One Against Three: HRC Fought Against Obama, Media and DNC

Today’s Globe and Mail article Does no one remember Hillary? made a false comment about the president-elect:

...his one real accomplishment: outplaying the most determined and prepared politician he's ever faced [Hillary Clinton].
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081107.wcomurph08/BNStory/specialComment/home

I disagree with that. A better analogy is three against one. In one corner was Obama, the media and the DNC. In the other corner was HRC. She had to fight Obama and the others at the same time. And in the end she won the most votes, so I offer her my congratulations for winning the nomination even though it was taken away from her.

The media were extremely in the tank for Obama. For example, Slate recently published a study that found that their journalists favored Obama to McCain 55-1 (http://www.slate.com/id/2203151/pagenum/all/). I wonder what the odds were for HRC and Obama. Maybe they favored Obama to HRC 55-1. The men and women journalists overwhelmingly favored Obama and they often hid damaging information about him, especially during the crucial first primaries, and they emphasized anything they thought would make him more popular. Furthermore, they portrayed HRC in a sexist manner (http://www.allseasonsgallery.info/hrc/hrc.sexism.html). Voters are very influenced by the media and that made that media’s attack a very difficult attack that HRC had to face.

And the DNC twisted the rules to minimize HRC's delegates and used rare or first-time procedures that increased Obama's delegates and decreased HRC’s delegates. For example, when five states violated Rule11.A the states that seemed to favor HRC were punished twice as harshly as what the rulebook advices, but the states that seemed to favor Obama were given waivers therefore not punished at all. The two states where HRC was rated highest in the polls, Florida and Michigan, were punished, but I recall Obama polled high in the three states (Iowa, South Carolina, and up until the time near the election New Hampshire) that received a waiver. Thus, states that heavily favored Clinton were extremely punished while states that had favored her competitor were given waivers even though all five states broke Rule 11.A. and according to Rule 20.C.1.a. they should have been punished the same (http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/2/11/144234/675).

And astonishing, and probably without precedent, the DNC gave Obama delegates for states that he skipped during the primaries. It's common practice for candidates to skip a state but I've never heard of any candidate being given delegates for the states they didn't compete in. Furthermore, when it became increasingly likely that HRC would win the popular vote-which she did-the DNC pressured her to drop out of the contest. And HRC didn't actually compete during the convention role call because she made it clear she had dropped out, would support Obama for president, and gave up (released) her delegates before the role call. So Obama didn't compete against anyone at the convention. None of the candidates had enough pledged delegates to win when the primaries were over. HRC won by the best measurement: she got more votes.

Popular Vote (w/MI): Obama-17,535,458, 47.4%, Clinton: 17,822,145, 48.1%
Estimate w/IA, NV, ME, WA: Obama-17,869,542, 47.4%, Clinton-18,046,007, 47.9%
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html

The state vote totals are certified and are now historical documents, so the history books will recount that the first time a woman presidential candidate won the most votes, her own party blocked her from getting the nomination and worked against her from the beginning. That’s a national tragedy. Going forward, we should remember the sexism against a historic woman candidate to prevent it from happening so that ASAP we can get a woman president.

Presidential Cabinet Should Be 50% Women

I believe 50% of the top-level executives should be women because:

1) Women and girls are the most oppressed group in the world and so gender equality should be a top priority of any administration.
2) Women provide a lot of votes and so a president personally owes these jobs to women.
3) Studies show women are better leaders—by performance and results—than men, so based on evidence women will perform better than men which benefits our country.
http://home.att.net/~selectpro/gender.htm

Therefore, to ensure fairness, fulfill his personal debt to women voters, and for the benefit of the country the president is obligated to appoint women to 50% of the top jobs in the Executive Branch.

Some top-level jobs are more powerful than others, the VP job being the most powerful. Since the president-elect gave the VP job to a man, he is obligated to fill more of the top-level jobs with women to balance the power of women and men. It is sexist to give women mostly lower level jobs and men mostly upper level jobs. There’re thousands of qualified women for each top-level Executive job so it would be sexist to not give women 50% of the jobs. Also, women should be chosen based on their record because it’s unethical to choose someone without matching their qualifications to the office. For example, the Secretary of the Treasury should be someone with many years of economic experience such as an economics professor, someone who won the Nobel Prize in economics, someone with a solid record of success in the world of finance, etc.

