ProgressWomen

THE FOLLOWING IS WRITTEN BY ONE OF MY FAVORITE MENTEES, A SERIOUS CAMPAIGN PRO & VOLUNTEER FROM MY CAMPAIGNS:

By Ellie Cohen, 2013 political journalism George Washington University graduate-to-be,  for TheRun2016.com 

courtesy of www.ojuaraxd.com

 A pair of recent public speeches  that tickled the fancy of the media and her admirers only hardened the assumption that Hillary Clinton is running for president.

“It’s such a silly question. Of course Hillary is running,” declared the inimitable New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd on Sunday.

But if — for whatever reason — she takes a pass at history, the decision would blow open a gaping hole in the 2016 Democratic field that would have to be filled.

Unquestionably, there would be a need for another woman.

There are a handful of prominent names that have been floated as women who could pick up the torch, but Democratic strategists surveyed by The RUN believe two stand out head-and-shoulders above the pack: New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

“Gillibrand and Warren would be far more formidable,” said Democratic strategist David Heller, when presented with those names as well as Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

“Elizabeth Warren, in particular, would be extremely formidable because she has, arguably, the best donor list of any sitting office holder right now, other than Joe Biden. In terms of the presidency, only Biden and Hillary Clinton would have a better donor base to begin the race than Elizabeth Warren.”

During the high-profile Massachusetts Senate race last year, Warren compiled an extensive and active donor list and demonstrated her prolific national fundraising abilities. She raised $42 million leading up to November, with more money and individual donors than any other congressional candidate.

Running in the national spotlight also helped boost her name recognition, especially in the neighboring state of New Hampshire, which shares a media market with Boston. Public Policy Polling recently found that if Clinton and Biden are both running, only five percent would vote for Warren.

However, when Clinton is not in the contender pool, the number more than doubles to 11 percent. If Biden is removed from the field of contenders, 18 percent said they would vote for Warren, following unknown and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

READ MORE OF HER ARTICLE HERE.

THANKS TO MSPRESENTATION FOR THIS.  AND YES, IT DOES HURT US WOMEN WHEN WE RUN FOR OFFICE.  JUST TALK ABOUT OUR QUALIFICATIONS AND OUR EXPERTISE, OK?  AND…OH YES, WHAT WE’RE WEARING IS NOT IMPORTANT EITHER.

courtesy of triblocal.com

In the wake of President Barack Obama apologizing to California Attorney General Kamala Harris for complimenting her on her good looks comes this blockbuster finding from a new study: when it comes to a female candidate, any media coverage about her appearance–even positive–hurts her with voters.By Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times

That’s a key conclusion of the poll for the Women’s Media Center and She Should Run, to be released Monday in Chicago at the Council on Foundations annual conference at the Hilton Chicago, 720 S. Michigan.

The survey’s release is timely because Obama’s remark about Harris is the latest in the long-running struggle of women seeking public office, not to have their looks influence how people assess their credibility.

Obama apologized Friday for saying, during a Thursday fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee near San Francisco  that Harris is “brilliant,” “dedicated” and “tough.”  What Obama said after that is what got him in trouble: “She also happens to be, by far, the best-looking attorney general.”

The “Name It. Change It” survey, conducted by Celinda Lake of Lake Research and Robert Carpenter of Chesapeake Beach Consulting found that when any media coverage focuses on a female contender’s appearance–positive, negative, or neutral–”it made voters less likely to vote for her.”

Lake said, “Women candidates pay a real price when they are covered in a way that focuses on their appearance. “Even what we thought was benign coverage about how a woman dresses has a negative impact on her vote and whether voters perceive her as in touch, likeable, confident, effective, and qualified.  And, in close races, sexist coverage on top of the attacks that every candidate faces can make the difference between winning and losing.”

Harris through her spokesman shrugged off the Obama comment, an option an incumbent and Obama loyalist–not in an election battle–can easily take.

“When a woman candidate’s looks become part of the election story, she loses ground,” said Julie Burton, President of the Women’s Media Center.

The on-line survey was conducted March 3-7 of 1,500 likely voters, with an oversample of women between the ages of 18-35.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2013/04/blockbuster_female_candidates_.html

courtesy of socialtimes.me

I LIKE THE OSCARS AS MUCH AS ANYONE.  ACTUALLY, I LOVE THE OSCARS.  

In my house, it’s essentially a national holiday with very serious TV viewing, lots of comfort foodie food and a very competitive Oscar ballot competition (for money!) with my former film major son, college daughter and play-along husband.  We’ve been watching the Academy Awards including the pre-shows religiously for over 20 years. 

This year I was just appalled at the host.  The first song about nominated actresses and their boobs almost put me over the edge.  Did you forget that women were watching?  Did you care?  Did you actually think that sexism is amusing to us and our families?

