MOMocrats™

Dear MSM, Mock Us and Ignore Us at Your Peril

The media love to mock women in the political world by using sexist terms that demean us and make us out to be something not worthy of serious consideration. We saw that time and time again during the 2008 presidential election as talking heads not-so-subtly suggested that Hillary Clinton was only a viable candidate for national office because we felt sorry for her after Bill cheated on her. And instead of focusing on Sarah Palin's qualifications, or lack thereof, as John McCain's running mate, the media focused on her looks and questioned whether a mother of five with young children still at home was up to playing with the big boys.

There's still plenty of that when it comes to powerful women -- one of the most recent examples is an article in the Washington Post about Elizabeth Warren, where they question whether she is a "zealot" because of her passion to help middle class families in these horrible economic times. When I see things like that, it's hard not to wonder whether a man in that position would have been described differently -- I'm betting a male counterpart would be described more positively as something like a "devoted advocate" rather than a "zealot," which has such a negative inference. (Not to mention the fact that the article was, yet again, another story about a politically powerful woman that got placed in the Style section. But that's another post for another day.)

Another increasingly common phenomenon I've been noticing is that some news outlets just act like we don't exist, implying through omission that it's just the big ol' menfolk who are out there trying to make change, with hardly a woman to be found!

The most recent outrageous example is a Politico article entitled, More Bloggers Throwing Hats in Ring.

Democratic Candidate for Governor of Oklahoma, Jari Askins, Wins Primary to Face a Sarah Palin-Backed GOP Candidate

By SEAN MURPHY (AP) – 6 hours ago

via www.google.com

Oklahoma now has two women vying to fill the seat of governor of the state.

After a come-from-behind victory in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, current Lieutenant Governor Jari Askins wins to face an anti-choice Sarah Palin-backed GOP candidate, Congresswoman Mary Fallins.

While not full-throatedly pro-choice, Lt. Governor Askins supports women's access to abortions in "hard cases," a more moderate position than avowedly anti-choice Fallin. Oklahoma is among the most anti-choice states in the country, the legislature having earlier this year voted in a "compulsory ultrasound" law for women seeking abortions and approved public posting of information on women who receive abortions. Askins' message of gender equality through pay equity resonated with women voters, so it'll be interesting to see how Fallin responds on that issue.

Askins also benefited from last-minute support from a popular football coach who had also campaigned for sitting Governor Brad Henry previously. She's demonstrated a bipartisan approach so far, emphasizing bread and butter issues like jobs and education.

It's important to note that for all of Palin's vaunted popularity among hard-right Tea Party Republicans, endorsement from the former half-term governor can just as likely be the kiss of electoral death as a boost.

Why? The quitter from Wasilla consistently turns off most moderates and an overwhelming percentage of liberals. One blogger notes that her 29% favorability rating makes her about as popular as George W Bush was--quite a feat when she hasn't yet had an opportunity to launch two costly and unsuccessful wars or tank the economy. That makes it hard for her strident persona to translate into electoral success--she's a hothouse orchid who blooms best in the overheated swamps of Faux News and the fact-free right-wingosphere. We'll see if Oklahoma's moderates outnumber its hard-right ideologues, and if Askins can get Democrats and independents out to vote.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

Run, Mama, Run: Beth Krom for Congress in California's CD-48

A woman's platform is a good one for America. Public safety, education, health care, sustainable energy... no matter what it is. This is a time for women to exercise the right to vote. Women have to find cookie jar money to fund good candidates. If everyone just gave $10...if women had $10 on a horse, they'd pay attention to a race. [emphasis mine] --candidate for Congress Beth Krom

It was just Mother's Day, and after the hugs and tributes, it's time to think about improving the lives of women and girls in this country every day. If we aren't all mothers, we women are certainly daughters, nieces, sisters, and aunts. And if we do a simple thing like vote in every election up and down the ticket, we can really turn this country around. I recently had the good fortune to interview Beth Krom, a Democratic candidate for congress challenging the Republican incumbent John Campbell in the 48th district of California.

Conventional wisdom's written off Orange County/Southern Caifornia as the all-too cozy home of hardcore anti-choice Republicans like Darrell Issa (CA CD-49), John Campbell (CA CD-48), and Dana Rohrbacher (CA CD-46). But as Krom points out, the demographics of her home district in Orange County are changing and in 2008 Obama won the 48th congressional district by a slim margin (49.3% to 48.6%) over McCain. I'm not a handwringer worried about a GOP onslaught this November. I think it'll be about what it's always about: who has the better and more motivated support that's willing to GOTV. And after talking to Beth Krom, I think she has an excellent chance at winning.

See what Beth Krom has to say over the jump.

Why moms love Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: CHIP, food safety, autism support...