Another point: the Democratic leadership has an enormous debt to pay HRC. Her presidency would have significantly decreased sexism but the DNC deliberately blocked women’s equality by blocking HRC’s path to the presidency. They twisted the rules to favor a man. For example, they selectively punished states that broke Rule 11.A to favor a man: states that heavily favored HRC were punished while states that had favored her competitor were given waivers even though all five states broke the same rule.

The DNC was virtually silent about the extreme sexist abuse hurled at HRC, her supporters and all women and girls (http://www.allseasonsgallery.info/hrc/hrc.sexism.html). And even when it appeared HRC would probably win the popular vote-which she did-they pressured her to drop out of the race to make way for a man. If the media and DNC had treated HRC as an equal to men, then it is probable that she would have been elected the first woman president. The Democratic leadership must pay back what they took away. Hillary Clinton must be publicly offered a very high position in the government. Of course, that will not compensate her for the presidency that they blocked her (women) from getting, but it is a step forward.

Women must have equality. A presidents sends the message they believe women are equal to men by appointing 50% women in top level jobs. That benefits the U.S.A. The top jobs are:

The 15 offices of the Cabinet:

Highly Important:
Secretary of State*
Secretary of Defense*
Secretary of the Treasury
Attorney General
* highest level

Very Important:
Secretary of Homeland Security

Important:
Secretary of the Interior
Secretary of Agriculture
Secretary of Commerce
Secretary of Labor
Secretary of Health and Human Services
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Secretary of Transportation
Secretary of Energy
Secretary of Education
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Cabinet

The following cabinet-level jobs allow office holders to attend Cabinet meetings without being secretaries of executive departments:

Vice President of the United States*
White House Chief of Staff*
Director of the Office of Management and Budget*
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
Director of the National Drug Control Policy
United States Trade Representative
National Security Advisor (not necessarily part of Cabinet meetings)

The Press Doesn't Want A Woman President

My theory is that the main reason the press was unfair to Hillary Clinton’s and McPalin’s presidential bid was because they feared woman leadership would emasculate men. Although there are individual journalists who support women's equality, the press is very male-dominated so they promote a male-centric worldview. Also because the press is overwhelmingly male-dominated, women journalists are under tremendous pressure to conform to the male-domination world view. And unfortunately, some of them have been persuaded that male dominance is the best thing to happen because for years they have been constantly barraged by the male supremacy in their workplace and this has convinced them that they are inferior to men.

An example of the press’s adoration of machismo is their support of George W. Bush. Bush had set himself up as a man's man and the press strongly supported him against Gore who was not seen as macho. The male-dominated press strongly supported Bush's military strategies partly because they saw him as representing men and they wanted to support a man doing "manly" things like going to war. Paul Krugman of the NY Times, whose columns supported Hillary Clinton during the primaries, said he spoke to a lot of people who supported Bush's military policies because they admired his machismo:

Remember how the Iraq war was sold. The stuff about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds was just window dressing. The main political argument was, “They attacked us, and we’re going to strike back” — and anyone who tried to point out that Saddam and Osama weren’t the same person was an effete [infertile] snob…

Let’s also not forget that for years President Bush was the center of a cult of personality that lionized him…

Bear in mind that members of the political and media elites were more pro-war than the public at large in the fall of 2002, even though the flimsiness of the case for invading Iraq should have been even more obvious to those paying close attention to the issue than it was to the average voter.

Why were the elite so hawkish? Well, I heard a number of people express privately the argument that some influential commentators made publicly — that the war was a good idea, not because Iraq posed a real threat, but because beating up someone in the Middle East, never mind who, would show Muslims that we mean business. In other words, even alleged wise men bought into the idea of macho posturing as policy (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html?em).

I don’t agree with everything Krugman says, but he deftly shows that the press supported Bush’s military strategy primarily because it was macho. They supported machismo. When Bush was revealed as not being able to lead armies successfully (at least during the short-term), this was a huge blow to the male-dominated press. Partly because they had so strongly supported him. But I think a large part of their disappointment was that Bush represented manliness and so his failure made men look bad. So then when a woman (HRC) arrived on the scene to fix the problem that made insecure men feel more emasculated. If a woman won the presidency and fixed the nation's problems created by the Bush machismo, then there would be even less admiration for macho presidency.

