentalist, a fear-mongering cynical view of the electorate, without room for independent thought. The Repubs succeed only when good government fails. Therefore the "logical" approach they've taken to government has been to undermine regulation and planning, revenue streams, public education, the Arts and Sciences, and demonization of opponents(is this really the American cultural tradition?). Sadly, the scorched-earth approach of the hard-line conservatives toward moderate Republicans is just an extension of the standard operating procedure of the party. Moderate Republicans, what few remain, should be lining up to join the alternative. It just warms the cockles of my heart.
Another one issue loony.
NEXT!
1) Moderate Republicans... GET CONTROL OF YOUR PARTY!!
2) Wonder how all the pro-Palin because she is a woman feel about her now that she kicked a fellow woman under the bus.
yea moderates get control of your party so the democrats can stay in power and keep destroying the country....
see that is the difference between the GOP and democrats. dede's gender is irrelavant to her getting elected, it's her policy and stands on the issue where as in the democratic party all that matters is the race and gender of the candidate.
"keep destroying the country".. I love it when you freaks say that.. it is really funny.. keep the comedy coming.. like liberal media.. thats another funny one.. real Americans o man.. funny... all this coming from a group of people who have bought the bs of another group of people who's goal is to turn America into a theocracy instead of a democracy.. Well I am sorry if the demoncrats are ruining it for you self righteous pricks.
It's the Dems turn.
That's how it works.
So, were you happy and well during the Bush administration? Were you better off after those 8 years? Do you not wish for the well-being of our nation? What would be your first step, with your neighbors, to achieve a tangible improvement in your community?
Palin...an accomplished woman who actually leads rather than follows...does not see Americans as special interest groups as most readers of DAILY BEAST do...she looks at individuals and decides who is best for both women & men...and for that matter...her children and grandchild.
She didn't kick anyone under the bus...she used her intelligence and influence to back the candidate she felt was best for our nation. In most of America that is known as free speech.
Please don't use intelligence and Palin in the same sentence!
I just want to be a fly on the wall in jpelamtn's life when after a few more elections under their belt (obviously 2008 was the first one they paid attention to) all the little trite cliche's about politics they're throwing around gets ground up in the meat-grinder of reality. I predict alcoholism or the nunnery. Either way, it would be fun to watch.
That's funny. I would have liked to have watched your face to see if you kept a straight one while reciting this little bit of sophistry. Your clear assertion of your own moral superiority is quite apparent in your rant.
Palin threw Scozzafava under the bus because she was pro choice and that is all Palin cares about.
SHe FOLLOWED the first place winner in that beauty pageant.
God I love your insight....
Reagan created a monster when he invited the Southern lunatics and the Christian Fundamentalist radicals into the Republican Party. Giving their agenda a prominent place on the Republican platform. That's when I started looking for another party to vote for as well as most of my family. None of us have voted Republican in close to 25 years now. I have said for 20 years now it's eventually going to destroy the Republican Party. It appears to be finally coming to pass.
Of course, Tumbleweed, you seem to forget these 'lunatic southers fundamentalists' actually voted in greater numbers for Clinton over Dole in 1996 according to CBS, CNN, ABC & MSNBC. So, I guess they were not so lunatic then, huh?
that's because they thought Dole was a fruit cocktail... literally.
That was BEFORE his viagra.
Gettin' it regular has helped him mentally too.
Absurd article. Palin is neither southern...nor in her political career...been a part of the evangelical political movement (otherwise known as Christians acting as responsible citizens and voting).
It's amusing when left wing elitists pretend to know what 'women' feel or want. Obviously, Palin has enormous support around the nation from women and men alike. Liberals may not like it...but those are the facts.
Palin is loved because she took the heat from the media and didn't go down with all the punches. She is a successful mother, grandmother, a 12-year elected official, wife, marathon runner, author, speaker and business-owner. Believe it or not Daily Beast readers...such women do exist all over America and they love Sarah Palin.
http://www.reagantopalin.com/
It's even more amusing that neanderthal right wing nuts like yourself would pretend that you speak for an entire gender, and of course anybody who disagrees with you is nuts. This very attitude belies the sophistry and logical falacies that underlie all your positions and thinking. You have a massive cognitive disonance that, of course, you don't even recognize. Yes there are women who love Sarah Palin, and they are beaten down under the thumb of male dominated southern whites who run the republican party. They are proud to stay in their place.
Picachu, stupid people don't know that they are stupid. Plain and simple.