MOMocrats is happy to once again host Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, with a highlight of the special programs, action and legislation she has taken that benefits families and children. Like me, Kirsten Gillibrand is a mom of young children. Like me, being a mom has influenced her actions, and affected her priorities. She is a prime example of why women, and women who are mothers, are such a political benefit to families. It's why we like her...how about you?

Kirsten Gillibrand is a senator and a mother:

• Kirsten drops off her two boys, Theo (6) and Henry (1), every morning and tries to have dinner with them each night. Kirsten tweeted about Theo and Henry's Halloween costumes and took them on a road trip to important cultural and historical sites around Western NY last summer.

• Kirsten is fighting every day to keep our children safe from BPA in food containers, from tainted beef on the kitchen table and at school, and from pharmaceuticals in our drinking water. Her son Theo has asthma, so her fight for asthma funding is personal and Kirsten is working to make autism treatment affordable and accessible to all kids who need it. 

• Kirsten, aka the "gentle mom from New York", understands what it's like to balance home life and work life and has had to lose her baby weight under the media glare.

• Kirsten believes that we all deserve access to affordable health care. One of Kirsten's first votes as Senator was to expand the CHIP program to more children. She has been a strong supporter of the President's health care plan, which, once signed, will immediately cover all preventive care for kids and allows our kids to stay on our insurance until age 26.

• Kirsten also understands that health care is not just about going to the doctor, it's about making our children healthier at home and at school. She even went on The Biggest Loser to highlight the epidemic of childhood obesity.

• Kirsten wants to leave our kids a healthier planet. As a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Kirsten has been a strong supporter of the new energy bill. At the top of her list of priorities is to make sure that the EPA continues to have jurisdiction over coal emissions. Right now, in NY, those emissions are causing an epidemic of asthma in upstate NY and are leading to acid rain that seeps into NYers' drinking water. Kirsten has fought deregulation of this industry at every turn.

• Kirsten engages with Moms regularly on blogs such as this one. Kirsten held a conference call on health care with the Blogher community and wrote about the dangers of BPA for the blog. Kirsten had a Momversation about why Moms should care about healthcare, she answered our food safety questions at The Motherhood and she is an active blogger over at Moms Rising.

Right now, Kirsten is asking moms who support her to stand behind her. You can sign up for Moms For Kirsten and help us keep families a priority!

Watch this video about her autism plan:

A Women of Color Trifecta This Week? Sotomayor, Chu, and Benjamin

    
In judge's robes: 2d Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor, nominee for Supreme Court Justice; center: Congresswoman Judy Chu; in a doctor's coat: Dr. Regina Benjamin, nominee for U.S. Surgeon General

During the recent hearings to confirm Obama's appointment of Sonia Sotomayor as the newest member of SCOTUS, Senator Lindsay Graham sourly admitted to Sotomayor, "Unless you have a meltdown, you're going to get confirmed."

The surly, condescending impotence of Graham's statement aside, what he was acknowledging was the 60-seat majority of Democratic senators in the Senate, making Republicans' filibuster shenanigans to block Sotomayor's confirmation highly unlikely.

If all goes well, then, this week we'll have seen a women of color trifecta: Sonia Sotomayor's appointment to the Supreme Court, Judy Chu's landslide election to the Congressional seat vacated by Hilda Solis upon becoming Labor Secretary in Obama's cabinet, and Dr. Regina Benjamin's appointment as the Surgeon General of the United States.

Can't appoint or elect eminently qualified women of color to serve America at the highest levels of public office because "they don't exist"? President Obama's appointments and the voters of CD32 beg to differ.

Accomplished women of all colors and walks of life are ready to repay the benefits from uniquely American opportunities available to them. This is cause for celebration, and the wider the net we throw to find talent, the more every one of us reaps the reward.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k. She'd like to see various LGBT military men and women (like Lt Dan Choi, for example) be reinstated to service, and DADT repealed, for the same reason that race, age, or gender discrimination is no longer a barrier to employment anywhere or to public service: DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION UNJUSTLY NARROWS THE POOL OF TALENT AND HAS NO BEARING ON MERITORIOUS ACHIEVEMENT.

A '10 Senate Race to Watch: Democrats Gillibrand and Maloney Vie in NY

                   

Left, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY                 Right, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, D-NY

For liberal New Yorkers mulling the fall 2010 special election race to fill the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the declaration of Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney's (D-NY) campaign for it represents an interesting wrinkle. Under state rules governing a vacated Senate position, Governor Paterson chose Gillibrand to fill what had been former Senator Hillary Clinton's seat for a portion of the time remaining in her term when Clinton joined Obama's cabinet. In 2010, the U.S. Senate seat goes wide open to both major political parties, and there's tremendous interest among Democrats in retaining the seat with, naturally, the strongest possible challenger to whoever the Republicans put up.* In this case, it's generally accepted that the Democratic aspirant will likely be a woman. What's unusual is that in addition to the question of who's more "electable" (and why), there's the additional question, who has the better feminist record?

