US 2008 Presidential Campaign/Debate Discussion Thread - The Fifth Installment

[deep]

Obama picks up 6 superdelegates

By JOAN LOWY 05.09.08, 3:11 PM ET

WASHINGTON -

Barack Obama all but erased Hillary Rodham Clinton's once-imposing lead among national convention superdelegates on Friday and won fresh labor backing as elements of the Democratic Party began coalescing around the Illinois senator for the fall campaign.

Obama picked up the backing of six superdelegates, including Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who had been a Clinton supporter.

I think I predicted this Monday, before the Tuesday elections.

 

[anitram]

Hillary, just pack it in already.

 

[A_Wanderer]

General article on the nature of running for president

Will Barack Obama's presidential candidacy serve his state and city by finally drawing national attention to the sleazy and corrupt politics of Illinois and Chicago?

It is all about context. The presumptive Democratic presidential candidate's politics were born in Chicago. Yet he is presented to the nation as not truly being of this place, as if he floats just above the political corruption here, uninfected, untouched by the stain of it or by any sin of commission or omission. It is all so very mystical.

Perhaps viewing Obama as a Chicago political creature would conflict with the established national media narrative of Obama as a reformer. Actually, there's no "perhaps" about it.

"I think I have done a good job in rising politically in this environment without being entangled in some of the traditional problems of Chicago politics," Obama told reporters and editors at a Tribune editorial board meeting several weeks ago.

Yes, an excellent job. Except for his dalliance with his indicted real estate fairy, Tony Rezko, a relationship Obama considers a mistake, the senator has not played the fly to Mayor Richard Daley's spider. Almost, but not quite.

"I know there are those like John Kass who would like me to decry Chicago politics more frequently, and I'll leave that to his editorial commentary," Obama said.

Not the politics, just the corruption, I said then, wishing silently that he had decried it all, that he'd stood up years ago and pointed to the list of sleazy deals, pointed an angry finger at the Duffs, the white, Outfit-connected drinking buddies of Daley who received $100 million in affirmative action contracts through City Hall.

That's an easy political commercial for the Republicans: Mobbed-up white guys party at the old Como Inn with Daley, and they get $100 million in city affirmative action contracts and Daley doesn't know how it happened and Obama endorses the mayor in the name of reform.

Obama had nothing to do with the Duff deal. But he kept mum. He has endorsed Daley, endorsed Daley's hapless stooge Todd Stroger for president of the Cook County Board. These are not the acts of a reformer, but of a guy who, as we say in Chicago, won't make no waves and won't back no losers.

Obama the reformer is backed by Mayor Richard M. Daley and the Daley boys. He is spoken for by Daley's own spokesman, David Axelrod. He was launched into his U.S. Senate by machine power broker and state Senate President Emil Jones (D-ComEd).

Sen. Obama did give his word of honor that if elected president, he would retain corruption-busting U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, no easy vow, given that Daley is threatened by Fitzgerald, and that the corruption case against Rezko is about to be handed to the jury.

As a candidate, Obama will do what he has to do to win. My argument is not with him--but with the national political media pack that refuses to look closely at what Chicago is. They're fixated on what it was, and they think it's clean now.

And they've spent years crafting, then cleaving to their eager and trembling Obama narrative, a tale of great yearning, almost mythic and ardently adolescent, a tale in which Obama is portrayed as a reformer, a dynamic change agent about to do away with the old thuggish politics.

It's as if Axelrod channeled it, wearing a peaked Merlin hat. Obama is a South Sider and does not hail from Camelot or Mt. Olympus or the lush forests of mythical Narnia.

I've joked that reporters feel compelled to hug him, in their copy, as if he were the cuddly faun, the Mr. Tumnus of American politics. But I was only kidding. The real Mr. Tumnus never had Billy Daley or Ted Kennedy carving up Cabinet appointments.

So why the disconnect? Why is Obama allowed to campaign as a reformer, virtually unchallenged by the media, though he's a product of Chicago politics and has never condemned the wholesale political corruption in his home town the way he condemns those darn Washington lobbyists.