That could be a clue to why the media became fervent supporters of Obama, destroying their journalistic integrity to do anything possible to help him win. My theory: the media sought a different kind of man to replace the macho Bush. Since machismo had failed, they now sought a sort of father figure/preacher type of man represented by Obama. They lauded him for his preaching (a very male-dominated profession). They saw him as salvaging the masculine image and this is one of the reasons why it was so important to them that he beat a woman, any woman, who dared to imply that a woman could lead better than a man. Having seen a macho man fail at war, they then turned to a different type of man to resurrect the ideal of male dominance. Again, this is a main reason why they hate Palin so much because she is promoting female leadership which is a threat to the insecure men's fragile egos.

I believe sexism is at the root of the extreme media prejudice we have witnessed this election season. Both men and women protect men’s egos. I believe some journalist women were complicit in protecting the image of male dominance perhaps because they feared their own power or felt sorry for men’s embarrassment.

I found out that the men's magazine Esquire is promoting Obama. I briefly read their editorial which it's not worth my time to post here because they say a lot of false things about McCain and Palin. It's the first time this male-centric magazine has endorsed a candidate which supports my theory that the male-centric media is going to extreme measures this year to puff up their egos, trying desperately to prevent women from achieving political power because it would harm their fragile egos. I believe the male-dominated media is very threatened by a ticket with a woman hence why they viciously attacked the HRC and McCain/Palin campaigns.

I also believe that the essence of our nation’s current problems is attachment to male-dominance. Hundreds of years of male dominance of government has created a bad vibe. This problem can only be solved be female power at the top. That’s why the most exciting people during this election were women candidates, from my observation, because HRC and Palin provided something that was lacking and people were excited that there was going to be a big change ushering a new era of women’s leadership.

However, the DNC blocked Senator Clinton from getting the nomination even though she got the most votes. So a lot of people were frustrated that they did not get the chance to vote for a woman presidential candidate in order to break down the patriarchy. And McPalin was a lot more McCain than Palin because McCain ultimately would make the vast majority of decisions as president. So, although people were excited about Gov. Palin the leader, they were not so interested in Gov. Palin the follower because they didn’t think that a woman would create great feminist transformation as a follower.

Alas, we wait and wait and wait for the female leadership that will finally end the horrors of patriarchy. Until then we must fill government with more women at all levels till we achieve the 50% mark. And the next presidential election is just around the corner.

Palin Has Supportive Family To Help With Childcare

Many people complained about Sarah Palin being a working mom but I didn't hear any of the male candidates being accused of being a working dad. There is no difference between Sarah working full time and Todd staying home with the kids than a male politician working full-time who has a wife who stays home with the kids. Todd quit his North Slope job temporarily to take care of the kids and that should be accepted as much as if a woman had done the same for her husband.

Before when Todd was working on The Slope he would take a week off every other week to work full-time taking care of the kids and the housework. Palin said:

“He [Todd Palin] is…all around, hard-working, good dad. I don’t know if people realize what a good dad he is. He has his hands full of course when he gets off the slope or off the commercial fishing waters. He pretty much takes over a lot of the household duties and…allows me to…do what I’ve got to do there as governor of Alaska, and it’s a busy job and I anticipate we get to look forward to that also right working there in the White House. He’s quite humble and unpretentious and…very, very confident and secure in who he is” (Gretawire, FOX News, 10/31/08).

Also, Sarah Palin lives with an extended family and her mother and other relatives always pitch in. She has a great living situation and the kids seem happy in pictures and by what I have heard in interviews.

Comparison of American Women's and Girls' Rights and AA Rights

When I say women are the most oppressed group in the world people rarely disagree, but I often hear people say that in the United States blacks are more oppressed than women. I suppose I would have to research this topic full-time for about a year to get reasonable evidence proving one theory or another. However, based on brief research it appears that women are more oppressed than blacks in the United States.

The amount of oppression increases with the number of people. For example if 10 people are oppressed by not being able to vote then that is worse oppression than 1 person not being able to vote. Women's greater numbers than blacks increase the damage that sexism inflicts on society. Again, I'm not saying women are or are not more oppressed than black men; I’m making a point that increased numbers means that the damage of oppression is greater all else being equal.

However, degree of harm also determines who is more oppressed. For example, oppressing a group by not letting them vote is worse than oppressing them by limiting their voting locations to a segregated area. Both are forms of oppression, but one is worse than the other.

