From “Baker’s Dozen About Obama” by Ellen Keim

Here are thirteen of my “Obamic” impressions, for what they’re worth:

First of all, I hope people can separate what they think of Obama–either his track record or the man himself–from the historical fact of his presidency.

Second, I can’t even imagine how much pressure he feels to be the best for fear that he may ruin the chances for another black candidate.

Third, I never thought he was the “Messiah” as some did, so I never expected him to be super-human. Some people are getting disenchanted because they expected perfection and instant gratification.

Fourth, I don’t think people are giving him enough credit for what he has done, either because they don’t agree with it or because it isn’t their pet project.

Fifth, he hasn’t been President for all that long. Considering the messes he inherited, we should expect fixes to take longer than a year.

Sixth, I don’t think we have seen the positive effects yet of the way he has reached out to the Muslim community around the world.

From Marcia G Yerman, “Thoughts for a New Decade: What I Wish for Women“

As we move into a new decade, I can’t help looking over my shoulder at all the things I would like to leave behind.

VIOLENCE: Number One – Violence perpetrated against the female gender. Whether it is domestic violence behind closed doors in the United States, acid being thrown in the faces of young girls in Afghanistan trying to attend school, or rampant rape as a tool of war…It must end.

DYSFUNCTIONAL HEALTH CARE: I would like to discard health care that doesn’t take into account the needs of women, and policies that don’t speak to the disparities in care for all members of the female community at the local, state, and national levels.

UNEQUAL CHANGE: I would welcome a roll back on the wage disparities between a woman’s paycheck and a man’s, taking into account a gap that is even larger for women of color. Moving forward, I would like more support for women working in the services sector, where wages are lower and benefits are commonly non-existent. More legislated awareness for the work/life balance issues that often drive women to choices based on the need for flexibility, as they seek to mesh family responsibilities with a career agenda, would be helpful.

From Margaret, “Free Speech and Corporations“:

Over the weekend, I posted a link on my Facebook page to a Keith Olbermann commentary on the SCOTUS decision that was issued on January 21, 2010. Now, I’m not a fan of Olbermann as a general rule, but I found what he had to say pretty much nailed what has me concerned about this decision. I don’t often publish anything on Facebook that is politically oriented, but I feel as if this decision has such far-reaching implications that it transcends “politics” and really has the potential to impact my daily life. In short, it scares the living crap out of me.

And from Onedia Hayes Sylvest, “Lifting the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Policy — Those Arguments Against Sound Familiar“:

I am a retired navy commander. I retired in 1994 just after the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy was begun. I thought it was insufficient then and I thought the reasons for taking such a half-baked (read another word there) stand was a little brass short of what it should have been. I also heard lots of reasons (and some of those are being repeated now by such people as John McCain) that sounded remarkably familiar.

When I first entered the Navy women did not have pants in their uniforms, they had to leave the service if pregnant, their husbands could not be claimed as “dependents” without proof that the navy woman provided at least 51% of his monetary support. We did not have top ranks or positions, there were no women with stars on their shoulders and we were denied access to many jobs/skill areas solely because of our gender. Women could not serve on ships or on aircraft and the primary reasons offered sounded almost identical to those I heard in 1993 and that I am hearing now.

I know that I served with gays and lesbians in the navy. Most were talented and dedicate. Some were not or even disruptive. However, neither the talent and dedication nor the poor performance and disruptive behavior were caused by their sexual preferences. The same traits and performance were equally present in both heterosexual and homosexual service people. In those days if you wanted to get someone eyeballed by the chain of command then feed the rumor of homosexuality. In my early days many people even assumed that women in the military were probably lesbians and if not they were either looking for a husband or were not of good moral character. The environment bred, I think deliberately, some level of hostility to any who did not fit the accepted image of what a sailor, CPO or officer should be. In the 70′ the primary targets were women and homosexuals.

This is just a sampling of what women are saying.

Want to read more? Why not join us and make your voice heard.

[If you would like to be a guest blogger on The Political Voices of Women, just join our community, and start posting.]