For an answer as to when pundits will ever put Illinois corruption in context, I called on Tom Bevan, executive director of the popular political Web site Real Clear Politics (which directs readers to my column on occasion) and a Chicagoan.

"To a large degree, the media has accepted much of the Obama narrative thus far," Bevan told me. "He's risen so quickly, but his history hasn't been bogged down with an association of Chicago politics and I can't tell you why exactly, except perhaps that some may have bought into the established narrative and can't separate themselves from it."

"And I don't know if the country understands just how corrupt the system is in Illinois. People don't see it. They're flying over us, cruising at 30,000 feet," Bevan said.

Our Chicago politics sure must seem sweet from that high altitude as journalists fly by. From up there, our politics must smell pretty, like vanilla beans in a jar, or lavender potpourri: you know, something truly authentic and real.

http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2008/05/obama_unstained_by_chicago_way.html

 

[deep]

http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/electoralmap/index.html

I think this map is a good starting point in evaluating the election, at this point in time.

Some of these states will go solid in the next few months.

There will be no more than 3-5 states, that will be up in the air on election day.

 

[Earnie Shavers]

What a fucking idiot: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2a50425a-1f86-11dd-9216-000077b07658,s01=1.html

 

[yolland]

A decidedly more optimistic, if admittedly more longterm-oriented view:

In Dixie, Signs of a Rising Biracial Politics

By JACK BASS
New York Times, May 11

Across the South, Barack Obama’s smashing primary victory in North Carolina last week reflects a new reality—a half-century of rising Republican red tide has crested, with signs of receding. A week ago yesterday, Democrats won a special Congressional election in a Louisiana district held by Republicans since 1974. That outcome might well be replicated Tuesday in Mississippi, where a biracial Democratic coalition is optimistic in the second round of another special Congressional election.

...In response to Mr. Obama’s energizing of black Southern voters, enlightened self-interest may well convince many of the region’s undecided superdelegates to endorse him. Over the last two years, there have been little-noticed Democratic gains in Congressional and state legislative elections across the South, as the solid black Democratic base has been joined by whites disenchanted with the Bush administration. New concern about the economy may be adding momentum. The Republican tide surged across the region in the 1990s, bringing large gains in state legislatures and a vault from 39 members of the House of Representatives before the 1992 elections to a 71-53 majority in 2000. But in 2006 and 2007, Democrats in the 11 states of the Confederacy gained six Congressional seats—a Senate seat in Virginia and five House seats—and added 30 state legislators. Florida’s battered Democrats gained two House seats in 2006 and five in the Statehouse. Arkansas elected a Democratic governor to join the party’s two United States senators and the majorities of both legislative houses. Democrats control both legislative houses in Mississippi as well. The story is most dramatic in Virginia, which in 1976 was the only state in the South that failed to back Jimmy Carter for president. Republicans still hold a majority in the House of Delegates and an 8-3 dominance in seats in United States House. But with their second Democratic governor in a row, the party in control of the State Senate, and the likelihood of Mark Warner being elected their second Democratic senator, Virginians may have reached a Democratic tipping point.

The trends suggest a region in transformation, with dynamic economic growth, an expanded black middle class, the arrival of millions of white migrants, the return of scores of thousands of African-American expatriates, and an emerging native white generation with little or no memory of racial segregation. The result has been greater tolerance, an expanded pool of talent, and growing openness to new ideas.

In the South Carolina presidential primary in January, one factor in Mr. Obama’s decisive victory was his ability to draw 25% of the white vote against two strong white opponents, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. But the turnout may have been the strongest sign of change. Almost 100,000 more South Carolinians voted in the Democratic primary than in the Republican contest. The surge smashed the previous Democratic presidential primary record by more than 80%—this in a state where Republicans hold both Senate seats, the offices of governor and attorney general, and both houses of the legislature. The more astute white Democrats saw an energized black electorate as a core element for a future biracial comeback.