People often say slavery is the main reason blacks are more oppressed than women. Yet slavery still exists and women and girls are the main victims. Also, in the current system of slavery females are harmed more than males because females are much more likely to be sex slaves. Benjamin Skinner, author of "A Crime So Monstrous," said, "There are more slaves today than at any point in human history." In an interview with Salon.com he cited a recent estimate that there are currently 27 million slaves in the world. http://www.salon.com/books/int/2008/03/27/slavery/print.html

The US Department of State and the CIA estimate that each year about 50,000 women and children sex slaves are trafficked into the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_slavery#The_United_States
And the Polaris Project says "Victims of human trafficking in the United States also include U.S. citizens and residents trafficked within its borders" (http://www.polarisproject.org/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id= 60&Itemid=81). Sexual slavery and other types of rape are a form of sexism. Peggy Reeves Sanday found that in societies where men do not dominate women there is virtually no rape.

Also note that for thousands of years most non-black U.S. women's ancestors have been oppressed by men. So though African-Americans were oppressed for hundreds of years in the U.S., women have a much longer history of being oppressed by men going back thousands of years. And women African-American slaves were raped more often than men and being raped is worse than working on a farm, as a carpenter, etc. So even among African-American slaves, women seem to have been oppressed worse than men.

In politics both women and African-Americans are not represented adequately.

50.7% of population is female (2006 Census)
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
16.3% of Congress is female (32% representation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_members_of_the_United_States_Congress#Sex
16% of Senators are female (32% representation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_United_States_Senate

12.8% of population is black
9.2% of Congress is black (72% representation)
1% of The Senate is black (8% representation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_members_of_the_United_States_Congress#Race.2Fethnicity

A brief look at the government based on Senate and Congress shows that in general blacks have achieved more representation than women. Neither blacks nor women are represented in the presidency but blacks have an advantage over women because some presidents have been part black and because the press and Democratic Party overwhelmingly preferred a black man over a woman with many more accomplishments and experience than him. So, based upon brief research blacks have gone farther politically than women in the U.S. This is evidence blacks are discriminated against less than women politically.

Economically, based on a brief look at income levels, women and blacks appear to earn about the same amount. Looking at Wikipedia figures I calculated the average income for women to be approximately $28,000. This includes Hispanic, black, white, and Asian women. The average income of blacks (men and women) was approximately $28,000 also. Note that black men earn approximately $3,000 more than white women (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Income_inequity_US.png).

Other than political and economic equality, the third major category of equality is social equality. The social realm includes religion, the arts, education, customs, etc. In the social realm black men have some greater advantages than women such as that most priests are men, that our language uses “he” to describe a human being, and they are more protected from sexual abuse.Black men have much greater power than women in organized religion because churches, temples, etc. are almost always led by men. Women have more power than blacks in education, Women represent 36% of full-time faculty (71% representation) and blacks represent 5% (39% representation).
http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/03/faculty-diversity.html
Female students also have made more academic progress than black students. The social realm is very complex so that there are some areas such as religion where black men dominate and another area such as education where women dominate. But when you look at extreme hate crimes involving murder and bodily harm women are attacked more often than black men. One form of hate crime is rape and rape against females by males is common. Even when men are raped as Catharine MacKinnon noted, they tend to be raped as women (penetrated). And yet attacks against people based on their skin color seem to be much less common. So females suffer from much more extreme social oppression than blacks. Females are frequently raped and enslaved for sex and society does almost nothing to prevent this abuse or punish the abusers. So, although I don't have all the facts based upon what I know socially sexism causes more harm to females than racism does to blacks. Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American presidential candidate, said she experienced more sexism than racism.

Therefore, based upon brief research blacks have slightly more political power than women (based on their numbers). Blacks have been able to achieve about the same economical achievements as women. And socially, in my opinion, sexism inflicts more damage to women than to blacks, especially extreme damage. So overall, U.S. women are more oppressed than U.S. blacks.

Women and Girls are the Most Oppressed Group

Women's and girls' rights should be front and center. Women and girls are the most oppressed group in the world. The oppression of women and girls is a severe problem that should be regarded at least as serious as issues such as the economy and security.

