Thousands of women have been organizing, throwing house parties, canvassing and phone banking for Barack Obama over the last year.
And today, lead by the DC Women for Obama chapter, hundreds more women are working the phones and knocking on doors all over the Potomac region to turn out the vote for Barack Obama.
For months, they have been holding grassroots house parties for women to talk about the specifics of how Barack Obama's honesty and progressive policies are so crucial to solving and addressing many of the challenges women face. As Maria Shriver said so honestly a week ago, "this is a moment to have a conversation with yourself, not anyone else. Have a conversation with your own heart. And ask yourself, 'What kind of America do I believe in?'"
Here are just a few the nation's most prominent advocates for women's issues on why they whole-heartedly support Barack Obama.
Former president of NARAL, Kate Michelman:
"Why I'm endorsing Barack Obama" ...Barack Obama is also calling our nation to the greatness that we all want but that we're uncertain we can still achieve. Others talk about greatness and they even say all the right words, but they do not bring those words to life. Their words do not grab us by the arms and pull us along together. Barack Obama, like John Edwards, is redefining what is possible and in so doing he's changing us, each one of us. Many who had given up on politics are re-engaging. Many who had grown tolerant of the intolerable are now ready to demand more and not just from themselves but others. And many who had given up believing that the ideals of equality, dignity and justice would ever again be as politically important as money and power, now believe again....Senator Obama is not just prepared to lead as our beloved Teddy and Caroline Kennedy have said, he is prepared to lead in a way different than we have seen for decades. Not out in front with us behind him, but rather with us beside him.And that difference is all the difference. That difference separates just any president from a great president; and right now, we need a great president.
"Why I'm endorsing Barack Obama"
...Barack Obama is also calling our nation to the greatness that we all want but that we're uncertain we can still achieve. Others talk about greatness and they even say all the right words, but they do not bring those words to life. Their words do not grab us by the arms and pull us along together.
Barack Obama, like John Edwards, is redefining what is possible and in so doing he's changing us, each one of us.
Many who had given up on politics are re-engaging. Many who had grown tolerant of the intolerable are now ready to demand more and not just from themselves but others. And many who had given up believing that the ideals of equality, dignity and justice would ever again be as politically important as money and power, now believe again.
...Senator Obama is not just prepared to lead as our beloved Teddy and Caroline Kennedy have said, he is prepared to lead in a way different than we have seen for decades. Not out in front with us behind him, but rather with us beside him.
And that difference is all the difference. That difference separates just any president from a great president; and right now, we need a great president.
Katha Pollitt from The Nation:
...When Obama won Iowa, I was surprised that I was glad. Much as I would love to pull the lever for a woman president -- a pro-choice Democratic woman president, that is --I realized at that moment how deeply unthrilled I was by the prospect of a grim vote-by-vote fight for the 50 percent+1 majority in a campaign that would rehearse all the old, (yes, mostly bogus or exaggerated) scandals and maybe turn up some new ones too. ...Obama is a candidate in a different mold. He's a natural politician who connects with people as Hillary Clinton, for whatever reason, just doesn't, and appeals to the better angels of their nature. He sparks an enthusiasm in people--independents, the young, the previously disengaged. An Obama victory could have big positive repercussions for progressive politics. I usually resist words like "hope" and "change." But with Supertuesday barely 36 hours away what I think is, let's go with the charismatic candidate this time. Let's go with the candidate voters feel some passion about. Let's say goodbye to the Clintons and have some new people make history. Plenty of feminists support Obama...I signed a letter from "New York Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama." Other signers include the historians Linda Gordon, Alice Kessler Harris and Ros Baxandall; the sociologist Judith Stacey; the political scientist Ros Petchesky,and writers Margo Jefferson and Meredith Tax. You can read it and, if you are a New York feminist, sign it, here .
...When Obama won Iowa, I was surprised that I was glad. Much as I would love to pull the lever for a woman president -- a pro-choice Democratic woman president, that is --I realized at that moment how deeply unthrilled I was by the prospect of a grim vote-by-vote fight for the 50 percent+1 majority in a campaign that would rehearse all the old, (yes, mostly bogus or exaggerated) scandals and maybe turn up some new ones too.
...Obama is a candidate in a different mold. He's a natural politician who connects with people as Hillary Clinton, for whatever reason, just doesn't, and appeals to the better angels of their nature. He sparks an enthusiasm in people--independents, the young, the previously disengaged. An Obama victory could have big positive repercussions for progressive politics.