A bit of Southern political history can help in understanding the present. In 1948 the Dixiecrat campaign of South Carolina’s theretofore liberal governor, Strom Thurmond, aroused the region’s most racially conservative voters, striking a powerful psychological blow to the Democratic “solid South” that had emerged from the Compromise of 1877. (That agreement resolved a disputed election by giving the Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes, the electoral votes from three Southern states, providing a one-vote margin to win the presidency; in return, conservative Southern Democrats obtained the withdrawal of federal troops from Southern states, and Reconstruction ended.) In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower became the first Republican presidential candidate ever to campaign in the South. He won four upper South states in 1952 and added Louisiana in 1956. In 1961, Barry Goldwater launched the Republican “Southern strategy” at a gathering of Republican leaders in Atlanta. “We’re not going to get the Negro vote as a bloc in 1964,” he declared, “so we ought to go hunting where the ducks are.” He voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and Mr. Thurmond, by then a senator, switched parties, bringing his Dixiecrat followers with him.

Now things are changing again. In Tennessee’s 2006 Senate race, the moderate Democrat Harold Ford Jr., a five-term African-American congressman, faced Chattanooga’s mayor, Bob Corker, a moderate Republican. With the race in a dead heat, the Republican National Committee aired an ad ending with an attractive young blonde woman saying with a come-hither look, “Harold, call me.” The “Southern strategy” still worked, but barely. Mr. Ford lost, 51% to 48%, but he did get 40% of the white vote. Another sign was George Allen’s loss of his Senate seat in Virginia, after he used the term “macaca” to insult a heckler. Both experiences reinforced the Democratic allegiances of African-Americans, and Mr. Obama’s mass canvassing to register and turn out new voters has now energized an expanding base.

Although the effects of past discrimination still include widespread poverty among African-Americans, it’s mostly hidden from view. The outlawing of discrimination in employment, under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, has resulted in a unified, biracial work force in which white and black Southerners can more easily acknowledge a common regional identity and biracial culture, as found in music, literature, religion, food and a sense of place.

...After the 1990 census, the first Bush administration reached an agreement with civil rights groups under which the Justice Department required legislatures to increase the number of voting districts in which minority groups were concentrated. As a result, Southern blacks more than tripled their numbers in Congress; many now have seniority and status as committee chairmen or other posts. But with the removal of blacks from predominantly white districts that had tended to vote Democratic, Republicans too made huge gains, and the ranks of moderate white Democrats were decimated. Similar patterns emerged in state governments, like South Carolina’s. Now, however, there are established and seasoned African-American Congressional Democrats like James Clyburn of South Carolina, the majority whip, and the civil rights hero John Lewis of Georgia, deputy whip. So the potential exists to launch a renewed equivalent of the Voter Education Project of the late 1960s. Such an effort would include energizing often-complacent black legislators and lesser officials elected in safe districts to mobilize their voter base for statewide and Congressional Democratic candidates.

The demonstrated capacity of black elected officials to gain and hold white support could lead a future Department of Justice to decide that blacks need not be quite so concentrated in districts any more. And that would open expanded electoral opportunities for Democrats across the South. Like Americans across the country, many Southerners, black and white, are troubled by the war in Iraq, rising deficits and a plummeting economy symbolized by the soaring price of gasoline. Race itself is receding as a divisive issue. Like the late afternoon sky across the region, there’s a purple hue across one horizon.

 

[Irvine511]

this makes me giggle.



[q]Source: Huckabee Tops McCain's Veep List
May 12, 2008 11:38 AM ET | James Pethokoukis | Permanent Link

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and defeated contender for the GOP presidential nomination, is currently at the top of John McCain's short list for a running mate. At least that's the word from a top McCain fundraiser and longtime Republican moneyman who has spoken to McCain's inner circle. The fundraiser is less than thrilled with the idea of Huckabee as the vice presidential nominee, and many economic conservatives—turned off by the populist tone of Huckabee's campaign and his tax record as governor—are likely to share that marked lack of enthusiasm. But here is the logic of picking Huckabee:

1) He is a great campaigner and communicator who could both shore up support in the South among social conservatives (Huckabee is a former Baptist minister) and appeal to working-class voters in the critical "Big 10" states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio.