“The Time Warner Summit: Politics 2008,” held at the Time Warner headquarters in New York City and co-sponsored with CNN, was a corporate branded event with big name heavy-hitters taking on questions about media, news, and the election. After attending both days of the conference, it reinforced my belief that digital media was the future for pushing out women’s stories, concerns, and dialogues.

There were many prominent women featured. Campbell Brown, CNN Anchor, moderated the opening keynote roundtable comprised of four men. Candy Crowley, senior political correspondent at CNN, spoke during the Media Power vs. Political Power session. One of the most dynamic speakers over the two days was Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent for CNN. Her persona and delivery style popped during the discussion with colleagues that included Wolf Blitzer and Fareed Zakaria and former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke.

Whether you consider women and minorities successfully enmeshed in the total media picture
or their specificity overlooked, depends upon your point of view. But the conference was a definitive contrast to presentation I recently attended at St. John’s University, which totally focused on the intersectionality of race and gender with the election story. There, a majority of the speakers were law professors presenting academic work.

The Time Warner symposium included one panel entitled Women and the 2008 Election: Playing Politics with Gender–Media, Candidates and the Majority Vote. Led by Lisa Witter, Fenton Communications COO and co-founder of SheSource — a “brain trust” of female experts — six women explored women as swing voters and the cultural phenomenon of Sarah Palin’s candidacy. In reference to Michelle Obama, they also discussed whether you could be an outspoken black woman without being described as “angry” by media pundits.

As Witter pointed out while speaking to a full room of women — “Wish there were more you!” she joked to the sprinkling of men — 59 percent of primary voters were women. At the end of the discussion, Carol Jenkins, Women’s Media Center president, posed questions going forward for the media. She called for continued examination of “who is calling the shots, who is making the decisions, and who is missing from the picture.”

With the understanding that women do not getting their narratives adequately told — if told at all — the need for a fresh playing field is palpable. In the new media, women have an opportunity to create their own communities and their own brands. Whether on the left or right of the political spectrum, a mommy blogger or a political blogger, women are flooding the Internet. This was borne out by a BlogHer/Compass Partners survey found 36.2 million women were actively participating in blogs. Of women online, 53 percent were reading blogs, 37 percent were posting comments, and 28 percent were writing or updating blogs.

I contacted Elisa Camahort Page, COO and co-founder of BlogHer, to find out what effect the election has
had on the site. She told me that “an explosion of women were injecting themselves into the political conversation.” Previously on their blog directory, there were under 300 entries devoted to politics/news. There are now 3,000. Camahort Page said that the most active conversations were political, and the top ten search terms included the four names of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates. BlogHer created a voter manifesto targeting the topics of health care, the economy, Iraq, and the environment. Michelle Obama was a BlogHer contributor. Like the more than 20,000 who signed a MomsRising letter to Sarah Palin–asking for her policy positions, women and “stay-at-home moms” feel the personal empowerment of being able to engage. “It’s a new world,” Camahort Page concluded.

Certain buzzwords and phrases were cited during the Time Warner conference with regularity, such as “democracy with a small d,” and “grassroots groundswell.” 2008 was dubbed the year of the “first Internet election.” As Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Politico pointed out, “Now, anybody can drive a story.” The founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, Andrew Rasiej, explained that while previous generations people would talk about things “over the back fence or around the water cooler,” individuals are now “moving the message” via the web.

At the panel on The Digital Election: The Activist System and the Political Blogosphere, the relationship between activists and bloggers was parsed. With the social media movement allowing groups of people to “coalesce” around a niche interest or concern to inform and mobilize, the future trend — in respect to flexibility and adaptability — is “granular.” As the shift to more mobile usage continues, activity will be even more intense. The days of a monopolized source of information are over.

Forty years after the advent of the second wave of feminism, a new set of tools are available to women. If embraced and set in motion, it could play an important role in irrevocably altering the glass ceiling that picked up 18 million cracks during the primary season.

