An Exclusive Interview with a Pro-Ahmadinejad Cleric in Qom, Iran

I lived in Lahore, Pakistan for a few years during high school. It was during that time that I met Hasan (name altered for anonymity). Hasan lives in Qom, Iran, and is training at the Islamic seminary in the city, the largest institution for the study of Shiite Islamic theology in the world, where both of Iran's Supreme Leaders, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei, received training. Hasan is currently a Hojjat-ul-Islam, the rank Khamenei was when he was selected to succeed Khomeini as Iran's second Supreme Leader.

When I tracked him down, Hasan was more eager to speak to me than I had expected. He felt that his people's views on the Iranian elections were not being represented properly in the international media. Before I spoke to him on the phone, he also consulted with some of his colleagues, teachers, and friends at the seminary to ensure, in his words, that what he tells me is "accurate" and "representative".

As you'll notice, a recurring theme in many of his answers is his very strong belief that "foreign" Western powers, particularly England, are behind the current unrest in Tehran, an idea that is being played up significantly on Iranian state television, radio, and newspapers, which he cites often. Second, he does not make much of the scale of the protests, and downplays the idea of a rift in the clerical establishment, often expressing surprise when I inform him of some of the reports we have seen here.

All of the opinions and ideas presented here are solely his. Here is the interview.


Based on the media and resources that you have access to, can you give us a general idea about what you think is happening in Tehran?

There are several factors in this situation that have come together. There is one segment of the population that did want Mousavi to win the election. These people had done some propaganda to make it seem like Mousavi will get most of the votes. In particular, Tehran... because Tehran is a metropolitan city, you have people with all kinds of backgrounds and thinking. In Tehran itself, [Mousavi] had a lot of supporters. Tehran is part of what we call "Ustan-e-Tehran", where Tehran is the central city and the "ustan" includes the suburbs and smaller towns surrounding Tehran. An ustan is bigger than a district, but smaller than a province. If you look at the election results, in these suburbs and small towns in Ustan-e-Tehran, Ahmadinejad got more votes than Mousavi. But in the central city of Tehran, Ahmadinejad got fewer votes than Mousavi.

But you see, Tehran isn't all of Iran. People in Tehran sometimes think that because they are all supporters of Mousavi, all of Iran must be supporters of Mousavi, but this is not true. Overall, in 2 ustans, Azerbaijan-e-Ghardi and Ustan-e-Sistan-e-Balochistan, Mousavi got more votes than Ahmadinejad. In the rest of the ustans... I think Iran has a total of 24 ustans... in the rest of the 22 ustans, Ahmadinejad took more votes. Even in Ustan-e-Tehran, Ahmadinejad has more votes than Mousavi, but in the Tehran city, Mousavi has more votes.

So what happened is that the people in Tehran thought that he would win, Mousavi, because they had created a sort of atmosphere where they thought that the newspapers there, the Western media, and the American media was supporting him. But if you look at the rest of Iran, Ahmadinejad has done a lot of good work. I mean, there were projects that would take 7 or 8 or 9 years to complete, and he completed these projects in 2 or 3 years. He brought electricity to places that had none, clean water to places where water wasn't clean, and many things like this. He has greatly helped the poor people of Iran. The majority of Iran, therefore, was with Ahmadinejad.

That leaves Tehran, the Tehran city particularly. Now here there were groups led by important people like Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani [a powerful cleric who chairs Iran's Assembly of Experts, and a former president] and others who said they would support Mousavi. They said they would protest, but they wanted to protest peacefully. They never had the intention to come to Tehran and damage property, break things, or burn things, because in Iran, overall, this is not something that's in our history. It's very rare and even if it happens once in many years, it's done by small groups and it is considered very bad. Whoever you are protesting against, doing these things, damaging and breaking things is considered very bad.

Now Tehran has millions of people, and bringing out a few thousand to protest is not such a big feat. When some of these people were going back recently, they were arrested by the Iranian intelligence and questioned. They said that they were neither with Ahmadinejad, nor with Mousavi. In fact, they said they hadn't even voted at all. They said that they had specifically received orders from a lady in England named Zohra, which I think is a fake name, who had given them orders to do all of this breaking and damaging and violence. They recorded her phone calls, and showed it on TV here. I saw it myself. She would call them and give them orders to go out and destroy things, set fire to gas stations, and so on. And now the foreign minister of Iran has done a press conference and openly said that these people in England are calling people over here and telling them to go out and commit vandalism and violence. They had all of this planned ahead of time, well before the election.


What are the people you know saying about Ayatollah Khamenei's sermon on Friday?

If you noticed, in the khutba [sermon] by the Rahber [the title used to address the Supreme Leader], he mentioned Rafsanjani by name and criticized him, but he also supported him and said good things about him. He also criticized Ahmadinejad, but also supported him. So after this, Rafsanjani and the other leaders who were supporting Mousavi withdrew from the protests. They said that after the Rahber's speech, we don't think it is right to continue this opposition, and the Rahber has now shown us the right path. But some of the small parties and groups supporting Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi continued their protests.

Another thing that happened was that during the debates, Ahmadinejad accidentally criticized Rafsanjani and portrayed him in a negative light. As a result, some of Ahmadinejad's supporters began to have a negative image of Rafsanjani. On the other hand, Rafsanjani's people also became angry, saying that Ahmadinejad's people have maligned them. But then, in his khutba on Friday, the Rahber admonished both Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad. He scolded Ahmadinejad for saying negative things about Rafsanjani without any proof. Of course Khamenei and Rafsanjani have differences in their opinions. This is normal in politics. It happens everywhere. It does not discredit the other person entirely. Once the Rahber brought everyone together in this way, Rafsanjani's group withdrew and decided that they will not continue the protests.

The protests that continued after the speech were not done by people here. They were done by foreign influences, like this woman Zohra in England. I saw on the news that yesterday [Saturday], they even burned a mosque. Can you imagine that? You can completely forget about the idea that any real Iranian, even a supporter of Mousavi, would ever burn a mosque. Anyone who would burn a mosque... this means that he is not even a Muslim. When this news came out over here, everybody became completely convinced that the people doing all of this have been planted from outside Iran. Nobody burns a mosque! I told you before that even burning a bank or another building is something that is considered very bad over here. People here are very educated and civilized.


What about the reported bombing of Ayatollah Khomeini's tomb? Do you think that this was also carried out by people planted from outside Iran? Could Mousavi's supporters have done this?

See, this is what I'm telling you. This is not the kind of thing that Mousavi's supporters could have done. They may have had minor grievances with the other side, like the disagreements between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani, but these incidents of bombings and destruction are all being done by people outside Iran that have been planted by foreign powers. They were showing on TV here that these are people who were given training in Iraq and then were sent over here to do these things. These people have been hired and paid.

What do these people want? They want to delegitimize this record-breaking election we've had where 85% of people came out and voted. They want people to think that this report of an 85% turnout is fraudulent, that there is all this infighting going on in Iran and people don't have faith in the system. But the world has seen on the day of the election here, that there were endless lines at the voting stations before voting had even started... in such a big democracy, where 85% of people came out to vote.

Look, Ahmadinejad got 24 million votes, and Mousavi got about 13 million, and with the rest of the candidates, it's a total of 39 million people who came out and participated in the process of democracy. Think about that... why would so many people come out and vote if they did not have any faith in the system? Who votes? It is those people who know that they can get justice and a better life through the process. If a person thinks there is corruption and deception in the system, he wouldn't bother to vote, he would just stay home. People participated in this election and came out to vote because they accepted the system and had faith in it.


But there are some parts of the process that are very suspicious. First, by law, the final results of the election cannot be certified by the Supreme Leader for a period of at least three days, in order to allow for any grievances that participating candidates may have. Second, voting was done on paper ballots and counted by hand. How is it possible that 39 million votes were counted in such a short time, just a few hours?

As far as the three day law goes, I have to look into this myself and see what the methodology was exactly. [Hasan said that he will get back to me soon on this issue, and when he does, I will update this post.] But I will explain what I know to you about the vote counting.

During the election, there were about 47,000 polling stations for voting. [I have independently confirmed that this is accurate.] For each station, every candidate was allowed to have a representative present to oversee the process. Mir Hossein Mousavi had 47,000 representatives, one at each station, and Ahmadinejad I think had 42,000 or something like that. The other candidates had fewer representatives. When the voting ended at 11 pm, they immediately started counting. Once they had the final tallies at each station, the representatives were made to sign off on them, and the numbers were fed into a centrally computerized system where the tallies were collected.

Now, if you divide 39 million votes by 47,000 stations, it comes to 893 votes per station on average. This is a very small number of ballots that can easily be counted in a short period of time, and the final tally from each station was submitted to the central computerized system immediately. They reported the results live on TV as the final tallies came in. Again, remember that the representatives of both candidates at each polling station were required to sign off on the final tally at that station.