2) As any pollster knows, voters search for candidates who "care about people like me," and Huckabee would probably score a lot higher on that quality than millionaire investor Mitt Romney. Plus, given all the turmoil on Wall Street, 2008 would seem to be a bad year to pick a former investment banker for veep.

3) Economic conservatives and supply-siders may balk, but the threat of four years of Obamanomics and higher investment, income, and corporate taxes might be enough to keep them on board.

Let me add that a top Republican political strategist told me about a month ago that he also believed Huckabee to be the leading veep contender.[/q]

 

[deep]

Here is another "giggle" for you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws&eurl=http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/05/09/obama-wants-to-be-president-of-57-states/

 

[Irvine511]

Here is another "giggle" for you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws&eurl=http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/05/09/obama-wants-to-be-president-of-57-states/

that's not nearly as giggly as running for cover from sniper fire.

 

[Butterscotch]

I just found this article on how racist some people have been toward Obama's campaign, and how field workers have been abused. He's been called half breed muslim n word and more. Some of the people described in this story sound very backward and ignorant, still I am surprised we haven't heard a lot more about this before. Maybe it's been going on but it never got media coverage. Anyway I am convinced racism is the only reason she won in WV and some other places, and if Hillary would have been running against a white man democrat she wouldn't be nearly as close as she is.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...5/12/AR2008051203014.html?sid=ST2008051301359

 

[deep]

. Anyway I am convinced racism is the only reason she won in WV and some other places, and if Hillary would have been running against a white man democrat she wouldn't be nearly as close as she is.

Like John Edwards, Chris Dodd or Joe Biden?

 

[Butterscotch]

We may never know. When they were still in the race a lot of people never would have predicted it would have come to these two.

What I am saying is that there are people choosing her just because she's white, and they admit it. She knows this, has even alluded to it, and doesn't mind using people her condescending, two faced, lying ass actually looks down on behind their backs as long as it serves her. What do you really think she thinks of those hillbillies in WV who chose her because they couldn't vote for an n word?

According to the article, some people voted against Obama because they think since he is black he will 'take care of black people' But you know, even if he was going to look out for blacks first, the poor white hicks who oppose him are really missing out on what might be good for them, because anything that helps poor blacks would also benefit the poor white of Appalachia.

 

[Irvine511]

Like John Edwards, Chris Dodd or Joe Biden?

Edwards did get 7% of the vote.

but there's no question -- the Clintons do very, very well in Appalachia.

 

[Earnie Shavers]

I'm just surprised at how open some people are about it. I've seen a couple of news stories (tv) today where people just flat out say they can't/won't/didn't vote for Obama because he's black. Astounding. Although, I guess that for every one West Virginian perfectly okay with saying that with a straight face to a tv camera, there'd be lord knows how many other people all over the country who would never own up to it, but will vote that way.

 

[deep]

Edwards did get 7% of the vote.

but there's no question -- the Clintons do very, very well in Appalachia.

Bill Clinton won W V in 92 by 13% and in 96 by 15%

 

[deep]

he does look a little nervous,
with these "gun clingers"

 

[deep]

Obama's speech was not very good tonight.

He says these little things that are just off.

He said McCain served "his" country.

He should be saying McCain served "our" country.

He did have a flag pin on.

Not wearing one for so long only made "small town" people a little suspicious of him.

 

[Butterscotch]

I would rather he not wear a flag pin because he thinks it's obligatory and corny (as I do) rather than to wear one against his will to impress anyone. If it's phoney, what good is it?

 

[Irvine511]

Not wearing one for so long only made "small town" people a little suspicious of him.

honestly, deep, you're far more patronizing to "small town" folk than any of the most loaded Obama accusations.

 

[Irvine511]

[q]Poll shows both Clinton and Obama beating McCain
Posted: 09:31 AM ET

(CNN) — While exit polls from the West Virginia primary seemed to suggest the party is deeply divided between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a new poll out Wednesday suggests either candidate would easily beat Republican John McCain in the fall.

According to a new Quinnipiac University poll, both Democratic candidates beat McCain by a gap well outside the margin of error. Obama beats McCain by 7 points in the poll, 47 percent to 40 percent, while Hillary Clinton bests the Arizona senator by 5 points, 46 percent to 41 percent.