"otherwise known as christians acting as responsible citizens and voting"
right...
http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/
Heard you the first time...
do you ever, as an intellectual exercise, try on the mind-set of those with whom you disagree? just for five minutes?
truly absurd...
the problem with dede had nothing to do with her stand on abortion (which Palin by the way endorses) nor any other social issue...it was her fiscal stupidity (read leftist) tendencies which sunk her boat.
Wrong, uglykid, it was abortion and nothing but abortion that made Palin support her opponent. That is all the rightwing conservatives care about, not healthcare, education, equal pay for equal work, Afghanistan, etc. It's all abortion all the time. They have lost all credibility.
and they should have lost all credibility even with the pro-lifers.. Call me crazy, but didn't we just have an evangelical pro-lifer as a president a few years ago, with a republican majority in congress and the supreme court?
The only time the republicans care about abortion or ANY issue for that matter is election time. At least the democrats do their best to look busy when they are in office..
Wrong again 'Newswoman; -- Governor Palin did not mention anything about social issues in her endorsement of Hoffman. So, unless you have some sort of power to read minds...you are willfully lying in each of your posts here. But then a liberal lefty with the handle NEWSWOMAN...not sure we'd expect anything else.
Working women of real achievement...such as Palin...are able to hold many views because she has led a varied and successful life. You seem, sadly, as one who did once abort a child and have not dealt with it. I feel badly for you. (If I'm wrong then I guess neither of us are mindreaders are we?) Get the point?
If Palin only cared about abortion -- then she would not have championed many causes in her tenure as a public servant. Her record indicates a desire to root out corruption...not a one issue advocate for life.
PALIN made clear her views on Equal Pay long ago (guess you weren't listening) and she issued a detailed assessment (yet again) on Afghanistan just a few weeks ago. Palin has such personal self-confidence that's she's willing to commit her positions in writing...she does not try to sneak behind closed doors with media types and speak off the record. Cowards do this...but leaders do not...and she is a leader.
Palin refuses to understand most women cannot afford to make the choices she had.
She's a whack job who needs her choices validated ,to prove to HERSELF, thats she's normal. They need to INFLICT their choices on everyone else.
Well, Hirshman did one thing: she proved rank stupidity is gender neutral.
This race has nothing to do with gender. It doesn't even have much to do with the fact that Scozzafava is socially liberal. It has to do with the fact that Scozzafava was both socially AND economically liberal. In other words, it has to do with the fact that a few party bosses, demonstrating the lack of smarts that has too often characterized the NY Republican Party rather stupidly picked a person who was too liberal for the location and got bit for their trouble.
Having read this piece of garbage and that waste of bandwidth by Batchelor, let me offer some advice for the editors at The Daily Beast: before you have people write about elections, make sure they have some inkling of what the heck they're talking about.
Abortion is not as cut and dry of of a liberal/conservative issue anymore. It is more correct to call these anti-abortionists "militant anti-abortionists" to reflect their more extreme viewpoint--that ALL abortions should be illegal. A large number of the more moderate portions of the population are willing to ban abortions as long as the there are reasonable exemptions such as rape or incest and protecting the life and health of the mother. These people are against ANY exemptions but carefully avoid bringing this up. Another issue, these extremists like to avoid is "evolution". Most of them believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old, that dinosaur bones are fakes and the earth was created in 7 days...
Ms. Hirshman-
I was and am a witness to what you have told, and you are exactly correct. I am a Democrat and fortunately escaped what befell Republican woman, but when I come across them nowadays on posts, you are describing not only the Palin/Bachmann generation, but also the one following that.
As a woman, I am saddened that I can in no way relate to these woman, and share the past gains and experience with them. I have had many a rumble with their stated so called feminism. In return I have been accused of bigotry and wanting to hurt woman, and have been cussed out by the best of them for daring to question their credentials. The fact that there even is a "conservative feminist" movement, and there indeed is, was a shock to my system. I was naive at 63 to think that women were together on making our lives better.
I am still concerned that pay is not equal, but my biggest concern and wonder is that women have not banded together to have made any, absolutely no, strides in regard to child care. I have reviewed what I would call a conservative feminist website, and have seen no concern for this issue at all. What I have found is a hit list on liberal men, ranting against the current administration, disdain for the organization NOW etc etc. I do see an acknowledgment of equal pay and abuse of women as issues, but there is a deep rage that seems so misdirected I cannot identify with it.
It is a fact that conservative women did not join my generation in joining the pursuit of becoming full and equal members of society, but what has surprised me most is now that they think they are, they could not be further off the mark.
Well said.