Also, the ballots were present in a booklet, like a checkbook where you can rip out the checks. This is how the ballots were distributed, and like a checkbook, each booklet had a fixed number of ballots. As soon as a booklet was exhausted, they would enter that record into the computer, so that the computer would keep track of how many booklets had been used up. Even after all of this, the Guardian Council allowed for people to come forward and report any irregularities in writing so that they could be investigated. This was not done at first, but later, on prompting, when a complaint was filed, the Guardian Council agreed to a partial recount of 10% of the votes.


Speaking of the Guardian Council, Ali Larijani, the pro-Khamenei Speaker of Parliament, has implied that some members of the Guardian Council are taking sides in the situation, which takes away from Khamenei's statement that this was a clear victory for Ahmadinejad, and even contradicts it--

Ali Larijani said this? Really?


Yes, this is what was reported here on Sunday morning.

No, no. It's not true. I watched Ali Larijani on TV just last night [Saturday] and he said that the Western media wants to take our great success in this election with record turnout and portray it in a negative light. He said to the public of Iran that we should be celebrating our wonderful success as a democracy. I saw this myself, on TV, and everyone in Iran saw it, so no one here will ever believe this report. I think the Western media may have taken his words and edited them to quote them out of context.


I also wanted to ask you about your access to the media. Apart from state-run television broadcasts, do you have complete access to the internet, sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter for instance?

Yes, we have complete access.


Well, over here, because of the ban on foreign journalists covering the events in Tehran, a lot of the major media outlets have started to broadcast web-based images and videos that are being sent in by people on the ground in Iran. There are literally hundreds of videos and pictures that have come in this way showing large numbers of people protesting, and many of them show brutal violence, home invasions, and so on. There is one particularly gruesome video of a woman named Neda who was shot and killed on camera by paramilitary forces, and it has evoked widespread reaction. Are you familiar with these kinds of events?

Look, in Iran, we have a few sources. We have two TV channels, radio, and then we have the newspapers, which are particularly popular among Iranians. Now, we also have the internet, and yes, we are familiar with these videos showing the murders of these people and the violence against them. I can tell you the impression of the people here... they believe that it is the people who are damaging and vandalizing, these planted forces from outside, that are committing these murders. This is what people believe in Iran.

You know, one of the biggest pieces of propaganda is that the forces here are allowed to use firearms. They're not. If you look closely at these videos, you'll notice that the legitimate police and officers are using clubs, tear gas, and water canons to control the crowd, not firearms. If you are seeing people using guns and firearms, these are the rogues from outside Iran who are terrorizing the people and vandalizing property. I'm telling you, all of Iran is against these people who are committing these acts of violence and vandalism.

I'll tell you something which I'm not sure you know. Last week, the office of the Rahber called on hundreds of thousands of people to celebrate at a place called Meydan-e-Wali-Asr, not because Ahmadinejad won, but to celebrate Iran's democratic process, to celebrate our momentous election with a record-breaking turnout. A few days later, people were called out again to demonstrate against these people who were committing acts of violence and vandalism in the protests, and again hundreds of thousands of people came out for that demonstration. But the international media never covers these kinds of things. Instead, the media is taking a few protests with a few hundred or a few thousand people in Tehran and making them out to be much more significant than they are.

And then you have seen the huge crowd that attended the Rahber's speech at Friday prayers. Again, there were hundreds of thousands of people who came to hear him and support him, from all over the country. You have seen them on TV. People were so energized and so excited to see the Rahber that the first twenty minutes were just them cheering and chanting slogans praising him.

Who are these people? Are they not Iranians? Just because the media never shows this side of things, everyone thinks that these protesters committing violence is all that is going on here, while the rest of Iran is silent, and there is no other point of view. In fact, most Iranians are upset with the government for not being more aggressive in cracking down on these people.


In that case, why do you think the government isn't cracking down on these people more aggressively?

Because they are mixed in with the normal people. If you know 100% that the people standing in front of you are your enemy, you can be aggressive. But these people are in regular clothing, they are in the middle of the city, where there are also regular people mixed in, working, in the shops, walking around. So you have to be careful in how you go about tackling the situation. This is also why the government forces are not allowed to use firearms. If they fire at them, the rogues will fire back, and they won't care if the public is in the way. So you have to be careful.


You're speaking a lot about these videos on the internet that are being exaggerated to mean more than what they are, and you're also complaining that the media is not covering your side of the situation. However, if the government bans all foreign media outlets as they have, it forces them to rely on these videos, images, blogs, and Tweets as their primary source of information, which you claim are misrepresentative. Does the government understand that this works against them? Also, why hasn't your side organized events and made their own videos to present your side of the story?

This thing that you're saying is absolutely right. This is something that is lacking on our side. The supporters on our side should do this more of this kind of work. The people who are supporting Ahmadinejad, our government, and our police force need to express what they think, make videos, and send them out so that people can see the other side. We were discussing this among ourselves the other day. It has been shocking to us to see that what we are witnessing here is so different from what the international media is showing.

There are two websites you should read and let me know what you think, pakalert.wordpress.com and prisonplanet.com. On the second one, there is an article about how the BBC took a picture from a pro-Ahmadinejad rally and claimed that it was a Mousavi rally. [Note: Here's the link to the article that Hasan is talking about. The website deals with various conspiracy theories.]


In past protests like the one in 1999, the establishment in Iran was united. However, now there are reports of powerful figures like Rafsanjani and Khatami moving away from Khamenei. Neither of the two was present at the Friday sermon even though they were summoned by Khamenei to attend. Also, on Sunday morning Ayatollah Montazeri declared a period of mourning for those killed in the protests from Wednesday to Friday. Rafsanjani has made a statement saying that the protests and the voice of the people should be respected and supported. Mousavi has also reportedly declared that he is ready for martyrdom. Do you believe that there is a genuine rift in the clerical establishment?

[Expresses surprise at statements from Montazeri and Rafsanjani.] Look, there is no doubt that there are disagreements among some of these men. They are nothing new. Montazeri, although he is respected because he is a mujtahid [the highest rank achievable in Shia religious training], does not have much of a following here. As you know, he was originally selected by Imam Khomeini as his successor, but later the Imam denounced him because of a corruption scandal. It was a dark spot on his character, and although he is learned and respected, he was not qualified to become the next Rahber. He is a controversial figure who gets a lot of attention from the foreign media, but the media and the people here consider him insignificant.


But what about Rafsanjani? There are reports that Jawad Shahristani, the representative and son-in-law of Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, met secretly with Rafsanjani and the Assembly of Experts in Qom to consider redrafting the system of clerical rule in Iran by establishing a collective ruling body instead of a single Supreme Leader. Are you familiar with this? [Note: Sistani, based in Iraq, is one of the most influential Shia spiritual leaders in the region.]

Well, yes, we have heard something like this, that they are considering introducing the system of shoora-e-rahbariya, or a council of mujtahids that act as a supreme authority instead of one supreme leader. But you see, this is nothing new. The late Shaheed Muttahari, who was considered to be... well, you can think of him as number 2 to Imam Khomeini, also suggested the idea of having a mujtahid council. But this idea was not welcomed or accepted among the people. We do have a report from authentic sources that Rafsanjani, on his last trip to Iraq, met with Ayatollah Sistani, who advised him to obey Khamenei. He said that it was not in the interest of Iran to not obey the Rahber, who provides excellent leadership for the country.

The second thing is that if several people get together to float ideas... well, that is the job of the Assembly of Experts, which Rafsanjani is the chairman of. These are people who are mujtahids and are elected by the people of Iran. They keep watch over the supreme leadership, and God forbid if the Rahber makes a mistake or makes a wrong decision, they have the authority to replace him. So there already is a body that oversees these things. If there was a council of people to issue fatwas and edicts, without a singular figure of authority, it would not have as much authenticity and credibility among the people.

At our institution in Qom, in the Imam Khomeini Madrassa, we have many seminars, where ulema [scholars] from around the world come to speak and debate. They disagree very often and have open debates, where they sometimes have completely antithetical views on things. Open academic discussion and debate are very normal and encouraged here. This does not mean that there are any serious enmities within the clerical establishment.


Do you think, then, that despite their differences, eventually Rafsanjani and Khatami will end up supporting Khamenei?

Look, all of these men understand, accept, and revere the system. This is not something they disagree on. They're united on this. The difference is in their preference of methodology in order to get things done. For example, they often discuss how we should deal with the Western world. One group says that we should be firm and outspoken in our approach. The other says that we should be softer and more diplomatic. For example, Mohammad Khatami may be more open to engaging in talks and making concessions with the West about Iran's nuclear program to avoid sanctions and other headaches. Others believe that we should take a harder stance and stand our ground. These disagreements on policy are very normal. They happen in every country in the world. Remember, even when Mohammad Khatami was president, it was still Khamenei who was the Supreme Leader. Khatami did try his soft approach on the nuclear issue. The Rahber told him to make concessions, but if there is no response or accommodation on the other side, he should go back to being aggressive. So at the end of his presidency, after Ahmadinejad was elected, Iran returned to the aggressive stance.