The poll carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 points and was conducted from May 8-12.

Clinton and Obama's relatively strong standing against McCain in the poll appear to dispel notions that Democratic party may be unable to come together around one candidate in the fall, even as West Virginia exit polls reported majorities of both candidates' supporters would not support the other candidate in the general election.
[/q]





nobody knows anything.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Either Obama gets elected or America is a nation of crackers

Meanwhile, some white Americans are turning themselves inside out to come up with excuses for why they’re not supporting Obama. It seems like just yesterday that these folks were arguing there is no racism in the immigration debate, and now they’re insisting there is no racism in the presidential election.

Some want to know why it isn’t racist when 70 percent of African-Americans vote for Obama but it is when 70 percent of whites vote against him.

The answer has to do with history. Over the decades, black Americans have had plenty of opportunities to vote for white people for president. And they have done so. But this is the first time that white Americans have a chance to vote for an African-American with a shot at the presidency. And what are they doing?

Many are responding quite well. Obama won the votes of many — to borrow a phrase — "hardworking white Americans — in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming. But, elsewhere, as Obama said in a recent interview, people may need to get their head around the concept of an African-American even seeking the presidency, let alone winning it.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/14/navarrette/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

 

[Irvine511]

here's an interesting take on the complex history of Appalachia:



[q]Upcountry
05.13.08 -- 10:00PM
By Josh Marshall

If the exit polls (and the pre-election polls) are accurate, Hillary Clinton is set to win West Virginia by roughly a 2 to 1 margin over Barack Obama. Oregon, next Tuesday, favors Obama. But Kentucky, which votes the same day, seems likely to yield a similar margin for Sen. Clinton. So what is it about these two states that makes them so favorable to Hillary Clinton?

There's been a lot of talk in this campaign about Barack Obama's problem with working class white voters or rural voters. But these claims are both inaccurate because they are incomplete. You can look at states like Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states and see the different numbers and they are all explained by one basic fact. Obama's problem isn't with white working class voters or rural voters. It's Appalachia. That explains why Obama had a difficult time in Ohio and Pennsylvania and why he's getting crushed in West Virginia and Kentucky.

If it were just a matter of rural voters or the white working class, the pattern would show up in other regions. But by and large it does not.

In so many words, Pennsylvania and Ohio have big chunks of Appalachia within their borders. But those regions are heavily offset by non-Appalachian sections that are cultural and demographically distinct. West Virginia is 100% Appalachian. If you look at southeastern Ohio or the middle chunk of Pennsylvania, Obama did about the same as he's doing tonight in West Virginia.

Below is a map of the Appalachian counties stretching from New York down into Mississippi. Below that is a map of counties that Hillary Clinton has won by more than 65%. As you can see match up quite closely -- the grey gaps are Kentucky and West Virginia which hadn't voted yet.

So what is it about this region?

Let me offer a series of overlapping explanations. First, some basic demographics. It's widely accepted that Hillary Clinton does better with older voters, less educated voters and white voters. These demographics perfectly match West Virginia -- and, more loosely, the entire Appalachian region. A few key points from tonight's exit polls demonstrate the point: 4 out of 10 voters were over 60 years of age. 7 out of 10 lacked a college degree -- the highest proportion of any electorate in the country. And 95% of the electorate was white.

Basically you have a state that is made up almost exclusively of Clinton's voters. But there's a deeper historical explanation that we have to apply as well -- one nicely illustrated by the origins of West Virginia itself.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, in the middle Atlantic and particularly in the Southern states, there was a long-standing cleavage between the coastal and 'piedmont' regions on the one hand and the upcountry areas to the west on the other. It's really the coastal lowlands and the Appalachian districts. On the other side of the Appalachian mountain range the pattern is flipped, with the Appalachians in the east and the lowlands in the west.

