#Jodi Kantor Book Dust-up Misses Point re #Michelle Obama

Dear Readers:

I couldn't resist weighing-in on the "angry black woman" controversy and some of the juicier details and tantalizing ideas in Jodi Kantor's new book, The Obama's.

So, here's my piece for Huffington Post Politics on this topic, published and featured yesterday: Kantor Book Dust-up Misses the Point: #Michelle Obama Could Be This Generation's #Eleanor Roosevelt.

The piece was also published here.

It's going to be a long year, and there will be lots of fuel for the fire! Am I loving that idea or not? I'm still trying to decide.

Best wishes.

Rebecca

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Huey Long Advises OWS: Need an Agenda? You Can Have Mine

Huey Long Advises Occupy Wall Street: Need an Agenda? You Can Have Mine

Rebecca Sive

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Jewish women are the answer to President Obama's Jewish problem

Not only is all politics local, all politics is personal.

And no issue, with the possible exception of preservation of the State of Israel as a Jewish state, is more personal to most American Jewish women voters than reproductive rights, including access to legal abortion.

So much so that 30 years ago a group of Chicago Jewish women founded JACPAC, now a leading political action committee, whose primary criteria for candidate support are that the candidate be pro-choice, as well pro-Israel. Thirty years out, JACPAC is still going strong.

And so much so that the National Council of Jewish Women earlier this year launched a special project, Voices for Reproductive Choices, "...an emergency action campaign designed to help powerful NCJW advocates speak out against current attacks to women's reproductive health and rights." No pussy-footing at NCJW either.

Yet, CNN recently posed the question: "Has Obama lost the Jewish vote," suggesting that Jews, who have historically been mostly Democratic and pro-choice (see below), might vote for President Obama's (likely anti-choice) Republican opponent because of their distaste for the President's position on Palestinian statehood.

As I mulled this horrifying prospect over, it hit me: If there's a problem here for the President, the solution is clear: gathering to his side, soon, the hundreds of thousands of pro-choice Jewish women who really don't want to vote for an anti-choice Presidential candidate, even if she/he is pro-Israel.

How to convince the President to do this, when the issue of abortion rights is about his least favorite, not one he has ever wanted to use to rally people to his side, and probably doesn't want to now, either.

Here's how: In its 2005 survey, Jewish Distinctiveness in America: A Statistical Portrait, the American Jewish Committee reported that 77.3% of Jewish Americans are pro-choice, regarding "abortion for any reason." This is over twice as many as the percentage of African Americans or "Hispanics." And while these numbers aren't broken-out by gender, I think it's fair to assume that women predominate among Jews who are pro-choice.

So what, you say: Jews are a miniscule percentage of the U.S. population (the percentage is 2.2) and the adult women voters among them an even smaller percentage. What difference could these women possibly make to the President's re-election chances?

Forget about it, as they say on the Jewish, as well as the Italian, streets of New York and New Jersey.

Here are the facts that do matter:

1) Most Jewish women are Democrats.

2) Most Jewish women vote.

3) "In terms of presidential voting, Jews are more likely to vote Democratic than any other White [sic] ethnic group...By religion Jews are the most Democratic of presidential voters. Likewise, Jews are lower than only Blacks in identifying as Democrats and are the most Democratic of religious groups."

And the clincher:

4) Most Jewish Americans live in states that have big Electoral College numbers. These states include: New York (31), Florida (27), California (55), Pennsylvania (21), Ohio (20), Texas (34), Illinois (21) and New Jersey (15), states that it just so happens the President has to win if he's going to be re-elected.

And since the 2010 Census changed the count in the Electoral College "...the Democratic Party (now faces) a net loss of six electoral votes in states won by Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama in the past three presidential elections."

Further, judging by my own admittedly unscientific, but several-decades'-long survey of pro-choice advocates, Jewish women predominate among single issue voters on the issue of abortion rights.

While one can argue this conclusion of mine around the margins; for instance, that maybe the President can win in Colorado, and some other smaller states, and, thereby, say, make up for a loss in Ohio or New Jersey, the fact remains that since it's winner take all in the Electoral College, the President's first task is to win the big states, just those states where Jewish women predominate.