Run, Mama, Run -- Cook County, Illinois Judicial Candidate Abbey Romanek

It might not seem like election season -- maybe some of you are just now recovering from 2008 election fatigue! -- but races for local offices are in full swing and worthy of our attention as much as the big races!

One Democratic mother who's decided to run for Cook County Judge in Illinois is the latest woman we'd like to feature in the MOMocrats' "Run, Mama, Run" segment -- Abbey Fishman Romanek! I met someone involved in Abbey's campaign at a conference earlier this year, and thought it would interesting to profile someone running for an office that we don't often think is an elective one (depending on where you live!)  Abbey took some time out from her campaign to talk a little bit about her decision to jump into the world of elective politics:

Q: How many children do you have and what are their ages? 

A: I have three very active and busy boys. Josh is 15, Mikey is 14 and Ricky is 12.  

Q: What prompted you to decide to run for office?  Why did you decide to run for a judgeship as opposed to another office?

May 19, Special Elections Day in California & a Few Last Words on Judy Chu for Congress

[Previous entries in the Run, Mama, Run series on Judy Chu for Congress here.]

Today's Special Election will elect a replacement for the House seat once occupied by Hilda Solis representing California Congressional District 32, and determine whether ballot initiatives addressing our state's enormous budget deficit will go forward or be rejected.

So please do vote today--it's a low voter-turnout election. According to @lacrrcc, (Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's twitter handle), as of May 18, 2009, "With 273,418 by mail ballots returned, we are just over 6% overall voter turnout for tomorrow's election and 36% returned of ballots issued."

If you'll indulge me in some meta-commentary about the Chu-Cedillo race--some of the punditry has framed the 63% Latino/22% Asian/15% white/other 32d Congressional district as Latino candidate State Assembly person Gil Cedillo's race to lose. It's both a recognition that Cedillo's been active in local and state politics since 1970, but also predicated on the notion that Latinos vote for Latinos in a sort of simple identity politics paradigm. This also assumes that a near-complete turnout of Latino voters will largely go to the best-known Latino frontrunner, Cedillo, and make a runoff election unnecessary. (Whoever takes the majority on May 19 will be named the winner; if no one takes the majority, top finishers from both parties participate in the runoff in July.)

Run, Mama, Run*: Candidate for Congress Judy Chu Answers More Questions, Part 2

 (Intro to the series here. Part 1, here.)

Less than two weeks to vote for a congressional representative for CA CD-32! It's anticipated to be a low voter-turnout election, so it's vitally important for all registered voters to get out to the polls on May 19, 2009, for the special election.

(Hilda Solis and Judy Chu both wearing lucky red for Chinese New Year.)

Here's the promised Q&A between MOMocrats' Cynematic and Dr. Chu. It delves a little deeper into Dr. Chu's background, her first entry into politics, and concrete plans for representing her district and serving Americans in Congress. (*I should note that "Run, Mama, Run" is a MOMocrats series that features progressive pro-choice women of note as they compete for local, state, and federal offices. We use 'mama' in the literal sense--many of the women we feature are mothers of either very young or grown children--and in the more colloquial, friendly and intimate sense--of acknowledging metaphorical kinship with women in a greater struggle for justice that benefits all. In each case, we leave it to the candidate to reveal and discuss the particulars of her family life as she wishes.)

Run, Mama, Run: Congressional Candidate Judy Chu Answers Political Bloggers' Questions, Part 1

Recently Dr. Judy Chu made herself available to numerous political bloggers to answer questions about her background and her positions on several local initiatives that are up for a vote during the May 19 special election. I was pleased to be on the conference call, as throughout the 1990s, I'd heard a great deal about her time as mayor of Monterey Park, and how the demographics of the San Gabriel Valley were changing now that many immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the People's Republic of China were settling there. Now, much of the San Gabriel Valley is Chinese or Vietnamese restaurants, ethnic grocery stores, small ethnic businesses, Latino eateries, and tutoring academies for children.

Dr. Chu, a community college professor and former Garvey school board member, city council member, then mayor, has had a lengthy career based in the San Gabriel Valley. After several years as mayor of Monterey Park, she ran for California State Assembly and served there for three terms. From there, she successfully ran for the State Board of Equalization, the nation's only tax policy-making entity staffed with elected officials. She now serves as Vice Chair of the State Board of Equalization. Just a few days ago, she received the endorsement of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Viillraigosa.