Regarding the nuclear issue, Ahmadinejad has said that he wants to develop the nuclear program for energy, not to make a bomb. Khamenei has also issued a fatwa against building a nuclear bomb. Why should the rest of the world believe them?

You know, there is one fundamental thing that people in the West don't understand about Iran, and if they can understand this one basic concept, they will understand many other things. Look, the government of Iran is an Islamic government. Their view is, if there is something that isn't even allowed in Sharia, something that Islam does not allow us to do, how can we even think of doing this thing? The Rahber has said this many times, and as you said, issued a fatwa against making a nuclear bomb. He has said that if this is something I give permission for, it can jeopardize my own faith and my own stature as a Muslim. It's against our moral and religious beliefs.

America looks at this issue according to their own mentality. They think, we're lying, so they must be lying too. You can look through all of the speeches of the Rahber, and you will not find a single instance of deception or lying. He cannot do it. If he lies or does something wrong, he cannot stay the Supreme Leader. The Assembly of Experts would have to replace him.


One of the biggest problems that people here have with Ahmadinejad is his stance on Israel and his denial of the Holocaust. It is one thing to be critical of Israeli policy, but what purpose does denying the Holocaust and holding conferences dedicated to Holocaust denial serve in helping Iran's interests and relations with the rest of the world?

Look, if you listen to his words carefully, he doesn't say that he accepts or denies the Holocaust. He is a university professor, an academic. He looks at it as a historical event, like any other. He doesn't understand why each event in recorded history is subjected to research and re-evaluation except for this one. In Denmark, they can make cartoons insulting the Holy Prophet and this is defended as freedom of opinion. But in this case, it is taboo to have any opinions on this issue.


You do see, though, that there are parallels in the way Muslims feel about the Danish cartoons and the way Jews feel about the Holocaust? It is a very personal, emotional issue for them. Academic debate is one thing, but do you think it serves any kind of purpose when people in powerful political positions express these opinions? If the goal is to try and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue, why should people in political positions highlight an unnecessary issue that would only inflame the other side and complicate the potential for a solution? Wouldn't it be more effective to put the Holocaust issue aside and just focus on the Israeli-Palestinian issue?

Again, many of Ahmadinejad's statements have been misunderstood. He does not reject the Holocaust. Okay, suppose he says the Holocaust happened just as it is recorded in history, without challenging it. It still happened in Europe, right? Why then are the Palestinian people being punished for it? That is the real question.

Also remember, we have 30,000 Jews living in Iran very peacefully. They like the Iranian government. We have always made a clear distinction between Judaism and Zionism. This is very important. Our opposition is to the Zionists, not to the Jews. We have a lot of respect for Judaism... it is also a religion of God, from Abraham.


What kind of approach do you think the people of Iran want to see from President Obama and the United States during this time?

The Iranians have always maintained that that the United States should communicate with them at a level of equality, with mutual respect. They should remember that just as they are a nation, we are also a nation. If the United States talks down to Iran like they are our boss, and want to tell us what to do, we will not listen to a word they say. The same goes for Obama. Obama needs to be more honest. One one hand, he says that we should improve our relations with Iran, and on the other, he comes out and says he is very upset with the unjust treatment of these people who are committing violence and vandalism in Tehran. He should open his eyes and see how many supporters there are of the government and the Supreme Leader. These 85% that came out to vote... whoever they voted for, they are still supporters of the Rahber and the government. They vote because they have faith in the system. He should look in the United States. When has the United States had an 85% voter turnout? What do you have, maybe 40%?


Last year, it was around 60%.

Okay, 60%. Why was it higher than usual last year? Because people in America had some hopes and expectations in the last election. They had faith in the system and thought that Obama would come and change things. Iranians have the same support for their system. This is why there was such a high turnout. So Obama needs to be more honest, specially with his own people. He is taking their taxes and sending American soldiers into different countries where they are dying for no reason, to protect the interests of the rich people in the United States. If Obama can stop this and just take good care of his own people, that is good enough, we will not have any problems with him. The American government spends more time protecting the interests of Zionism than it does the interests of its own people. We have never been against the people in America, just the policies of its government.


My last question is a personal one. You still enjoy a very close relationship with your brother, who lives in the West, is non-religious, and has strong secular beliefs. You on the other hand live in Qom, and are a few years shy of being a religious scholar at the highest (mujtahid) rank. To what extent, if any, have your stark ideological differences had an effect on your relationship?

You know, as I've lived and studied here, I have learned many things. My faith teaches me that human beings are the creations of God, and God has created this world and everything in it for human beings. This is very important. God has given human beings a great stature, and thus humanity is of great importance. If there is any ideology that is against this universal concept of humanity... this is what we are at war with. This concept is present in all belief systems. These other systems and religions only differ in how they translate this concept of humanity. We may try to help them understand our beliefs and they will try to help us understand theirs, but we will never fight them. We will only fight those who are enemies of humanity, those who humiliate others, abuse them, make mental and physical slaves of them, or think of them as lesser beings.

I believe that as human beings, we should worship and praise our creator. But this service to God shouldn't be of the kind that harms others. For example, you can say that you're secular, that you don't believe in a god, and you don't believe in worship. You don't think it's required of you. So your ideology is different. But based on this, we will never clash with each other. Whoever truly understands Islam will never wage war against you for not believing. This is why I will never have a conflict with my brother.

However, if someone's ideology says that I am a lesser person, that he rules over me, or he's my boss, we will probably clash with each other. This is what I mean when I say our conflict is not with Jews or Judaism, but with Zionism. We place great importance on this difference.


Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.

Thank you.

If Iranians Defy Khamenei on Saturday, We Might Have a Real Diagnosis

Ignore all the Iran experts, says Charles Kurzman at Foreign Policy magazine. For everything that's difficult to discern about what's really going on in Iran after the June 12 election, the only thing we can be sure of is that it's virtually impossible to predict what will happen next.

Add to this Friday's speech by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at Tehran University, unequivocally declaring his support for the results of the election, and vowing "chaos and bloodshed" for any further unrest, the responsibility for which he would squarely place upon the opposition leaders.

From here onwards, continued protests will mean much more than what they have so far.

Apart from the increased risk of a potentially violent crackdown on the protesters, those in opposition to the election results will now also find themselves in opposition to the will of the Supreme Leader, which has resulted in imprisonment and even death for many in the past.

Watching how it all unfolds from here will be diagnostic. There has been confusion over what it is exactly that is being protested. What started out as supporters of Mousavi protesting the election results has now evolved into what many perceive as a rebellion against Iran's political process and structure of power. For some, it's still about Mousavi. For others, it's about the injustice of being lied to and not having their vote counted. Finally, many of the protesters are intent on bringing about another revolution like in 1979, and challenging the fundamental idea of velayat-e-fakih, the system that gives ultimate power to the clerics.

Which one of these constitutes the primary spirit of the protest movement?

If most people still believe this is only about Mousavi, we're likely to see a significant decrease in turnout on Saturday. Mousavi is one of the founding fathers of the revolution, and despite his credentials as a reformer -- and many believe his views have changed significantly over time due to the influence of his wife Zahra Rahnavard, former adviser to reformist president Mohammad Khatami -- he is unlikely to be able to bring any kind of significant change, because his power as president will be greatly stunted by Khamenei, as Khatami's was. Would the "chaos and bloodshed" be worth coming out in support for him when it might not even matter in the end?

If, however, the turnout is high, and we see similar numbers of people lining the streets as we have in the last few days, it's reasonable to assume that this isn't just about Mousavi; the protest movement will then officially be in manifest defiance of Khamenei -- not just of his views, and not just of his will -- but of his threat of bloodshed and chaos.

If that happens, Iran may be either on the path to another revolution, or another Tiananmen Square-like situation. One of the key determinants of which way it might go will be the extent to which Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and paramilitary forces like the Basij are loyal to the Supreme Leader. In 1979, there was a militaristic component to the revolution that successfully overwhelmed the armed forces loyal to the Shah. Without that component, another revolution is very unlikely.

But then, on Thursday night's Rachel Maddow Show, Reza Aslan spoke of reports that some of the Iranian army's high-ranking generals had been detained by the Revolutionary Guard for refusing to open fire on the protesters if ordered to do so. The report, unconfirmed of course, is not entirely implausible. Aslan said:

"The difference now is that, A, these are not just kids. These are not just college students. They‘re not just reformists. Some of them -- the Rafsanjanis, the Khatamis -— these are the pillars of the Islamic republic. They are the people who actually brought the Islamic republic to fruition 30 years ago. So, you can‘t just open up fire on these people.