In terms of numbers and degree of harm, women and girls are the most oppressed group. Other oppressed groups suffer little or not at all in most countries. But a UN-commissioned report found that women are discriminated against in almost every country around the world (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7331813.stm).

There are three billion women in the world and virtually all live in a society that treats them as inferior to men. Because there are so many women and girls, that creates a worse burden of oppression.

Women have much less political, economic and social power than men do. There are more than 180 countries yet very few of those countries have a woman leader. And sadly, the vast majority of politicians are men.

Men have much more power than women in almost every social realm such as the arts, sports, religion, education, media and law.

Economically, women’s status is abysmal. The UN reported that women own only 1% of the worlds wealth. The UN reports that women and girls are the fastest increasing group of impoverished. They call this "the global feminization of poverty"
(http://www.un.org/Conferences/habitat/unchs/press/women.htm).

During the U.S. 2008 election a brave woman tried to stop sexism. She is Hillary Clinton. She sought to shatter the glass ceiling that oppresses 51% of our population. Yet the DNC twisted the party rules to favor a man, pressured her to drop out to let a man win, and did not speak in her defense when she was constantly and viciously attacked with sexist hate speech (http://www.allseasonsgallery.info/hrc/hrc.sexism.html).

The media did virtually everything in their power to prevent a woman from breaking the presidential glass ceiling and when the DNC stopped this brave feminist from getting the nomination then within a few days the media began another war against women using hate speech to attack Sarah Palin who is seeking to break through the VP glass ceiling.

Today is a historic day when a woman is poised to break through one of the highest political glass ceilings. She is strong, brave, intelligent and ethical (http://journaloffeministinsight.blogspot.com/2008/11/gov-palin-has-been-underestimated.html). She has a record of fighting entrenched sexism to help the people. When the first woman vice president takes the oath of office it will be a giant step forward for womankind.

Palin: From Campaign Platform To Executive Success

Sarah Palin has shown she has the ability to transform a campaign platform agenda into successful results when elected to office. Once in office, she achieved the goals of her agenda. That is one reason why Palin is very popular in Alaska. People want leaders who roll up their sleeves in office and achieve real success.

When running for mayor of Wasilla Palin’s goals were to decrease the budget by decreasing decreasing the mayor’s salary and reducing property taxes. When Palin won the election she:

1) took a pay cut from $68,000 a year to $64, 200
2) cut property taxes from $2 million to $1.2 million and eliminated personal property taxes

Palin also had a beneficial vision:

“Sarah had a vision for the small town. She imagined Wasilla becoming a major economic player in the state, a place where new development could create opportunity and prosperity” (Sarah, by Kalene Johnson, page 45-50).

To create the vision Mayor Palin implemented a $5.5 million road and sewer bond approved by the people to attract new commercial development. During her three-year term Fred Meyer had opened a large department store in Wasilla (page 65).

As governor, Palin again achieved her campaign goals which were:

1) ending corruption in state politics
2) building a gas pipeline that had been stalled for 30 years
3) increasing the state's share of energy revenues.

As James Bennett of the Telegraph reported:

…she has succeeded in each of her objectives. She has exposed corruption; given the state a bigger share in Alaska's energy wealth; and negotiated a deal involving big corporate players, the US and Canadian governments, Canadian provincial governments, and native tribes - the result of which was a £13 billion deal to launch the pipeline and increase the amount of domestic energy available to consumers.

…she has been a major player in state politics for a decade, one who formulated an ambitious agenda and deftly implemented it against great odds (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/09/09/do0904.xml).

Sarah Palin has the ability to transform ideas into reality. Her record is proof. That is the kind of woman we need in the Executive branch and if she breaks the glass ceiling beyond that glass ceiling she will create great achievements that benefit the United States.

Best Leadership Requires Listening to Others' Opinions

A long-term study by Lawrence A. Pfaff found that women were rated as significantly better leaders then men overall (http://home.att.net/~selectpro/gender.htm). Pfaff found that men's leadership tended to be more autocratic. This indicates if men become less autocratic and more consensus-oriented they will be better leaders.

Politically, this suggests we should vote for more women leaders so we can have better government. I have no doubt men in general can learn to lead as well as women in general, but I believe that will take a lot of time because men learn leadership beginning in childhood, so even if there was a great effort to change they way boys are raised it would probably take a generation before men can become as good at leadership as women are. However, there are some men who have learned to lead by consensus and they are be role models for boys and men to teach them to avoid partisan fighting and become bi-partisan leaders.