I usually resist words like "hope" and "change." But with Supertuesday barely 36 hours away what I think is, let's go with the charismatic candidate this time. Let's go with the candidate voters feel some passion about. Let's say goodbye to the Clintons and have some new people make history.
Plenty of feminists support Obama...I signed a letter from "New York Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama." Other signers include the historians Linda Gordon, Alice Kessler Harris and Ros Baxandall; the sociologist Judith Stacey; the political scientist Ros Petchesky,and writers Margo Jefferson and Meredith Tax. You can read it and, if you are a New York feminist, sign it, here .
Ellen Bravo from Nine to Five:
"Why so many feminists are deciding to vote for Barack Obama" Something's happening in these elections that feels like a tipping point. From a national women's media training to my local women's book club, from exchanges among long-time feminist activists to conversations with my feminist son, I hear a buzz about why so many feminists are deciding to vote for Barack Obama. Count me among them. ...So what's tipped so many feminists to Obama? For some, it was when the Clintons began treating him as women are treated -- patronizing him as merely a "good speaker," trivializing his accomplishments, minimizing the importance of his early judgment and risk-taking in opposing the war in Iraq, and using surrogates to demonize his morality. For me and many others, the key attraction is Obama's vision that people need to be eager, desirous for and participants in the change we want to see (the very strength the Clintons either don't get or deliberately misstate). Barack Obama doesn't just make people feel hopeful about the possibility of change -- he inspires them to become part of that change, makes them feel it's the only way we'll get there. And in doing so, he's motivating the base, reaching independent and swing voters, and perhaps most important, inspiring young people and many undecided-whether-or-not-to-vote voters -- people most affected by injustice who often feel their votes, and their lives, don't matter in elections where money has so much sway. This public mobilization is precisely what Hillary failed to do with health care reform in 1992. She owns that failure but not the reason for it. ...I believe Barack Obama has the best chance of helping to galvanize that movement and to stay connected with it.
"Why so many feminists are deciding to vote for Barack Obama"
Something's happening in these elections that feels like a tipping point.
From a national women's media training to my local women's book club, from exchanges among long-time feminist activists to conversations with my feminist son, I hear a buzz about why so many feminists are deciding to vote for Barack Obama. Count me among them.
...So what's tipped so many feminists to Obama? For some, it was when the Clintons began treating him as women are treated -- patronizing him as merely a "good speaker," trivializing his accomplishments, minimizing the importance of his early judgment and risk-taking in opposing the war in Iraq, and using surrogates to demonize his morality.
For me and many others, the key attraction is Obama's vision that people need to be eager, desirous for and participants in the change we want to see (the very strength the Clintons either don't get or deliberately misstate). Barack Obama doesn't just make people feel hopeful about the possibility of change -- he inspires them to become part of that change, makes them feel it's the only way we'll get there. And in doing so, he's motivating the base, reaching independent and swing voters, and perhaps most important, inspiring young people and many undecided-whether-or-not-to-vote voters -- people most affected by injustice who often feel their votes, and their lives, don't matter in elections where money has so much sway.
This public mobilization is precisely what Hillary failed to do with health care reform in 1992. She owns that failure but not the reason for it.
...I believe Barack Obama has the best chance of helping to galvanize that movement and to stay connected with it.
And if you have not seen these videos of Lorna Brett Howard, former President of the Chicago chapter of NOW, on why she was compelled to switch from supporting Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama, please watch these immediately. For anyone concerned with a woman's right to choose, this is very important:
Please pass this post on to everyone you know who cares about women's issues.
And finally, if you have an extra moment, here's a great video about all the Women for Obama in this incredible grassroots movement:
Women for Barack Obama.
Pass it on -- and then help us make a few calls to DC, MD and VA!
We're up to 68,000 already -- our goal is 100,000 by tonight.
We can do this.
Make a call!
My.BarackObama.com/Calls
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Larry: Do you think there will be a lot of pressure on you if that happens? Michelle: You know, I just think this is a pressure filled position. I think that anyone who steps up into this sort of level is gonna find some degree of pressure. I just don't think about it in those terms, I mean it's in the same way that I don't think about what might go wrong. I never spent my life sort of thinking what might go wrong. Or else I wouldn't be here. Larry: Okay, what have you not liked so far? Michelle: About, you know, I have to tell you I'm one of these people who walks down every dark road before I take on a pretty ambitious process. And that's one of the things that I did. I sort of thought through all the things that could go wrong, so I kind of prepared myself. And what I found is that there hasn't been anything that I didn't expect to happen.
