Inhuman Swill

Nah. Maybe the lunatic fringe who thought Hillary was the Promised One, but I can't imagine them going for a pro-lifer.

Christ, she's young. Which means she's only two years older than me.

I wouldn't underestimate how pissed off the rabid Hillary Kool-Aid drinkers are at Obama.

Yeah, if they're crazy enough to vote for McCain, then they're crazy enough to vote for McCain and Palin.

Well, I don't think he was relying on the psycho-kamikaze vote anyway.

You saw the thing about PUMA being founded by a man four days before Clinton dropped out of the race, right? Don't buy into the Republican hogwash about Clinton supporters.

I'm not getting my opinion from the Republican machine. I'm getting it from people like my friend Jon's mother-in-law, a Hillary supporter who has already pledged to vote for McCain because she hates Obama for stealing her dream of a woman president. I don't think this is a majority of Democratic women by any stretch, but I think it's going to be a bigger factor than anyone on the Obama side would like to admit. I think emotion always trumps reason at election time, and I never underestimate the willingness of people to vote against their own self-interest when emotion clouds the issue. I am worried.

Well, McCain just gave back that dream, if by woman president you mean staunch right-wing, diplomatically inexperienced, anti-abortion woman president. Remind Jon's mother-in-law that the door is open for plenty of female candidates in future elections; four years is not so long, in that sense. Four years under the leadership of people who want to overturn Roe v. Wade, on the other hand, is a very, very long time.

Picking a woman would be a canny move, perhaps. OTOH, she's a Republican right-winger, which means she's anti-choice, pro-drilling and anti-gay rights. I can't see her expanding his appeal much past the demographic he already controls.

The Hillary supporters who consider Obama's nomination a personal affront my vote for the GOP out of spite, but I'm having trouble believing that the rabid fringe is that numerous. If Palin is indeed the pick, I guess we'll see.

Can't believe they'd think there are any Hillary supporters that would just vote for McCain because he picked a woman. Pretty lame. People understand you vote for the platform, the ideals, the future Supreme Court picks, and the people the president surrounds themself with, not just the individual's sex.

Have you listened to the unreasoning anger of some of the hardcore Hillary supporters? The ones I've heard were already willing to vote for McCain out of misplaced spite.

I guess I've not actually had any run-ins with the die-hards. But I am on a lot of feminism forums, where support for Hillary was high, and the sexism aimed at her by the media was dissected on a daily basis. And I have yet to see a die-hard Hillary feminist think voting for McCain was a good idea. (That's not to say that there aren't any, but among the Hillary supporters I knew pre-convention, there aren't.)

I do know a few people that said if Hillary got the nom, they'd vote for McCain. (All guys, weirdly enough.)

I do expect there were some folks who liked to think they were centrists while ignoring the fact that the Repubs and Dems keep trying to move the goal posts all over creation, who have probably been making silly pronouncements, along the lines of those folk who swore they'd move to Canada if Bush got a second term. But when it comes down to it, I think half of the noise is manufactured, and the other half is hot-air that will be ameliorated by the reality of actually having to pick McCain, who has voted against fair pay for women and who just picked a strong anti-choicer.

That's just me though. I am a wee optimistic tyke still.

And I am a cynical old geezer who thinks that a country that voted a second time for Bush will have no trouble electing McCain.

Yes, but I keep thinking that even more people who thought that was a good idea at the time have since reconsidered.

I just chortle slightly when my dad tells me in a pained voice that he's not happy with Mittens or McCain or Lieberman. Dunno how he thinks about Palin. Maybe he'll end up writing Ron Paul in.

And my still-Mo brother stood up for Obama during one of those rounds of "SEKRITLY MUSLIM" email forwards. Half my old friends back in Utah (admittedly the half that went to college out of state) all are leaning towards Obama. I've got my smidgens of hope there. Where I'm cynical is when it comes to voter fraud. I hope to gods people are extra vigilant this election, because that's where I see the sneaky shit going down.

Yes, I'm expecting big-time voter fraud too. Again. They've certainly been perfecting that tactic over the past decade.

Er. Just to clarify, that was me. (Although I'm sure you'd already figured that out.)

I'm hopeful that she's right-wing enough to deter former Clinton supporters from voting for her. I also think Hillary-ites are more likely to take the time to assess Palin's lamentable record when people stop referring to them as rabid loonies. Party unity is a lot like family unity; respect in both is a two-way street.

If Clinton had won the primary and didn't offer Obama the VP slot, and then McCain had picked an Africian American man as a running mate, would people now be calling African American Democrats who were wavering nasty names?

Who's calling the waverers nasty names?

You don't think "rabid Hillary Kool-Aid drinkers" is a little on the nasty side? If you're worried about women who dreamed of being able to vote for a woman president in their lifetime going "emotional" and voting for McCain, then this kind of rhetoric isn't going to help.

And really, it's women my age and older who are the most bitter, just as it would be African Americans who grew up in the segregated US who would be bitter if Obama hadn't got the nomination. Younger women don't tend to see Hillary as a victim of sexism because they haven't experienced as much of it.

I think a far greater danger is that these women will stay home and not vote at all, which will help McCain more than Obama. If the party can show some understanding of their pain, it would go a long way to getting them on the bandwagon.

You don't think "rabid Hillary Kool-Aid drinkers" is a little on the nasty side?