Gov. Sarah Palin provides a great example of consensus leadership. Biographer Kalene Johnson said of Palin:

"while she held strong convictions that aligned with the Republican platform, her first concern was for the community she hoped to serve. ...Sarah had a vision for the small town. She imagined Wasilla becoming a major economic player in the state, a place where new development could create opportunity and prosperity (Sarah, page 45).

Donald Moore, the borough manager of Alaska's Mat-Su Valley observed: "Sarah's governance is consensus oriented. ...She makes sure everyone has a chance to have a say; nobody gets left out. But there comes a point when the debate is over and a decision has to be made. She's also the type of manager who, once she reaches her cadence, expects everyone to keep up" (page 65).

Palin says when negotiating a solution with someone who has a different opinion she starts "by not discrediting or invalidating because of a position that maybe they take that you are in disagreement with. You learn from them and you do, you're able to find middle ground on so many of these issues...There is always a way to work with another person...let's find a way to work together and solve the problem, that's what we've done in our family and in my businesses, and also in governance" (Gretawire, FOX News, October 31, 2008).

Regarding consensus governance Palin said on FOX News:

"That's were my experience as an executive gets plugged in as mayor of course you're working in a non-partisan, bipartisan manner all the time. You're filling pot holes and you're making sure your police department is fully funded, you're taking care of the people whom you are serving, never letting obsessive partisanship...on that level get in the way of just doing what's right. And then on the state level too as governor being able to reach out across party lines...me appointing Democrats and Independents and Republicans in my administration, got the track record to prove that that's they way I operate is getting along with those who perhaps...don't agree on ever single issue, but ...that's what you've got to do especially in this time of great challenge for America.

Gov. Palin Has Been Underestimated Because Of Sexism

When you see women as equal to men you do not underestimate them. Constance Walker wrote an excellent Op-Ed to The Keene Sentinel that describes an example of sexist people underestimating a woman. She wrote about how people's sexism blocks them from seeing the greatness of Sarah Palin: http://sentinelsource.com/articles/2008/11/01/opinion/letters_editor/free/id_329527.txt

Many times I've heard people say Gov. Palin is not qualified to be VP. I've heard this complaint more often by men. When a person sees a woman who is an excellent governor and thinks she is not even worthy of being VP then that indicates they are sexist. I dare anyone to mention any male candidate this election season that can match these abilities:

Intelligent-read newspapers in grade school (every article) Which of the male candidates read high school level topics at age 10? Remember, this has nothing to do with school learning where children are motivated to get high grades to please their parents or where adults are motivated to complete their coursework in college to get a high paying job. This is the joy of learning for the sake of learning shown at an early age (biography: Sarah, page 21).

Ethical-gave up a $115,000 job as Oil and Gas Commissioner rather than be part of a network of corruption. She had to give up her job in order to seek justice for the people. Which of the male candidates did anything like that?

8 Years Political Executive Experience-started from grassroots as PTA mom, then councilor (6 years), mayor (6 years), and now governor. Palin has many years experience planning, implementing, and maintaining tax policy, social services, capital projects, economic growth, etc. Which of the male candidates has been a political executive?

Balanced a state budget-Palin prudently limited spending while focusing on energy and education to help the economy (http://journaloffeministinsight.blogspot.com/2008/10/gov-palin-knows-how-to-balance-us.html).

Palin has negotiated an arrangement whereby Alaska natural gas will be piped across the Canadian border and into the United States. The gas pipeline project will bring new supplies and lower prices to the contiguous 48 states. The Senate voted 14-5 to approve a natural gas pipeline deal with TransCanada Corp., joining with an earlier 24-16 approval by the House. The pipeline would be the largest construction project in the history of the United States. Is there a single male candidate who knows as much about energy and has as much experience/success implementing energy policy?

Approval ratings have often topped 80%-Which of the male candidates has been able to connect with and meet the approval of the general public (Democrat, Republican, Green, etc.) to such an extent that they have achieved an 80% approval rating frequently?

It's sexist to require women to achieve 1,000 times more than men to even begin being seen as equal. A woman should not have to achieve much more than a man to be viewed as equal to him. In my opinion sexism is the worst social problem in the world. I look forward to the day when women and girls achieve equality.