I am 20 years younger than you are and am equally frustrated that women (and the men who are supportive) have not made more progress in:
1. Recognizing that good relationships, parenting and bonding with children are the responsibility of BOTH men and women. Children need good quality attention from both their parents.
2. Recognizing that the money and hands-on work required to raise children should be a matter of negotiation between the parents and rigid gender roles on this division of earning or money versus hands-on child care is very destructive to families and the well-being of children (I grew up as a girl in a family with these rigid differences and it was a nightmare.)
3. Adjusting the relative status of men and women in public life and in families and private life to equality and well-rounded human beings: where women are valued as much for who they are and what they do as for what they look like and the same for men; where men take responsibility for their sexual behavior and its consequences; where co-dependent mothering is seen for the evil it is; and where emotional availability and relational skills in men are valued as much as their ability to compete; where women don't chase men for money but feel themselves to be capable of earning it for themselves.
All politicians are like a bunch of bananas - they're all yellow, they stick together and there's not a straight one among then :)
and they are slippery if you step on them..
THey 'peel' at the drop of a zipper.
The Republican Party is a collection of greedy business people, religious extremists and misogynists.
They have no plan to regulate Wall St. or the banks, no matter how much they swindle the American population. They insist on violating Church and State separation ordained by the first amendment to the U.S.Constitution and will block scientific progress or a woman's right to choose.
As far as they are concerned, a zygote or a fetus has more say about a woman's life than the woman herself.
Exactly when "life begins" is an arbitrary decision. But we can rely on Republicans to insist that if an underage girl was raped the night before and impregnated, she would be forced to carry the pregnancy to term.
That's as sick and stupid as it gets.
Bravo, periscope.
but in their defense... they only feel that way about zygotes and fetuses when they are campaigning for office.
And after the baby is born - they walk away, just like the father did.
Talk about no child left behind!
How about a movement called, 'No Child Left in a Dumpster?"
Well periscope if you really believe this crap that you write, you may want to leave the country, since this party of "greedy blah blah blah" typically garner at least half of the country's vote.
Since you oppose the vast majority in America today with your Republican insanity, I suggest you leave the country.
And don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out!
p.s. I understand Iran is looking for more religious extremists. I'm sure you'll be very comfortable in that theocratic dictatorship.
Really, periscope? So, how come Dems represent the majority of the richest districts in the country? How come Dems like Paulson made millions at Goldman Sachs and played a leading roll in bailing out his former buddies on Wall Street? How come George Soros, a billionaire hedge fund manager, has visited the White House four times in 10 months? How come the millionaire/billionaire heads of GE, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter are all Democrats?
Where is all this Republican "greed" you speak of ? And wouldn't misogynists include the ones trying to destroy Sarah Palin, kinda like the people on this board?
You are living in a myopic world of delusion.
"Myopic world of Delusion", nice. How quickly we forget. Hank Paulson a Democrat??? So we had 8 years of Democratic rule, before Obama!!! So when you don't like the record of your Republican leaders you pretend that they are Democrats!!! That just completes the circle of your logic. You Republicans never take responsibility for the disastrous policies of your leaders.
Yes, I also take issue with Motherof's apparent assertion that Dems representing the majority of the richest districts in the country is a bad reflection on Dems. I actually think it reflects that Dems are better for the economy.
seeing phrases like "sarah palin is loved", "she is a successful...", "an accomplished woman", "used her intelligence" makes me wonder if this is the fool who wrote Palin's 'death panel' crap for her.
take your cheerleading for this ignorant quitter elsewhere, shill.
using four letter words and words like quitter and shill(chill maybe?) shows what how much education a real liberal has
She quit. Duh.
I love when this happens. A poster sees a word they doesn't recognize and decides to correct it with a patronizing air of superior intelligence. Awesome.
"A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer. ..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill
Spoken like a true liberal billblast -- if you are met with an argument you don't like you attempt to censor it. Sorry you are afraid of open debate...that is the AMERICAN way...something a woman of Palin's achievement understands.
Tell me, what political leader do you love or respect? I'd surely honor your right to do so...because Palin is loved and respected by millions...just as no doubt your favorites are also.
Censorship may be the easy way out for you...but the rest of us really do beleive in free speech.
But WHY? Why do you love and respect her? If you could just explain that, you would bridge a huge gap at this thread and elsewhere. Please.
Sarin palin tells the truth like it is and does not need to lie about it. She comes from a humble beginning and will be President in 2013
YEaaa baby!!
She will never hold another elective office.
Deal with it.
I see. Because I criticize Palin, I must be a liberal.