And secondly... in the 21st century, there is no such thing as a media blackout. Everything that happens in Iran, we will know about -- in real time sometimes. So, they can't hide behind sort of a blackout of the media. They know that whatever they do, the entire world is going to see."

One symbol of the 1979 revolution being re-enacted is the chants of Allah-o-Akbar ("God is Great") being yelled out from rooftops in the middle of the night. This is confusing to many of us watching it all from afar -- is this going to be another religious revolution, or are the chants just a symbolic glimpse into the intent of the protesters?

Again, it's hard to tell. Just as there were many different groups -- pro-secular and pro-theocratic alike -- that rose up against the Shah in 1979, this group of protesters is not monolithic. A protester on the ground in Tehran wrote the following to Nico Pitney at his live update blog at HuffPost after Khamenei's speech:

"...despite the 'leaders' words today I and I'm sure many others will be going out tomorrow... I never took much heed in what he had to say in the past and still don't. there are many in my family who fear for my safety when I go out as I'm only here for 9 more days. My answer for them is that it is my responsibility to march against an unjust regime... hell as a staunch atheist I find myself shouting Allah Akbar in the streets."

The goal of the protesters may be as confusing to themselves as it seems to us. Is Mousavi really at the helm of it all or is he just a symbol? Will the Khatamis and Rafsanjanis, as Reza Aslan implied, continue to support the protesters Saturday onwards in overt defiance of Khamenei? If Mousavi orders a halt to further demonstrations, will they still continue? Is it even about them anymore? An anonymous Iranian photo-journalist on the ground provided perhaps the most telling answer in an interview with blogger and filmmaker Parvez Sharma this morning, when asked if Mousavi was the only hope:

"I don't think he is the only hope and the best option but I do think that's what these people want and need right now. They can't aim for a huge change and [start] marching against the Islamic republic of Iran, but they can get [where they want to be by demanding changes to the existing system of government]. Plus I think right now the issue is more how they've been treated and lied to and... So they want [their rights] back more than anything and in this process Mousavi has suddenly become the face and the leader. They voted for him and now they want their vote to be realized. I also think he is a bit different now, not that his way of thinking or ideas has totally changed [such that he is now a] super open minded person but he has changed, and I strongly believe his wife is the power behind all that.

If she sounds unsure, it's because she probably is. Sharma points out that the interview was conducted just prior to Khamenei's speech.

Those in Iran who don't know yet if this is just about the election or something bigger will probably be struggling for an answer tonight, before Saturday afternoon's scheduled demonstration -- the first after Khamenei's defiant and threatening speech. This will be their real test.

The rest of us will only know where this is going once they do.

Deconstructing the Undecided

Undecided voters move in mysterious ways.

They are not a monolithic group, cannot be placed into a neat, predictable category, and have been key in pushing one or another candidate over the 50% mark in most recent presidential elections.

They can, however, be divided broadly into three groups, which may help us better understand what goes on in their oscillating minds.

Group 1 is made up of the people who are not particularly interested in politics or current events. They're not cable news watchers, newspaper-readers, don't understand much about the intricacies of the economy, and most likely belong to the 70% of Americans who don't have passports. This is the group that most of my friends belong to, who constantly switched the channel to shows like American Idol or Survivor during the primary election season - and considering how disheartening and petty politics can get sometimes, I was often tempted to join them.

However, this year, the election has been more entertaining and substantive than most reality shows.

Think about it: you start off with ten candidates on one side and eight on the other. These include, among others, a black man, a woman, a Latino, a senior citizen who was a former POW, a Mormon, a pro-choice 9/11 Republican mayor, a TV actor, and a pastor. Throw in race, gender, religion, ethnicity, and age, mix it all up, and then bring in the public to vote.

Every few weeks, someone gets voted off, with the factors determining the outcome ranging from lipstick and pigs to a potentially global economic meltdown. It's unpredictable, edgy, 24-7, and even the commercials (read: attack ads) play into the outcome.

However, as we near the season finale, those in Group 1 - who I would guess make up the largest population among the undecided demographic - are finding that the election has moved beyond its undeniable entertainment value and caught up with their personal lives, which are now being pummeled directly by financial losses, increasing mortgages, astronomical gas prices, and potential layoffs. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, having claimed thousands of American lives, while the weapons of mass destruction and Osama bin Laden - the initially touted respective targets of these wars - remain as elusive as ever.

Group 2, on the other hand, comprises the genuine independents. This group is much smaller, and consists of voters who are well-informed and well-read on the issues. They are reasonable, thinking individuals who, like anyone blessed with the faculty of genuinely independent thought, cannot align themselves completely with either party. They may be fiscally conservative and socially liberal at the same time, or vice versa. They are not easily swayed by campaign-constructed talking points or media-sponsored sideshows. They may be looking at third party candidates, or if forced to choose between the two major parties, at who they feel represents the lesser of the two "evils".

Group 3 should really be called the "pseudo-undecided". These are the "non-pro-this-but-definitely-anti-that" voters: they're the ones that will say, for instance, "Yes, I am voting this year, I don't know who I'm voting for, but it's definitely not Obama." Many of them identify themselves as independents in polls and place themselves in the undecided column when they probably shouldn't - they constitute a whole different component of the margin of error.

For all three groups, though, it has now become virtually impossible not to pay attention, because more than ever in recent history, the result of this election will ultimately play a significant role in the livelihood of almost all voters and their families.

Can we predict which way they'll swing?

Well, we'll need to break it down first. Group 3 is not a truly undecided group, so they can be ignored.

However, Groups 1 and 2 share a common denominator:

If things are going badly, they're likely to vote against the status quo.

And if things are going well, they can go either way or not vote at all.

This year, things are clearly not going well, and it's down to the final two contestants. The running mates have been chosen, coloring the mix, with everything from the Tina Fey factor to a probable $700 billion dollar economic bailout playing significant roles.

Watching Obama and McCain go at it for the first time last week, I was surprised when the pundits and political analysts said that there was "nothing new" brought up in the debate. For most of the undecideds who had just tuned into the election - specially those in Group 1 - everything was new.

The political junkie analyst who has been following the campaign for almost two years now may find it hard to believe that there are many recently tuned in voters who have never heard of General Petraeus - but I watched the debate with a few of them, and they are all registered to vote.

It shouldn't have been surprising that Obama gained more ground afterwards. For all of the knowledge and expertise that McCain demonstrated on foreign policy, Obama still managed to sound more confident, more optimistic, and connect better with swing voters by tying everything to the economy - from how the $10 billion a month spent in Iraq could be spent on health care, education, and infrastructure at home, to how the $700 billion a year spent on foreign oil could be invested in clean and renewable energy resource development, creating more jobs and providing wallet relief for drivers right here in the United States.

This election has now become personal enough and serious enough to transcend race, gender, age, lipstick on pigs, and the Couric-Palin sideshow. Judging from the significant leads that Obama has picked up in key swing state polls this week, it's more than safe to say that the undecideds are now tuned in - and listening.

It's A Girl! And That's Pretty Much It!

There has to be an upside to this. Let me think.

Okay, by picking 44 year old, two-year Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, John McCain now has all three electoral votes in Alaska squarely in his column...

Oh wait, they already were in his column. Never mind.

Okay, Idaho, then. Palin's home state: four electoral votes, now with McCain!

But wait, he already had them too. So no battleground state advantage here.

Maybe it's the 3 am phone call? When the phone at the White House rings at 3 am, we would want, um, Sarah Palin to answer the phone?

Okay, so it's clearly not that. Despite how McCain's been saying Obama's not capable of receiving that phone call, slamming him for being too young and inexperienced, Obama, 46, still has at least two years in age and eight years in government experience over Palin.

Because of his "lack of experience," Obama was not fit to be Commander-in-Chief, the Republicans said.

Well, Sarah Palin has been governor of Alaska for one year and nine months. Since December 2006.

But Palin's only going to be the vice presidential candidate, right? It's not like she's running for the Commander-in-Chief post! The only way that could conceivably happen is if something happens to McCain while he's president. Fat chance of that. At age 72 with multiple recurrences of melanoma?

Look, I don't want McCain to die, and I don't want myself to die either. But I am aware of that possibility, which is why I have life insurance. John McCain's insurance payout for the United States in case something happens to him now comes in the form of Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.

She's conservative. She's pro-life, she likes hunting and fishing, she supports offshore drilling, and she's a fiscal conservative. No significant difference there from Pawlenty, Crist, or even Romney, who did flip-flop on abortion, but as the former governor of a significant state, an economy expert, and the son of a very popular former Michigan governor, would have put that state into play and filled two very significant vacuums.

So why did he pick her? Family values? No. She can't beat Biden's story there.

Evangelical/Christian right appeal? Huckabee or Pawlenty would've brought that and much more.

Why? It's not the electoral votes she's bringing, it's not her experience, she doesn't trump anyone else significantly in the conservatism, values, or faith realm, and she's not putting any battleground or other states in play. So what is it?

