Posted on 06/08/2008 12:41:18 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Sacha Millstone is nobody's sweetie.
The Democratic insider will stand up at August's national convention and cast her vote for the candidate who suspended her bid on Saturday. And then Millstone will quit the party with which she is falling bitterly out of line.
"This isn't sour grapes. This is about the best candidate losing the nomination because she's a woman. It's the most blatant example of sexism in our society. This is about the party breaking my trust, women's trust. And that can't be fixed," she says.
Millstone hails the day in 2007 when Hillary Clinton announced she was smart enough, qualified enough and tough enough to be president.
"I had never heard those words come out of a woman's mouth and neither had anyone else," says the 49-year-old Boulder investment adviser who has spent 16 months volunteering on Clinton's national finance committee.
She pounded the pavement for 20 days in Iowa. And she has raised more than $300,000 for the campaign.
The shattering of Millstone's party loyalty came with what she deemed an all-out assault on Clinton "because she's a woman."
She winced when one biographer referred to Clinton's "thick ankles." She grumbled when NPR's political analyst likened the senator to the scorned stalker in "Fatal Attraction." And she grew incensed when talking-head Tucker Carlson said the mere sight of Clinton makes him "involuntarily cross my legs."
Millstone blames Barack Obama and party leaders for not rallying to Clinton's defense. And she slams them for trying to nudge the former first lady out of the race:
"That never would have happened if she were a man."
The final blow came last weekend, when Millstone stood in the rain protesting outside the hotel where party brass passed rules that she says threw Clinton overboard.
"First let me say that I have never been this angry in my life," she wrote in a dispatch from D.C.
There is no arguing with Millstone about whether Clinton was the most viable Democrat. She is unwavering that sexism cost her the race. Gender is the prism through which she views all things political. Any woman who doesn't, she says, is "deaf and blind."
History no doubt will have much to say about the attacks both sexist and racist that besmirched the 2008 primary race. And the party will spend years soul-searching about the jumbled rules by which it picks its nominees. Time will tell how many Clintonites ultimately flee the party.
Which brings me to Millstone's peculiar brand of identity politics and a group of feminists in the John Irving novel "The World According to Garp." In solidarity with Ellen James, a young girl whose tongue was cut off in a brutal rape, the so-called "Ellen Jamesians" cut out their tongues in symbolic protest.
Call me deaf and blind, as Millstone did more than once during our interview. But there is nothing at all feminist about quitting the party, refusing to vote Obama and threatening to back John McCain or any other candidate who opposes the values that drew devotees to Clinton in the first place.
Rather, it is the kind of hollow, self-defeating political overreaction that invokes the very stereotypes that cause women like Millstone to rise up in outrage.
Okay I am really Confused..... I thought John edwards was white......When did he have a race change?
This writer says, shut up and take it! Party Loyalty is the most important. I was watching Neil Cavouto lay into a woman stating she didn't trust Obama, and he was treating her with total condescension. I didn't know he was a party loyalist before..
Thanks for posting this.
This represents the whole attitude of the “Spoiled Generation” who is used to always getting their way. Whether it be from mommy and daddy or through entitlement programs.
Be forwarned, if/when Obama doesn’t win the Presidency there will be outrage based soley upon the fact that he’s black. Nothing will be said about him being less qualified.
Rodney King type riots WILL happen, nationwide!
Mark my words.
What a terrible waste of red hair.
And tell that old broad that while she is standing there to bring us a beer..........and shut up.
Thanks, Carley.
Come to think of it ... I've never seen Obama/Edwards together .. have you ?
Further ... No one has reported seeing Edwards at all in the last few months.
Ohhhh ... this is gettin' good, folks.
Spread the word - obama hates white women and wants them in front of the oven baking chocolate cookies.
You’re a victim, you’re all victims. Now go vote for McCain.
You are absolutely correct. The Hussein campaign is based purely on emotion. No record. No policy. Just hope and change. Oh, and historical inevitability of the first "black" president, even though he is more white than black. It is doomed to failure of McGovern/Mondale proportions, and then there will be hell to pay. Think Detroit 1967 spread nationwide.
Clintoninte? the term is CLINTONISTA.
And we had dozens of these kinds of stories when McCain won the nomination. He’s managed to pull most of the support back to him. I don’t think the Democrats will have much trouble doing the same.
On the other hand, maybe the author is on to something. Mrs. Clinton epitomizes the worst woman in the world, i.e. a powerful woman who thinks she's a victim (just like Michelle Obama), she's vindictive, she's tell any lie to win, she's illogical and inconsistent, she's prone to emotional out bursts. So, there may be a bit of truth, the electorate doesn't want a stereotypical angry feminist. If that's sexism, so be it.
Why don’t these people lay the blame at the feet of whom deserves it - Bill Clinton. If Hillary had freed herself from him as soon as she was elected Senator of NY, I think this whole thing would have played out very differently. Bill brought her down at critical points in her campaign.
She lost the nomination because Obama's a slicker, more charismatic liar than Hillary. It's not because of his genitalia or his "Y" chromosomes. Everybody who plays the "race and gender" game knows that blacks, male and female, are lower on the socioeconomic scale than white women (see what I learned from Sociology?).
Millstone hails the day in 2007 when Hillary Clinton announced she was smart enough, qualified enough and tough enough to be president.
Another day, another Hillary lie.
she grew incensed when talking-head Tucker Carlson said the mere sight of Clinton makes him "involuntarily cross my legs."
Hey, me, too. And I also feel like checking and re-checking the condition of my guns and ammunition.
No sweety, she lost because Obama is black (kinda). She was out victim-ed.
Facts are hard things, very tough to argue with head on.
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