My suggestion, Academy?  Grow up.  I hope you mature before my  little granddaughters discover our family tradition and have to sit through demeaning obnoxious humor meant to belittle them.

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An Opinion by Alexandra Le Tellier of the Los Angeles Times

Wait, so the academy fired Brett Ratner from his gig as Oscars producer for making sexist and crude comments, but then, as Vulture’s Kyle Buchanan smartly points out, allowed host Seth MacFarlane to make “that kind of un-PC humor the cornerstone of his whole act.”

Mothers marching for gun control in NY,
courtesy of www.loopny.com

There’s the grieving mother whose child was killed in a shooting and whose pleas for stricter regulation seem unassailable. And there’s the flinty mother who wants maximum firepower to take matters into her own hands to protect her brood.

As Congress weighs President Obama’s agenda to toughen gun legislation, powerful lobbies on both sides of the issue are turning to women as leading spokespeople and symbols. In television advertisements and op-ed articles, speeches at rallies and testimonials before legislators, both types are stoking emotion and fear in an attempt to sway public opinion.

In Newtown, Conn., one mother after another testified last week about losing her child in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre or about the guilt that haunts her because her child survived. The military-style AR-15 rifle the shooter used, one mother told a legislative panel, was “a death machine.”

On the same day in Washington, another woman, Gayle Trotter of the Independent Women’s Forum, testified just the opposite. She said an assault rifle in the hands of a mother defending her children and her home against violent intruders offers “peace of mind.” The AR-15, Trotter told a Senate panel, is “a defense weapon.”

Advocates for stricter firearm restrictions are employing mothers of shooting victims in their public relations push, calculating that when they speak out against gun violence they are hard to dismiss. Hundreds of thousands of moms who began organizing on Facebook after December’s Newtown shootings are staging rallies nationwide and lobbying lawmakers to pass President Obama’s gun-control proposals.  READ MORE HERE.

“GUNS MAKE WOMEN SAFER”  - MIGHT GRAB HEADLINES…BUT IT’S JUST PLAIN WRONG

BY KATIE MCDONOUGH, www.Salon.com - 

courtesy of DemocraticUnderground.com

Gayle Trotter, a senior fellow at the conservative Independent Women’s Forum, made an appearance on Wednesday to pink up the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence.

“Guns make women safer,” she testified. “Using a firearm with a magazine holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition, a woman would have a fighting chance even against multiple attackers.”

But Trotter is wrong about women and guns, dangerously so.

Far from making women safer, the presence of firearms in situations of domestic violence (which occur far more frequently than any other crime in the United States, Trotter’s “stranger danger” scenarios be damned) dramatically increases the likelihood a woman will be killed by her abuser.

As Amanda Marcotte reported for Slate, the Violence Policy Center conducted research to quantify this point and found that 83 women were killed by an intimate partner for every woman who used a gun in self-defense.

Trotter added that, “Scary-looking” guns give women “more courage” when “fighting hardened violent criminals.”

Here is something else that “scary-looking” guns do to women: Coerce, threaten and intimidate them into remaining in abusive, often deadly, relationships.

According to a recent study on firearms and intimate partner violence, “Even when guns are not fired at women directly, they are often used as a tool of intimidation to facilitate other types of physical and psychological violence,” with many women reporting that their abusers would “clean” their guns during arguments.  READ MORE HERE.

by Adelle M. Banks, Washington Post

Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, will be the first laywoman to give an invocation at a presidential inauguration when she prays at President Obama’s swearing-in on Monday.Evers-Williams, 79, an author, activist and former NAACP chairman, is a scholar at Alcorn State University in Mississippi.

She talked with Religion News Service about the confluence of the second-term inauguration of the nation’s first African American president, the 50th anniversary of her husband’s death in June 1963, and the swearing-in on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Courtesy of www.bgsu.edu

Q: What was your reaction when you were chosen to give the invocation at President Obama’s second inauguration?

A: First of all, it’s a major honor to do that. Secondly, it had been years ago at the March on Washington when I was scheduled to be a speaker there and unfortunately I could not get there. That was one thing that has haunted me over the years. Fifty years later, I receive an invitation to deliver the invocation.

Q: How do you feel about this occurring on the 50th anniversary of the murder of your husband, who was very active in civil rights work?

A: The focus has been on Dr. King, and there certainly is nothing wrong with that at all. But I have always wanted to see Medgar be recognized for what he did. Medgar’s remains are in Arlington Cemetery, only [a few] miles away from the spot where the inauguration will take place. It’s kind of a miracle for me that all of this is happening at this particular time.

READ MORE HERE…