Could it be just because she's a woman? Could this be reverse sexism?

Does McCain seriously think that all of those disgruntled Hillary voters will now flock to him for choosing a woman just because she's a woman?

What does that say about John McCain's judgment that when he does decide to choose a female candidate, it's not someone with an established record like Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, but a former Miss Alaska pageant winner who, even though she has an admirable resume, is clearly not as qualified to be vice president as many of the more experienced women in the Republican party who really have something solid to offer?

Even Cindy McCain is more qualified to be vice president than Sarah Palin. John McCain's pick makes both George H. W. Bush's Dan Quayle pick and George W. Bush's Harriet Miers pick (for the Supreme Court) look good.

Okay, look, I'm only shaken here because I lost a few bets on this one. And I'm not going to bet on this (because John McCain has clearly lost his mind), but here's a prediction: like Harriet Miers, we may see Palin reject the nomination at some point, citing a noble reason like needing to spend time with her children or Alaska needing her, while McCain regretfully "accepts" her resignation and taps someone more reasonable like Mr. Romney, Mr. Pawlenty, or Ms. Hutchison for the vacant post.

Let's hope that happens before Sarah Palin - otherwise a very impressive, successful, and attractive person - has to go up against Joe Biden in October's VP debate in St. Louis. I have a feeling that may not go well for her.

And if I'm wrong about my prediction, everyone who was sold on Obama's speech last night can take heart in the fact that he will now almost certainly be the next President of the United States.

How Joe Biden's Pros - and Cons - Help Obama

Where Does McCain Go From Here?

They'll soon be calling it the O-Biden or the Joe-Bama ticket. Either way, Barack Obama has decided to live on the edge a little, and nab Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate.

The pros are obvious and widely known - Biden complements Obama and fills in his perceived gaps as a presidential candidate:

Foreign policy. As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Biden made a trip to Georgia at the request of the country's president last week, and also traveled to Pakistan in February this year to oversee its landmark elections - both regions are fragile at the moment and sure to be prominent foci in the foreign policy debate from here through November. This makes Biden a legitimate, credible challenge to the people in the McCain campaign, who often pound on Obama for his lack of foreign policy experience. To top it off, Biden's son Beau, currently Delaware's Attorney General, will be stationed in Iraq in October - another factor that can put him on equal footing with McCain, whose son Jimmy has also been serving there.

Working class/blue collar white Americans. A persistent challenge for Barack Obama, who despite his modest middle-class background, can't seem to lure this demographic into his column the way Hillary Clinton did in the primaries. Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Clinton's grandparents were from, and Pennsylvania is a key battleground state that Obama lost to Clinton earlier in the year. Biden is renowned there and across the country as the regular guy - a lunch-bucket, working class Democrat.

Women. Something very significant that I haven't yet heard much about today - Biden has been instrumental in the fight against domestic violence, a leading issue for women. In 1994, along with what has become known as the Biden Crime Law, Joe Biden also authored the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), with avid support from the National Organization for Women (NOW), who heralded it as the "greatest breakthrough in civil rights for women in nearly two decades." The VAWA led to billions of dollars in funding for measures to combat gender-based crime, which dropped significantly since its passing and continue to do so. Biden's record here is important because it can potentially bring a large number of disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters who are now looking at voting for McCain (or not voting at all) back into the fold. As recently as today, NOW has praised Obama's pick, and even Geraldine Ferraro, a close friend of Clinton who was visibly and vocally disillusioned by Obama's winning the Democratic nomination, said today that his selection demonstrated his ability to exercise "good judgment".

Character and Faith. In recent years, this factor has become almost central to American voters, evidenced by the massive coverage given to televangelist Rick Warren's interviews with the two candidates at the Saddleback Church "Faith Forum" last week. Not only is Biden a Catholic (a key swing voter group that has so far been leaning heavily towards McCain), but he has a remarkable history of working through the tragedy of losing his wife and baby daughter in a car accident shortly after his election to the Senate at age twenty nine. Taking his inaugural oath at the hospital, Biden raised his sons - both of whom were critically injured in the accident but eventually made complete recoveries - as a single dad until he remarried five years later. To this day, as he did then, he commutes an hour and a half to Washington daily from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. This doesn't say patriotism as directly as McCain's POW experience in Vietnam, but does demonstrate the same strength of character and perseverance that will appeal to "values" voters.

Tongue. Biden may be better at "straight talk" than McCain himself. Politically, he has shown an affinity for going on the attack, and can competently shoot back the kind of one-liner soundbites that the Republican attack machine is so good at (and Democrats aren't). Obama has visibly shown a weakness and discomfort with this aspect of politics, and with Biden at his side, he is free to stay on the high road and leave the sparring to Biden.

What's interesting about this pick is that even Biden's weaknesses can work in Obama's favor.

As politically incorrect as they may seem, Biden's most famous gaffes - including the one about Obama being the first "mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean...", or the one seemingly acknowledging the stereotype of East Indians working at 7-11s and Dunkin Donuts - are, unfortunately, something that a lot of Americans relate to, specifically in the so-called "working class" demographic that Barack Obama has had so much trouble with. (I know I'm going to get blasted for saying that, but it's true.) The fact that Biden even walks into a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts from time to time paints a striking contrast between him and the arugula-eating Obama or the seven-mansion-owning, married-into-a-$100-million-beer-fortune McCain.

Biden's second potential weakness is his support for the resolution to go to war with Iraq, Obama's opposition to which may arguably be the single most important reason he's the Democratic nominee today.

In response to the McCain campaign's allegations against Obama, accusing him of being an arrogant egotistical messiah, complete with television ads sarcastically referring to him as "The One", the Obama campaign seems ready to spin the selection of Joe Biden as proof that Obama is not only aware of his weaknesses, but also willing and able to surround himself with people who complement those weaknesses instead of with sycophantic yes-men, the kind George W. Bush is widely thought to have a fondness for. This may help resolve the discrepancy in Obama's and Biden's Iraq war votes. The fact that Biden suggested sending more troops to Iraq well before McCain began actively promoting the Surge - his core claim to fame - may give him further street cred.

As a longtime friend of Joe Biden (who possesses many of the qualities that he has criticized Obama for being deficient in), John McCain will find it difficult to criticize him. Where does he go from here?

Well, a lot of his chances at winning the presidency may now depend on his own vice presidential pick.

Among the three candidates on both tickets so far, the foreign policy aspect, the patriotism factor, and the decades-of-experience factor are all now relatively balanced. So is the need to appeal to the working class/blue-collar voters who want a candidate that shares their values. With Biden's admirable record on women's issues, the Obama-Biden ticket also has many of those disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters thinking about coming back. So now, the McCain camp's idea of selecting a woman as his running mate has also been bumped down the priority list.

There are two areas that still need to be addressed:

1. A lack of executive experience: McCain, Obama, and Biden are all senators and have never actually governed. The last sitting senator to be elected president was John F. Kennedy. Both Bushes, Bill Clinton, Reagan, Carter, and Ford were governors.

2. The economy: This is the main concern for most Americans this year. There is no candidate on either ticket so far that has any sort of commanding expertise on the issue of the economy.

For John McCain, the only candidate that can potentially fill both of these holes is Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts and a famously successful businessman whose credentials in both of these areas helped propel him to the runner-up position in the Republican primaries.

There are already signs that Romney is in serious consideration as the Republicans' VP pick. This includes the very public touting by the McCain campaign of Tom Ridge (governor, Pennsylvania) and Joe Lieberman (ex-Democrat and current independent Senator, Connecticut) as potential VP candidates - both of whom are pro-choice - met by the anger of many Republican base voters who already look at John McCain as a closeted liberal.

Romney, on the other hand, was initially pro-choice, and later switched to a pro-life position. If presented as a candidate de novo, this prominent flip-flop may have angered the Republican base just as much. But coming after the Ridge/Lieberman scare, Romney's selection may be seen as a welcome relief, thanks to relativity. (Well, a psycho-social extrapolation of it, anyhow.)

As for how to attack the Obama-Biden ticket, I wish I had some suggestions. But, if we're in the "His middle name is Hussein! Oh no!" vein, the insertion of the acronym for the National Liberal Alliance (NLA) right in the middle of Joe Biden's last name would cause the ticket to read:

"Obama-BiNLAden '08".

I can like, totally feel Karl Rove's eyes lighting up right now. Unfortunately, Karl, there's no such thing as the National Liberal Alliance. Yet.

Gotcha, bitch.

The Politicization of Feminism: Why Geraldine Ferraro is Not Good for Women

A few weeks ago, when asked by Detroit reporter Peggy Agar how he plans to help American autoworkers, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama replied, "Hold on one second, sweetie, we'll do a press avail, thanks."