Originally posted at The Women’s Media Center website

Dr. Biden spoke at length about how much women juggle taking care of children, ailing parents, working, and helping other families. She spoke about how we need equal pay for equal work, and she noted that women bear an “even greater burden than ever before” in terms of supporting our families. She answered questions about how teachers are being overexerted in their jobs and she emphasized the need to help teachers reduce their load and allow them to be trained and to be able to mentor other teachers as well.

The call began with an introduction by Dana Singiser of the Obama campaign and then Dr. Biden spoke briefly about how she’s worked as an educator for many years, teaching them to read and write. She was kind and humble in what she said, reading off a prepared statement, and she said that when she’s in the classroom, they don’t talk about politics, but “this election is about them.”

Through an extended question and answer session, we discussed issues around special needs children and she emphasized how important it is that those programs get funding. We talked a lot about community colleges and affordable college education and she made the point that one of the things most people don’t realize right now with this economic crisis and loans drying up is that college loans are included in that process, making it tougher for students to afford to be educated. We talked about the failure of the No Child Left Behind program and how to change and improve that. Attendance in school was something that’s a major issue as well and Dr. Biden recommended a mentorship program to help with that. And one question was about technology use in education. Dr. Biden’s reply was perfect: “technology is supposed to enhance education, not be education.” Absolutely right on.

Glennia Campbell posted a comprehensive transcript on the MOMocrats site and I encourage anyone who hasn’t read it yet to view the issue statements posted on the campaign web site.

We will be live blogging and hopefully getting some video interviews from the press room.

The rally doesn’t start until 6pm, but, I plan on posting some of the “behind the scenes” stuff, throughout the day.  This is the first time I am doing anything like this, so I’m not 100% sure what to expect.

Oh, and even though I’m somewhat new to the Twittering thing, I’ll be doing that too.   You can tweet me at…

http://twitter.com/catherinemorgan

Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll get a chance to meet Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.  Either way, it’s gonna be quite the mother/daughter adventure.  Well…That’s it for now, come back tomorrow and see how we’re making out. 

Reviews are in on the McCain vs. Obama Debate…

Obama strikes back on McCain’s Iraq policy…

Is Healthcare a Right or a Responsibility?

Joe Biden on NBC’s Today Show…

Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann on the debate…

CNN Post Debate…

If there is one thing that really gets under my skin, it’s John McCain referring to EVERYONE as “my friends” – It feels condescending to me. Last night he said, “My Friends” twenty times….

McCain seems to be a little ADD trying to answer this Environmental questions…I do like what Obama had to say.

Also See:

Fact-Checking the Debate

From The Mahahblog…

Flipping back and forth between CNN and MSNBC, it seems on the whole a consensus is forming among the bobbleheads that this debate was not a “game changer.” McCain needed a “decisive win,” Wolf Blitzer says, and he didn’t get it.

McCain was less dismissive of Obama as in the first debate — I don’t believe he said Obama “didn’t understand” this time — but he still seemed condescending, and I don’t think this is helping him.

New York Times…

Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama provided enough direct answers or personal, emotive moments during Tuesday night’s debate, according to three audience members who posed questions to them, though Mr. Obama won quite a bit of goodwill by staying afterward to shake hands and sign autographs while Mr. McCain left.

MyDD…

A few initial impressions. First, and most important, John McCain failed to make the most of this opportunity — one of his last — to fundamentally change the direction of this race. Nothing, and I mean nothing, occurred tonight that will put McCain back in the driver’s seat of this campaign, let alone help him retake a lead.

Beyond that, McCain had some serious optics problems during the debate. McCain’s lurking in the background was truly Cheney-esque, and that’s just not a good likeness for the GOP nominee. And McCain’s extreme derisiveness towards Barack Obama, unwilling to call him by name, instead only calling him “that one,” seriously undercuts the notion that McCain can be a cool operator on the world stage. Note also that Obama’s jokes did connect with the audience — he got a nice chuckle towards the end of the debate when he said that Michelle could easily list all of the things he doesn’t know — while the only laugh McCain earned during all of his botched jokes over the course of the debate was from Tom Brokaw.

As for memorable exchanges, Obama speaking about his mother stands out in particular, though this retort to McCain, which Josh caught, was highly effective as well.

So.  What did you think?  Let me know in comments.