In a study conducted by Celinda Lake earlier this year, she reported that "......Americans support family planning with such intensity that it can be called a core American value, and they are willing to punish politicians who try to cut public funding for it."

Now, you might argue that views about family planning aren't necessarily a proxy for views about access to abortion, but, for Jewish women voters, they likely are (see above). In any event, why risk it?

Which brings me back to the President's re-election strategy: If I were in his war room, I'd say: Mr. President: It's time to be a leading advocate for access to abortion, lest those Jewish women dismayed by your policies on the economy and Israel decide they might as well vote for your Republican opponent.

And, lest you, my readers, think I'm blowing smoke on this one, here are some numbers from that CNN piece:

--Fifty-four percent of Jewish Americans approved of Obama's performance as president in September, compared with 60% in June and 68% in May, according to Gallup polling.

--A statewide New York poll taken by Siena College in August found Obama's approval at 52% among all Empire State voters and at 49% among the state's Jewish voters. Although Obama received a 67% approval rating among Democrats in the state, he garnered 49% approval from Jewish Democrats.

Mr. President: It really is pro-choice or no choice these days. For your own sake, time to say so, and then gather Jewish women voters to your side. You could do way worse. You could even not win.

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Whither #Bachmann: Back to School

Dear Readers:

"Whither Michele Bachmann: Back to School" was the title of my back-to-school blogpost, when it appeared late last week in Huffington Post Politics,after Bachmann's first,less-than-stellar appearance in this semester's Republican presidential debates.

Here is my main point for Michele Bachmann and other would-be successful political girls beginning this new semester of the girl's school for politics: "...Political Girls: Sit up straight. Listen, watch, and pay attention to all the schoolboys' plays." Steal that playbook.

Come to find out, Stacy Schiff reports that even Cleopatra had a political playbook!

Best wishes.

Rebecca

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Drew Westen Makes His Case. But There's More to It.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-sive/drew-westen-makes-his-cas_b_924522.html

Dear Readers,

Since the President has now acceded to Speaker Boehner's wishes regarding the timing of his address to a Joint Session of Congress next week, I thought to post here the piece at the link above.

In it, I discuss some of the President's apparent personality traits, which may explain this recent action, as well as others of the months past.

I hope you'll read it.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Sive

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From Ferraro to Bachmann: How Far We Have Fallen
originally posted: April 19, 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-sive/michele-bachmann-presidential-run_b_847433.html

Planned Parenthood's Almost Demise, Michele Bachmann's Presidential Exploration, Geraldine Ferraro's Death Mark New Era in American Political History

As I write, in the piece at the link above, for The Huffington Post,I'm struck by the remarkable change in what it means to be a woman running for high political office today.

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American Girls with American Dreams
originally posted: March 23, 2011

In honor of Women's History Month, I'm posting: American Girls with American Political Dreams, a piece I wrote, published by The Huffington Post and RH Reality Check, after Tuscon's American tragedy, the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords and the myrder of Christina Taylor Green.

AMERICAN GIRLS WITH AMERICAN POLITICAL DREAMS

“I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it.”
Barack Obama, Tucson, Arizona January 12, 2011

Like Christina Green I was a young girl who wanted to be class president.

So, that Saturday afternoon when I heard the story of Christina Green’s tragic death, I cried. For, I could put myself in her shoes. I could imagine how she felt as she got ready Saturday morning to meet her Congresswoman, getting dressed to meet her dream come true. I’m thinking she was thinking that Saturday morning: I’m dressing to go to meet the person I will be, one day.

Indeed, I’ve kept remembering ever since, while watching Christina Green’s funeral service and while hearing the reports about Congresswoman Giffords’ condition, what it felt like to be that starry-eyed young girl Christina Green was that Saturday morning: The one whose loving mother said yes; yes, you can do anything; yes, you could even be President one day.

I’ve remembered loving singing the Star Spangled Banner; attending the Fourth of July parade and saluting the flag; getting to meet my parents’ friends, public officials who, my parents told me, were engaged in the noblest of callings, public service.

In these jaded days and tragic times, it’s hard to believe such a time existed, but it did.

And, as it turns out; as we’ve now all learned, in the worst possible way, that time exists now, too. That time existed in the life of Christina Green, in that life now snuffed out.