This has now been immortalized as the "Sweetie-gate" scandal, and admittedly, it was disturbing. I couldn't understand how Barack Obama, a man with a remarkably accomplished mother (whom Hawaii Democratic Congressman Neil Abercrombie once called "the original feminist"), a strong independent grandmother, an equally accomplished and successful wife, and two young daughters, turned out to be such a closeted sexist.

My concerns cleared a little when I went down to the cafeteria at my hospital where I have lunch every day and know pretty much all of the cashiers. As she does every day, the friendliest one (who I always try to go to) said, "Thanks, honey!" as she handed me my change. I realized that in the four years that I've worked there, I have also been called "sugar", "darlin'", "sweetheart", "love" - and one of our secretaries even calls me "babe" fairly often.

They are all women. And I am a man (pending just one more karyotype test - pray for me). I don't particularly think of myself as sexually attractive. To be honest, I have several unappetizing stretch marks on my ass. But I've gotten every term of endearment there is. Specially when I've traveled in the South.

So I had lunch, quietly wondering if I should be offended. I thought of the details, the minutia: this was about a man saying it to a woman in a professional environment; women say it to other women too, not only to men; but men don't call other men sweetie! Then the counter-arguments: men do call each other bro, pal, man, amigo, and dude in the same spirit - the difference in semantics isn't necessarily a difference in intent based on the receptive gender, is it? And how do you define "professional" anyway? Does cafeteria interaction between cashier and other employees qualify?

Shortly after this story broke, I realized I wasn't the only one poring over this incredible outing of a major presidential candidate's overt misogyny and disrespect of women, which he had managed to hide so well over the years.

There was also Geraldine Ferraro, the first female vice presidential candidate in American history, addressing the Sweetie-gate scandal on Fox News (watch 3 minutes and 20 seconds in), and talking to Meredith Viera on NBC's Today Show about how sexist Barack Obama's campaign has been (see clip below).

She mentioned "several" campaign incidents, notably when during a stump speech, Obama, in a gesture demonstrating how he deals with "dirty" Washington politics, brushed imaginary dirt off his shoulders, in this clip.

Ferraro interpreted this as "diminishing" Clinton, alleging that it was sexist and offensive.

Okay.

Sitting by her was NBC and Air America's brilliant Rachel Maddow, a feminist in her own right, visibly stunned. She civilly attempted to counter Ferraro when she accused all of the candidates in the December 2007 Democratic primary debate of "ganging up" on Hillary Clinton. (Note: Yes, Clinton was running against seven men who she was beating handily in the polls; as any male or female frontrunner would be, she was attacked by her trailing competitors.)

Watch Maddow's response to Ferraro's examples 4 minutes and 50 seconds into the video:



At one point in this clip, Ferraro even refers to Obama as a "typical man" (2 minutes and 20 seconds in).

Ferraro, one of Hillary Clinton's most respected campaign advisors, was dropped from the campaign in March 2008 for the controversy she caused by alleging that Barack Obama has the stature he has in the country because he's black. She further defended her comments afterwards, alleging discrimination against her because she's white.

Okay.

First, I think Geraldine Ferraro deserves an enormous amount of respect not only for being the first female vice presidential candidate in US history, but for her record as a civil rights activist and her work as ambassador for the UN Commission on Human Rights during Bill Clinton's presidency.

Second, I agree that there has been an extraordinary amount of sexism in this campaign. I do think that a lot of the opposition to Hillary Clinton is because she is Hillary Clinton. But I do think, unfortunately, that a significant proportion of that opposition has been because she is a woman.

As I referenced in a previous post, this Rebecca Traister Salon piece is an excellent analysis of this pretty disturbing aspect of the primary race. I also think Geraldine Ferraro makes an excellent point in the Today Show interview (clip above) when she talks about the disgusting "Iron My Shirt" incident (click here to watch) that Clinton was subjected to during one of her speeches earlier this year. She is right - the incident would have garnered significantly more media attention and sympathy if it was racist in nature. I agree with her that sexism is somehow more easily accepted in society than racism.

But the reason people will pay less attention to Geraldine Ferraro's valid points is because she peppers them amid so many unrelatable, invalid ones. The "Iron My Shirt" incident is an example of the very serious, horrific kind of misogyny that can form a basis for discussion and education - it would be hard to imagine any reasonable woman or man not being able to feel the blatant offense in it.

But lumping it in during the same seven minute stretch with the shoulder-brushing incident and Sweetie-gate trivializes it. It turns people's minds off from the big picture by virtually invalidating it.

Unfortunately, "feminist" has become a bad word over the last two decades, just as (for the sake of analogy) "Muslim" has become a bad word in around the same time. In the same way that the word "Muslim" is now associated with the image of bearded, turbaned, uneducated terrorists, the word "feminist" has come to be associated with angry, man-hating, bra-burning, extremist women. This is simply because both of these movements have been politicized to ridiculous, unchecked levels by the infiltration and subsequent rise of radical, agenda-driven loudmouths who have hijacked them.

And Geraldine Ferraro is not doing a whole lot to help that. Sadly, she is perpetuating it. By focusing on 'Gotcha!' type pseudo-sexism, she is not only alienating men who, like Barack Obama, are very obviously not sexist yet are being accused of it; she is also alienating girls, boys, men, and women around the world who can't relate to her views. She is distancing women like Rachel Maddow, who emphatically expressed her disagreement with Ferraro in the Viera interview, and is probably, in almost all aspects, the perfect example of what the modern woman (or man, for that matter) today should be like. The only legitimate issue mentioned in that interview - the "Iron My Shirt" incident - was virtually overlooked and buried under the pseudo-gotcha stuff.

The feminist movement has to be taken back from those using it for political motive. The very word "feminist" needs to go back to its association with women like Abigail Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Mead, the pre-2008 Hillary Clinton, and more recently, Rebecca Walker and Maddow herself.

Finally, saying as Ferraro did that she may not vote for Obama "if" Clinton doesn't get the nomination means that she - still an influence and role model for so many women that believe in and live her values - is willing to lead her supporters to elect John McCain, directly, or indirectly by not voting.

She would prefer to withdraw her support from a candidate that has grown up among strong, independent, educated, accomplished women, who supports and understands their issues - and instead opt for a party that is anti-women's reproductive rights, anti-family friendly policies (like modifying the Family and Medical Leave Act, for instance), is associated with countless extremist sexist religious "leaders", and prefers tax cuts for CEOs to those for single mothers.

Okay.

I guess she does have a point. McCain has never simulated brushing anything (anyone?) off his shoulders - and who can imagine a conservative calling a woman sweetie? Right?

Click here to see where else people are politicizing the feminist cause!

Don't Fall for the New Sideshow

Today, Hillary Clinton referred to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy during the Democratic campaign in June 1968 while speaking about her reasons for staying in the race, according to this report from the Associated Press. The video:



Later, she offered a botched apology, seemingly more to the Kennedys than anyone else:



There's a choice here for Obama supporters to make something more of this than it is - a mistake - as unfortunate as the statement and apology are. It's very unlikely that Clinton is hanging on to the hopes of Obama being assassinated. She was probably talking about things in a timeline context. Also, it's not a good idea to further cleave the party this late in the campaign, as if enough damage hasn't been done already. David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, played it like this:



Probably the best strategy. Remember how Michelle Obama's comment, "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country..." was made into such a big campaign issue, when it was just a case of misspeaking. The less brouhaha there is over this new issue, the better.

Besides, Clinton's not in very good shape as it is. Attacking her when she's down may cost Obama a significant chunk of Clinton-supporting Democrats.

Though there is one constituency that Obama clearly has over her:

All Democrats - Including Obama Supporters - Need Hillary Clinton to Stay in the Race

On Thursday, May 15, the newly formed WomenCount PAC took out a full page ad in USA Today in response to NARAL Pro Choice's endorsement of Barack Obama, titled Not So Fast... Hillary's Voice is OUR Voice, and She's Speaking for All of Us, some of which is excerpted below:

"We are the women of this nation. We are rich and poor, young and old, married with kids, married without kids, single moms, gay, straight, and widowed. We are every color. We are of every religion. We are from all political parties...

...As Senator Clinton campaigns, she speaks with our voice. She carries our hopes, dreams and aspirations with her and transforms them into policies that can make our nation great again...

...Women risked all they held dear to make this country great. They put their lives on the line in all our quests for justice – from Abigail Adams to Sojourner Truth to Susan B. Anthony to Eleanor Roosevelt to Fannie Lou Hamer to Barbara Jordan to Dolores Huerta to Hillary herself...

...We want Hillary to stay in this race until every vote is cast, every vote is counted, and we are convinced our voices are heard."

The primary election process between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has been tense, divisive, and fiercely contested - and there is almost unanimous agreement now that Obama will be the Democratic nominee. Still, approximately 50% of Clinton supporters have declared that they will either vote for John McCain or not vote at all if she is not the nominee. Meanwhile, supporters of Obama, who has virtually won, continue to bash Hillary Clinton and retain their animosity towards her.

