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06 Jan 2008 09:49 am

Clinton Isn't The Only One Who's Angry

A reader writes:

Obama won't earn my vote until he stands up to his boorish supporters, the boorish "Hillary Haters" of the Right, and the media. Substituting "generational war" for "culture war" doesn't get us anywhere toward "unity" or a better America. Especially when that "generational" war appears to just be a new name for the same old thing; hostility and disrespect toward the women who, bearing the brunt of massive social change over the last 40 years, stepped up to the plate, accepted new responsibilities, and worked to create new and better conditions and opportunities for their sons and daughters. Obama would not be where he is today without 40 years of commitment from the liberal women, black and white, of Hillary's (and my own) generation. That unique "biography" that you claim as Obama's advantage isn't Obama's alone -- it is his mother's, too, and perhaps most of all.

I'd like to see Obama, if he gets the nomination, choose a woman VP. My vote would be for Janet Napolitano of Arizona. She's a very successful and popular 2-term governor from a Mountain West state -- a region in which Democrats need to make more gains in order to balance their loss of support in the South. In terms both of her personal qualities and experience, and the party's strategic best interest, it makes real sense.

It would also help convince life-long Democratic women, like me, that Obama really is seeking to lead the country past the old politics of "culture war" -- so much of which has always been based in fear of the changing role of women in our society and economy -- rather than just exploiting that fear in new and more subtle ways.

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