You assume much, and know nothing, which is not a successful debate strategy, fool. You have already intellectually wet yourself more often than is proper in polite society. Take your cheerleading for this ignorant quitter elsewhere.
The "ignorant quitter" is kicking butt, Bill. I find it funny that someone who accomplishes 95% of her campaign promises is called a quitter while a Senator who spent 2 years in the Senate before running for president (on the taxpayers dime) is a standup guy. I guess wasting tax money is your kind of achievement!
I guess she missed MY butt in her $400 shoes,
What are you wearin' honey? It's too cold for yo' $2.99 flip flops.
Yet another liberal narative by TDB on the Republican Party that says more about their obsession with identity politics than it says about the subject supposedly being analized. A nice bookend to TBD's obsession with Rush Limbaugh.
Yet more right wing drivel and drool.
This article was completely ridiculous. Case in point, this sentence:
"her support for abortion and gay marriage made her too liberal for the new national party."
First of all Barrack Obama does not support gay marriage, so are you saying that conservatives are losing independent votes on this issue, but Obama attracts them? Ludicrous.
Secondly, NY-23 is NOT about social issues, Linda. Do you just enjoy writing propaganda because you sure don't do any real research for your writing.
NY-23 is about FISCAL issues. Dede supported Obama's wasteful stimulus boondoggle and card check for unions (in addition to her liberal recored on social issues). Sarah Palin is a deficit hawk (she reduced actual spending every year in office) and pro right-to-work. I challenge you to find ONE comment made by either Palin, Hoffman or Beck that opposed Dede on social issues. Sarah's Facebook post supporting Hoffman praised him because he wants to cut taxes and balance the budget. WHAT DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND ABOUT THAT?
In your rush to portray Sarah as a right-wing religious loon, you ignore EVERY fact about her public record, including her refusal to deny benefits to gay couples. That's right, her first act as governor allowed gay couples to have state benefits because Sarah believed in following her state's Supreme Court interpretation of the state Constitution. Does that sound like a religious whacko? You have no clue.
Glenn Beck is a freaking LIBERTARIAN. He NEVER talks about social issues, even though he may be pro-life and pro-traditional marriage in his personal views.
You people are pathetic if you think a conservative GOP is a small-tent. Remember Reagan? Two landslide elections? Reagan Democrats ring a bell?
Conservatives outnumber liberals in this country 2-1. Almost half of all conservatives don't even BELONG to the Republican party, hence Democrats have an advantage in party ID.
Conservatives are mad at Republicans who have OVERSPENT and put our children in HORRIBLE debt to CHINA that will likely NEVER be repaid. They're mad about a falling dollar, and an economy that is being destroyed by idiotic tax policies and refusal to pursue realistic energy independence.
You're living in a dreamland where all conservatives are as intolerant as the far left. It's not true. And you're missing the real story.
THe article wasn't about Obama.
Your 'connections' are ludicrous and a stretch.
Obama gets a free pass on his opposition to gay marriage while Sarah Palin is branded a rabid rightwinger for the exact same position, LokintoDelight.
Follow the logic. It's not that hard. Here's the bottomline: Sarah is not radical. She's as mainstream as they come. But that ruins the story line that writers like Linda want to pursue.
This NY-23 race is about fiscal issues. Stop making everything about gay rights when your own liberal president doesn't even support it. People really have a lot more on their minds, like oh, I don't know, trillion-dollar deficits and double-digit unemployment. Has that ever crossed your mind?
Dede was a liberal rubber stamp for the very policies that are ruining our economy. But people want to make this about abortion. Whatever. Last I checked pro-choice folks like Tom Ridge, Rudy Guiliani and Arnold Swartzenegger were still very much welcome in the party. Sarah even campaigned with *gasp* Olympia Snowe, a well-known moderate.
But facts ruin a good narrative.
MOT, What were the "conservative" Republican cheerleaders saying when our illustrious Republican leaders were mortgaging our children's futures to China? What were they saying? Oh right, nothing. MOT, your research really shines. When did the dollar start falling? Oh, well before Leahman Bros collapsed, deep in GWB's term. I'd rather have a bleeding-heart tax and spend liberal any day over the likes of a know nothing pseudo-conservative Republican, be that Bush or Palin.
Did you listen to Mr. Beck today? Never talks about social issues...perhaps, define 'social issues':
Thank you.
Read it and weep suckas...Sarah Rocks!! Speaking Truth to Power. Dede can go join Soros' other party. Honestly it was her support of Card Check that bothers me most.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/more-americans-pro-life-than-pro-choic e-first-time.aspx
Thank you.
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