When faced with Clinton supporters - most of whom are women - who swear they will not vote for Obama in the fall, it's easy to wonder how someone who supported Clinton based on her anti-war, pro-universal health care stance, and her positions on the economy and foreign policy would now switch their support not to Obama, whose positions are virtually identical, but to McCain - who stands diametrically opposed to them.

Isn't this election about the issues?

Well, yes. But it's clear that it's about much more than that.

This election has been not just about policy, issues, and values - but about how far America has come as a nation in its two hundred-plus years. Many of the women represented in the WomenCount PAC ad - and their ancestors - have a deep emotional and historical investment in Hillary Clinton's candidacy that runs, legitimately or not, much deeper than this year's issues; just as blacks, with a centuries-old history of struggle and oppression, have a a similar investment in Obama's.

Here's another line from the ad: "We cannot stand by as a cacophony of voices demand that she step aside to smooth the road for another."

Democratic National Committee officials feared a massive backlash from American blacks at one point if Obama's pledged delegate-based nomination was overturned by superdelegates for a host of reasons - the popular vote, reversing the rules on Michigan and Florida, and so on. So the similar deep disappointment and hurt that Clinton supporters will feel at her loss - when she had come so close - shouldn't be surprising to Obama supporters.

It should be understandable, and relatable.

Now that Obama is all but the confirmed Democratic nominee, his supporters not only need to reach out to Clinton supporters, but also to begin - themselves - to look at Clinton's positives. And she does have them. The 70% of Obama supporters who said they'd vote for Clinton if Obama lost the nomination understand that. The other 30% need to understand that too if they want Obama to win in November.

Hillary Clinton staying in the race until the last vote is cast - as stated in the ad - is important for her supporters. She shouldn't appear to be "pushed" out of the race. At the end of the primaries, when the winner of the nomination is apparent to everyone, her choosing to withdraw of her own volition will let her supporters down easier, and make their transition to supporting Obama smoother. They will feel like they saw the race to its end; that there was closure.

Although Clinton's candidacy wasn't derailed entirely by sexism, it has had an undeniable presence throughout its course - just as racism has in Obama's candidacy, and ageism will likely have in McCain's. Rebecca Traister covered this really well in this Salon piece. Proper closure to the race will also help alleviate - at least partially - the concerns many Clinton supporters have had related to much of the sexist comments and remarks that have been directed against her.

To defeat John McCain in the fall, Barack Obama needs all of the Democratic party - including Hillary Clinton supporters - to stand behind him. It's up to the Obama supporters to welcome them back in - and that is not going to happen unless the Clinton-bashing lets up.

Bush Pulls a Jeremiah - and Unites the Democrats

It's pretty obvious that Karl Rove has left the White House.

John McCain's association with George W. Bush is more of a concern to voters than Barack Obama's association with Jeremiah Wright: A Gallup poll conducted on May 1-3, 2008 shows that 33% of voters are less likely to vote for Obama because of the Wright association; however, more - 38% - are less likely to vote for McCain because of his Bush association. On top of that, 64% say that the Obama-Wright association won't affect their vote at all - significantly more than the 54% who say that the McCain-Bush association will not affect their vote.

Today, the reason for those dynamics is a little clearer.

Speaking to the Knesset (the legislature of Israel) in Jerusalem the morning after Israel's 60th anniversary of independence, Bush casually compared the intentions of Democrats, particularly Barack Obama - who support exercising diplomacy with the governments of countries like Iran and Venezuela - to those who wanted to "appease" the Nazis over sixty years ago.

The extremism of this allegation and its evident hypocrisy is reminiscent of the extremism and hypocrisy of Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright: Bush implied that Democrats will somehow be complicit in the imminent destruction of the United States or Israel because of their foreign policy strategy, just as Wright implied that America was complicit in the 9/11 attacks on its soil because of its foreign policy strategy.

The difference is, Bush said these words himself, in a foreign country, as the President of the United States, not the pastor of some church in Chicago. He has virtually handed the Democrats a loaded gun, with enough ammunition to last well into November.

Bush's comments have reportedly sent a wave of excitement through the Democratic party, particularly within the Obama campaign. He has not only managed to unite Democrats (many of whom didn't even agree with Obama's proposal to talk to Iran in the first place) and given them a platform to justifiably voice their outrage - including Joseph Biden calling the remarks "bullshit" - but also handed the Democrats an advantage in a debate in which most analysts felt they, especially Obama, were disadvantaged: foreign policy.

Here are the problems with what Bush said:

1. George W. Bush himself has not only held talks with, but openly negotiated with Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who is alleged to have sponsored the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in 1988. This diplomacy led to the successful end of hostilities between the two countries over Libya's nuclear program, which Gaddafi agreed to discontinue.

Also, among the three "Axis of Evil" countries Bush named in his State of the Union speech in 2002, North Korea is the only one that has openly conducted nuclear tests and possesses confirmed nuclear weapons. Again, the Bush administration has not only held talks with, but openly negotiated with Kim Jong Il, attaining reasonable success in the partial curtailment of the country's weapons proliferation program.

2. Speaking of the Axis of Evil, Iran is stronger now than it was before the Iraq war.

To go into Iraq - the only Axis of Evil member that actually did not have a declared nuclear program, not to mention a single nuclear weapon - all it took was a little unsubstantiated suspicion and a few convenience-based, selective intelligence reports. But despite several years of Iran's Ahmedinejad shooting off at the mouth about wiping Israel off the map, holding Holocaust denial conferences, directly threatening America, speaking at both the United Nations and Columbia University in New York, and most notably, adamantly continuing to pursue his country's nuclear program, America has barely taken any action.

Why?

Because the Bush administration has stretched the country's economic and military sources too thinly across the world, funding (on borrowed money, the majority from China) and fighting two wars, at least one of which can arguably be called a quagmire.

Ahmedinejad knows that no matter what he says or does, the United States is not in a position to do much more than slap sanctions on him, even that with restrictions, considering Iran's a pretty big oil producer. (By the way, China and Iran are strong allies - funding an intervention here won't exactly be a breeze.) So Ahmedinejad, Jong Il, and Hugo Chavez - also the head of a prominent oil-producing country just miles from the U.S. - can say all they want, as loudly as they want, and do all they want, because they know America can't come and get 'em. This has strengthened countries like Iran - and weakened the United States - probably indicating the need for a significant policy change.

3. Ronald Reagan, the darling of all of the Republican candidates this campaign season, helped bring the Cold War to an end through intelligent, tough diplomacy, not a stubborn refusal to speak to the USSR government.

4. Bringing up the Nazis wasn't a good idea on the part of Bush. Here's why:

The business dealings of Prescott Bush, W.'s grandfather, and father of George H. W. Bush, were the subject of a lawsuit brought forth against the Bush family a few years ago by two former Auschwitz slave laborers, alleging that Grandpa Prescott Bush, former Connecticut Senator and director of the Union Banking Corporation - whose assets were seized by the U.S. government during World War II - helped finance Adolf Hitler himself, aiding his rise to power.

This lawsuit from these two Holocaust survivors led to the unveiling of previously secret documents that shed light on the issue a short while before W. was up for re-election. Fortunately for W., the Dems didn't find it within themselves to Swift-Boat him at the time.

By the way - for those who are suspicious of this being left-wing propaganda, the network that was instrumental in digging out these documents, as evidenced on their own website, was Fox News: Click here.

Apparently, Senator Prescott Bush, founding officer, vice president, and director of the United Banking Corporation (UBC), was also managing partner for Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), a firm led by E. Roland Harriman - heavily invested in UBC, owning the majority of its shares - and his brother Averell, a former New York Governor.

BBH dealt closely with Fritz Thyssen, a German industrialist who significantly helped to finance Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, though he severed his relationship with him in the later part of the decade. The UBC was the primary hub for the US-based part of Thyssen's business, which is what led to the government's seizure of its assets during the war. Prescott Bush continued to work for the bank for long after America entered the war.

There is no more evidence that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazis than there is evidence that Barack Obama is sympathetic to Ahmedinejad or Hamas. But the Bush family's association - by money and just one degree of separation, to Adolf Hitler, with an ensuing multibillion dollar lawsuit from two Holocaust survivors - probably appears significantly stronger than some Hamas leader saying Obama would be a good leader for America.

The Democrats couldn't have dug a deeper hole for John McCain than George W. Bush has.

5. Finally, William E. Borah, the Idaho senator that Bush quoted in his speech as saying, "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided..." and credited with harboring a "foolish delusion" - was known to be a progressive politician; a maverick so known for his independent thinking that President Calvin Coolidge once remarked about his horseback riding, "It's hard to imagine Senator Borah going in the same direction as the horse."

Borah was renowned and often fiercely criticized for occasionally deviating from the party that he belonged to: The Republican Party. Good luck, John McCain.