Honestly, I don't. I found it shorthand for "uncritical and starry-eyed supporters." And I think there are probably more people out there who I'd characterize as having drunk the Obama Kool-Aid. I've planned to vote for him all along, but I think it's a mistake to regard him or any candidate as some kind of transcendent messianic figure, like many of (especially younger) voters I've talked to seem to.

But I admit, I really don't understand the bitterness. If Obama were going to undermine what Clinton stands for, I'd get it, but I don't see that.

I think it has to do with feeling membership in an oppressed group. I have every intention, baring disaster like a health crisis where i can't make it to the polls at the last minute, of voting for Obama. I like him, I think he's smart and honest. I was overjoyed that the choice was him or Hillary because i knew I could support either of them.

But at the same time, I can feel the pain of there NOT being a woman on the ticket. I have been a teacher and a librarian, two fields that are numerically dominated by women, and yet. in both, when you look at the president of library school, you look at who is the Deputy Librarian of Congress (the Librarian is a political appointment), look at which teachers become school principals and superintendents, it's much more likely that those top-level positions are filled by men. After a while, you just plain get fed up. You want to see a woman make it to the top--or almost the top. Yes, it's changing but it's taking it's own sweet time.

And I think a lot of the people who complain about the bitterest end of the spectrum tend to dismiss my part of it, too. There are a lot of people who use the phrase "those women" in a very dismissive way, as in "What do those women think they're doing?" as if we were a separate species. It makes those of us who supported Hillary feel like ostracized for doing so.

Thank you for the platform to rant. Go Barack!

I'm not bitter. I would very much like to have a female prez before I die but I think it's far more important to keep the Republicans out of the White House this fall (and forever more).

I agree that what's important is who gets elected (and who doesn't get elected). And I am firmly in the Obama camp. I just think it would be more productive to take a sympathetic tone instead of stigmatizing women who are bitter about Hillary not being on the ticket. Certainly the more I hear about Palin the less she sounds like Hillary. It looks like McCain made a list of all the Republican female office holders and picked the most right wing one on the list.

Yes, thank you. I am getting a bit (okay, a lot) annoyed with all the teeth gnashing about how those crazy middle-aged women whose hatred for Obama will put a Republican in the White House. Because it is the middle-aged women with their nagging and their irrational ovaries. /sarcasm

She's super anti-choice....so that's not going to play well with the educated feminists who wanted Hillary.

It does seem that's what the McCain camp thinks, but I think they're forgetting that A) Clinton as much said to her die-hards that if you vote for McCain, you're undermining anything she's worked for and B) the PUMA base is largely a construct of media and Republican playbook politics. Quite a few of the people that are being quoted as donating to McCain who had donated to Hillary before were actually trying to keep the Obama-Hillary race alive as long as possible, and the amounts they donate to Hill were neglible compared to their GOP donations.

Governor Palin does seem to have an interesting history for a Republican, including a willingness to whistleblow, which could be good for GOP accountability. I hope the guiding hands of Rove are underestimating her own integrity and malleability. While her lack of experience is even more marked than Obama's, it renders her fairly clean of Bush-taint and other DC politics. Also, they may view her as easily guided by more senior GOP.

I can understand why they pulled this out--it's about the best move they've got, while Obama is riding the highs of post-speech glory. No doubt, they're hoping to distract many of the potential swing voters. But it's a too-obvious move as well.

I think the media are greatly exaggerating these people so angry Hillary lost that they're voting for McCain. I was a strong Hillary supporter, as were several of my friends, and we're almost all 100 percent behind Obama. I was never NOT behind him!... I just liked them both. I have a feeling more people are like me than not, considering of all the people I know who were Hillary supporters, only ONE is now thinking about voting for McCain.

1000 or so points to Karen Newton for so effectively articulating why Hillary's loss was so painful to so many women. That said, I do hope disgruntled Hillary supporters will realize, as Karen clearly does, that it would be McCain who would be appointing people to the Supreme Court--and, for that matter, that Biden has, as far as I can tell, a more distinguished record of support for women's issues that Palin (including being a major force behind the passing of the Violence Against Women act).

And check out an Alaskan's view of Palin:

http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/what-is-mccain-thinking-one-alaskans-perspective/

I'm one of many Americans in exile - btw, a woman. I have felt insulted by Hillary at the notion of voting for her because she is a woman, just as I do at the concept of voting for anyone as a symbol of anything. Symbols do not govern, but they sure do make people decision-make for the wrong reasons. I am confused by all the Hillaryites who think she got a bum ride because she is a woman, when only a few months ago I (and millions of others) faced the prospect of holding my nose and voting for her (elephant in tow) against anyone the Republicans would spew out. Obama won, fair (as politics is) and square. The glass ceiling? In America, looking in from without, it's only there for true believers, I truly perceive. But even if one truly believes she was screwed by some sexist journo-politico establishment, how disgruntled Hillary supporters can contemplate not voting out of spite (they can't be serious about voting for McCain) is something I really don't understand, not when the legacy of a president is at stake - the Supreme Court and "justice"; nor when the relationship America has with the rest of the world needs so badly to be radically altered. The thought that women think with their (our) vaginas, and that, essentially, all cunts are alike, is so sexist that it boggles thinking - yet McCain (and Palin) have shown not only that they think this, but that the national security and the state of peace in the world are of no interest to them. A heartbeat away, and she can hit the ground learning? It is sickening and horrifying to think of Biden's problem going into his debate. How does he dumb himself down enough not to seem patronising?