Over the New Year’s holiday, I read a book about the summer of 1964 in Mississippi, the summer when a grown-up American girl--American woman Fannie Lou Hamer--voiced the political dreams of another generation of American women, of African-American women who just wanted to be some part of this democracy—in their case, just to be able to vote and state their case.

As I was finishing the book, I remembered attending the Democratic National Convention that summer, the very convention where Hamer and her colleagues fought so hard to be a part of a democracy that would be as good as they had imagined it, a democracy as good for African-Americans as it was for whites.

I had begged my parents to take me to the convention, for I had big political dreams. Political activists that they were, they agreed. I was thrilled. To this day, over forty years later, I can remember sitting in the balcony, leaning over to watch the proceedings and hear the speeches. I can even remember what I wore that day: A navy blue suit I thought befitted an American girl who might someday speak from such a stage.

I’ve thought, over and over these few weeks: Christina Green was my kind of American girl; she had that same American dream.

And, so, she went, one sunny Saturday morning, to meet her Congresswoman.

In fact, American girls have dreamed Christina Green’s American dream for generations.

Just think about another Arizona American girl: Justice O’Connor. As the Justice sat there at the memorial service last week, I wondered what was going through her mind, as she listened to the President eulogize an Arizona girl of a different generation. I bet she thought some of what I thought; I was that girl, too.

Just think about Janet Napolitano, another Arizona American girl, also sitting there, just a couple seats away from Justice O’Connor. Janet Napolitano, young enough to be Justice O’Connor’s daughter, yet old enough to remember a girlhood two generations ago, when she first dreamed of public service.

Just think about First Lady Michelle Obama, also sitting there: Michelle Obama, a daughter of Fannie Lou Hamer in her fight to be a part of this democracy.

In fact, American girls dream the very same dreams American boys do.It’s just that, for too many generations, those dreams have been denied to all but the most brilliant among us: Say, Justice O’Connor, Secretary Napolitano and Michelle Obama.

But, we still dare to dream.

And so we come to Christina Green’s generation of American girls: What will they take away from Christina Green’s death and the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords? Will there now be fewer of them who dream Christina’s American dream?

That would be tragic, too. For, due to the trailblazing of American women like Justice O’Connor, Secretary Napolitano and Michelle Obama, today’s American girls, in Arizona, or Illinois, or Mississippi, or wherever can both dream (political) big and realize those dreams.

How many young girls will be told now, as Congresswoman Giffords tries to learn how to speak and walk again—look what happened to her and to Christina Green; that life is too dangerous; best to stay behind the scenes; best not to dream their dream.

And how many American girls, in the generation coming up behind right behind Gabby Giffords, girls like the student government president, Emily Fritze, who spoke so eloquently at the memorial service, will wonder today whether to choose a life of public service?

How many will give serious second thought to whether life in the public domain is worth it; to whether a life in the very bull’s-eye is worth the price Gabby Giffords is now paying and Christina Green has already paid?

In my growing-up days, American girls’ dreams of holding public office were, if largely unachievable, innocent. In Gabby Giffords’ growing-up days, these dreams had come into the realm of reality, as something both attainable and manageable. Today, in Christina’s and Emily’s day, this dream of a life of public service seems, instead, like a nightmare of a life at war.

Memorably, at that memorial service, President Obama said: “[he]… want(s) us to live up to her (Christina’s) expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it.”

The consensus is that the President was talking about his oft-expressed dream for an American democracy that is more civil, one in which, (as he put it last night): “We are talking to each other in ways that heal, not that wound.”

But, this American girl takes another meaning from the President’s words: That we all pledge to make our democracy good enough so that millions of American girls will choose it for themselves and for their life’s work—choose to wrest the good of it from the evil they saw in Tucson that Saturday.

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I write, speak and advise leaders and organizations on women and politics, women’s reproductive rights and economic security, and the intersection of race and gender in American public life.

My commentary is not Beltway-bound, but informed by the rough and tumble of Chicago politics, my policy expertise, and deep experience advising women who seek public leadership roles. My forthcoming book, EVERY DAY IS ELECTION DAY: A Woman's Guide to Winning the Office of Her Dreams with Joy, Humor, and Without Apology, to be published by Chicago Review Press in 2013, will share inspirational stories and lessons from leaders who have made a difference for others, as well as for themselves.