These regions were settled disproportionately by Scots-Irish immigrants who pushed into the hill country to the west in part because that's where the affordable land was but also because they wanted to get away from the more stratified and inegalitarian society of the east which was built by English settlers and their African slaves. Crucially, slavery never really took root in these areas. And this is why during the Civil War, Unionism (as in support for the federal union and opposition to the treason of secession) ran strong through the Appalachian upcountry, even into Deep South states like Alabama and Mississippi.

As I alluded to earlier, this was the origin of West Virginia, which was originally the westernmost part of Virginia. The anti-slavery, anti-slaveholding upcountry seceded from Virginia to remain in the Union after Virginia seceded from the Union. Each of these regions was fiercely anti-Slavery. And most ended up raising regiments that fought in the Union Army. But they were as anti-slave as they were anti-slavery, both of which they viewed as the linchpins of the aristocratic and inegalitarian society they loathed. It was a society that was both more violent and more self-reliant.

This is history. But it shapes the region. It's overwhelmingly white, economically underdeveloped (another legacy of the pre-civil war pattern) and arguably because of that underdevelopment has very low education rates and disproportionately old populations.

For all these reasons, if you're familiar with the history, it's really no surprise that Barack Obama would have a very hard time running in this region.
[/q]

 

[deep]

a candidate that could get that 'poor working class" vote, African Americans, and College Graduates

like in 92 and 96?


which Candidate is better suited to build that coalition?


and if a Dem could get a good chunk of Appalachia,
would that rip the heart out of the GOP's stronghold?

 

[Irvine511]

which Candidate is better suited to build that coalition?

which candidate is going to get the blacks, the eggheads, and the kids to actually show up and vote? which candidate is going to be able to speak to the fair-minded independents of the inter-mountain west?

and if a Dem could get a good chunk of Appalachia,
would that rip the heart out of the GOP's stronghold?

is either Dem capable of doing this?

 

[Butterscotch]

and if a Dem could get a good chunk of Appalachia,
would that rip the heart out of the GOP's stronghold?

Appalachia always votes democratic. They hold to the old FDR and JFK love for the party.

 

[Irvine511]

[q]Mississippi Fallout

By Carl Hulse

House Republicans struggled to regroup Wednesday in the aftermath of a devastating election loss in Mississippi, acknowledging that their party faced a significant challenge in November after the loss of three Republican seats in special elections this year.

“It was another wake-up call that we have to show Americans that we can fix the problems here in Washington and fix the problems they deal with every day,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader.

Republicans said that the Democratic victor in Mississippi’s 1st District, Travis Childers, successfully co-opted a conservative Republican anti-tax, pro-gun, pro-life message.

“We know the message works,” said Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 Republican. “We’ve got to do a better job connecting that with Republicans. And I personally think there’s a substantial and adequate time to do that.”

Republicans were clearly demoralized by the loss and the prospect of sinking deeper into the minority in November. But no immediate personnel shake-ups were announced even though Mr. Boehner hinted at “changes that maybe necessary to adopt to the environment we are living in.”

Democrats were elated, seeing the opportunity to build their majority in the House.They said Republicans could thank President Bush for their predicament as well as their own decision to hew so close to the president on policies across-the-board.

“In 2006 the voters voted for change over the rubber-stamp Republicans who stood by and encouraged the president’s policies,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic caucus. “They continue to identify, as the three special elections show, that Democrats are the party of change and the Republicans are the party of the status quo. That is one thing that is consistent in all three elections.”

Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, noted that Vice President Dick Cheney made a Monday visit to the district in a failed effort to boost Republican Greg Davis.

“They put everything into this race in Mississippi,” he said. “And I think one of the things they learned was that Dick Cheney was as dangerous to Republican candidates as he is to his hunting partners.”
[/q]

 

[Jeannieco]

Just breaking now on CNN.com

Former Sen. John Edwards officially endorses Senator Barack Obama!

I knew this was coming sooner or later

 

[ladywithspinninghead]

Was just to post the above - wonder what took him so long?

 

[Jeannieco]

Was just to post the above - wonder what took him so long?

I wondered that also, but when it all comes down to it ......it's all about politics.

Next up AL GORE!!!

There's no stopping this train...
Step aside Hillary!

 

[deep]

Good ol' boys club

sexism!