George W. Bush has singlehandedly thrust himself ass-first into the 2008 campaign season and, in collaboration with some very amateur speechwriter(s), done the Democrats a huge favor.

It's pretty obvious that Karl Rove has left the White House.

Why Can't Hillary Clinton Close the Deal?

Watching the post-Pennsylvania primary coverage, you’d think Hillary Clinton has pulled an unprecedented upset by beating out Barack Obama with a “decisive” 10-point margin.

There are two components to the spin.

First, why wasn’t Senator Obama able to close the deal in Pennsylvania, despite outspending Clinton 3 to 1 with record amounts of money in the state? And second, why can’t Senator Obama win big states that Democrats need in the general election?

Obama wasn’t able to completely close the 20 point gap in this one state – Pennsylvania – despite the millions he spent, and according to Clinton, that makes him unelectable.

Does that mean the superdelegates should now gravitate towards Clinton, who (i) cannot close the much wider, nationwide 130+ delegate gap even if she gets up to 70% of the remaining delegates in the primary season; and (ii) has run out of money at least twice in the last two months, even having to loan her campaign $5 million at one point?

So the first question probably brings up even more questions.

How was Obama even able to raise the money to outspend Clinton 3 to 1?

Why wasn’t Clinton able to raise as much money – if not more money – than Obama, having been a multi-term New York senator, not to mention First Lady for eight years with a wildly popular Democratic president?

Why did she have to loan her campaign millions of dollars earlier in the primary season?

How is it that Barack Obama, after outspending Clinton 3 to 1 in the state, still has over $41 million in the bank while her campaign was in debt when the polls closed in Pennsylvania? Is he more advantaged than the 100-million-dollar Clintons?

Let’s step outside of Pennsylvania and ask the bigger question.

How is it that a black man – whose first name rhymes with Iraq, last name with Osama, and middle name literally IS Hussein – has come out of nowhere, de novo, with no prior political connections and just over one Senate term, singlehandedly dethroning the Clintons, who are virtually royalty in the Democratic Party establishment, if not in the entire country?

With the immense stature and recognition that Hillary Clinton has had nationwide over almost twenty years, how is it that has she not been able to defeat the unknown-till-very-recently Obama by more than just 10 points in Pennsylvania after six weeks of Jeremiah Wright, Bittergate, Bill Ayers, his weakest performance ever in a debate that was watched by over ten million people, and an initial lead of more than 20 points?

Moving on, the answer to the second question is shorter. Winning large states in a primary has very little to do with winning them in a general election. The Democrats in these states voted for either Clinton or Obama during the primaries because they had a choice among multiple Democratic candidates. In the general election, they won’t have that choice, and will most likely vote for whichever Democrat is going against John McCain, whether it's Obama or Clinton.

Every primary election season has those that swear they will vote for the other party if their favored candidate isn’t made their party’s nominee - don’t forget the hordes of Republicans who loudly and publicly vowed to vote for Hillary Clinton if the not-too-conservative John McCain ended up as their nominee. Now that the fight has died down and the GOP has almost uniformly coalesced around McCain, does anybody seriously believe that these Republicans – such as Ann Coulter or Bill Cunningham – will still vote Democratic in November? Come on.

Either Democratic candidate will be able to carry the states that Clinton has said only she can carry in a general election.

When (yes, "when", not "if") Obama is the nominee, Massachusetts will not suddenly go the way of McCain because Clinton won it in the primary. In the same way, whichever Democrat won Texas (Clinton by popular vote, Obama by delegates) is very unlikely to carry it in the general election.

That brings us back to the media coverage. Despite popular opinion, the media has helped Clinton all along, by treating this as a “close”, “neck-in-neck”, “tight” race, even though it was effectively over more than six weeks ago.

So don't fall for the electability argument. Clinton cannot take McCain down for one simple reason: she could not – and cannot – take down Obama.

Clinton Did Obama a Favor in Wednesday Night's Debate

The Clinton-Obama ABC debate on Wednesday was almost universally slammed for being off-message, with almost an hour consisting of "Gotcha!" type questions irrelevant to voters. There is also consensus on Barack Obama's performance being his weakest in the now twenty one debates that have taken place during the Democratic primary season.

It is true that Wednesday night didn't exactly do wonders for him. However, it didn't derail his almost inevitable path to the nomination either.

What it did do is give him an excellent practice drill for what he'll be dealing with in the general election, when the Republicans come at him with full force.

This couldn't have happened at a better time. This was the perfect time to have this practice round for four important reasons:

1. Even if Clinton beats Obama by a 20-point margin in Pennsylvania and beats him by 10 points in each state that's left, she's unlikely to overcome his lead in pledged delegates or the popular vote - EVEN IF Michigan and Florida are counted as they are. That's without Obama's name on the Michigan ballot. Try it yourself: http://www.slate.com/id/2185278/. So he's got this locked up. Only a really big scandal - much bigger than Jeremiah Wright (which Obama survived), Bittergate, or Bill Ayers - could possibly convince the superdelegates to overrule his lead. Basically, if Obama had to falter in a debate, it's better he did it now than earlier, before he had a solid delegate lead; or later, when the Republicans will be lunging at him with all of their ammunition.

2. Obama has a lot of money - several times more than Clinton. His campaign raised over 30 million dollars in February - and over 50 million in March, at least 20 million more than Clinton. Most people agree that the primary reason he has managed to close the gap in Pennsylvania is that he has outspent Clinton three to one. His momentum after a better-than-expected Super Tuesday performance and during the string of 12 primary/caucus wins in a row in February allowed him to raise record-breaking amounts of cash. If any of the controversies that have plagued him in the last six weeks - coupled with a sub-par debate performance - had come up back then, he may not have raised this kind of money, and may have had reason to worry. However, this week alone, he will again have spent over 3 million dollars on television ads in Pennsylvania, which cannot be matched by Clinton.

3. The "Gotcha!" issues WILL come up in the general election. He will likely be swift-boated, 527ed, and attacked relentlessly by the Republicans. Hillary Clinton and moderators George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson did him a FAVOR by allowing him to "practice" dodging and dealing with these attacks at a time when, if he screws up a bit, it takes very little away from his almost inevitable pledged delegate and popular vote lead. Again, it's better that this happened now: any earlier, and it would've affected his chances of winning the states that he did. Any later - meaning after he becomes the nominee - and his first "practice round" would have been against the Republicans in the actual general election, obviously a big risk.

4. Many Democratic leaders, including undecided superdelegates (including one of Hillary's campaign advisors, in a gaffe) have said that there'll be a nominee by June. If they're serious about that, and there is indeed a nominee in June, it can only be Obama, for both mathematical and political reasons. If Clinton is the nominee, it'll have to be under extenuating circumstances, where the superdelegates overrule the pledged delegate lead somehow by coming out in droves to vote for her, and that is not likely to happen by June. The only way her chances become a little better is if the fight goes to the convention. This is why Clinton is going negative and attacking so much. Her only road to the nomination is to prove him unelectable to the superdelegates. There is no other way for her to make it.

Now, to win, Clinton needs to get the superdelegates on her side.

To get the superdelegates on her side, she has to prove Obama unelectable in the general election against McCain.

To prove him unelectable to the superdelegates, she has to attack him, and stress his negatives as strongly and as often as possible.

Because both of them hold virtually identical positions on issues and policy, the nature of these attacks has to be based on character deficiencies and compromised credibility.

The attacks damage him not only among Democrats and Republicans, but among independents, who John McCain attracts as well. This is the swing voter group that the Democrats need this time in November to nab the presidency.

Here's the question: how long will the superdelegates allow Clinton to skewer Obama incessantly as she's doing - when he's almost certainly the Democratic nominee? Are they willing to risk damaging Obama and blowing yet another opportunity to take the country back - for Clinton - who has a less than 5% (being generous) chance of scoring the nomination?

Democratic National Committee leader Howard Dean, who has intelligently picked up on this (as I'm sure many other uncommitted superdelegates have, or will very soon), has said that he wants "a decision now": http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/.

This realization is unavoidable for Democrats. Obama will be the nominee. The debate was great for him - it allowed him to see what he's in for, with the help of Clinton and the moderators. He didn't exactly hit it out of the park, but he managed to hold his own. Now, he has plenty of time to consult with his advisors to generate counter-strategies.

Despite what Hillary Clinton says, the media has actually helped her by treating this is as a "neck-in-neck" or a "tight" race, when it has been practically over for weeks. Democrats - including Barack Obama - should now thank Hillary Clinton and the ABC moderators for doing their nominee and their party a favor for once, by readying him for the general election.

Clinton will probably win Pennsylvania. Obama will win North Carolina - which should seal the deal for most remaining undecided superdelegates - that's my guess at where the race ends, if it hasn't already. It's probably time to forget about Obama versus Clinton and start focusing on Obama versus McCain in the general election.