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Today’s Hillary News & Views begins with a collection of twenty women reflecting on what this election means to them.
The Huffington Post reports:
“The same thought as everyone else: can we please just get this over with? This has been the most exhausting election of my lifetime, particularly as the rhetoric of hate has unleashed a movement of exclusion that, fundamentally, is unAmerican. We are looking at our national consciousness in the mirror and we don’t like what we see, but it is our reflection and we can’t hide from it.” —Tiffany Dufu, Author of Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less, Chief Leadership Officer, Levo
“This election season has been so dismaying. An underbelly of racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia and just plain pure hate has been revealed in America. This sense of un-ease will not go away soon, if ever. It has made me uncomfortable, frightened for my family. We have been put on notice that the country we came to believe in, and helped to build, may not even exist. A Hillary Clinton win may make us feel a bit better—the ‘good guys’ win, at least. Oh, but those bad guys.” —Carol Jenkins, media analyst, commentator and Emmy-award winning journalist and documentary producer
“I have spent 35 years of my life observing, studying and analyzing women’s participation in American politics. Having the chance to see this moment is both inspiring and puzzling. With just one week to go before the 2016 election I am struck that the possibility of electing the first woman president of the United States has been drowned out by all the noise of this campaign. For many women of a ‘certain age’ it was a real question that they would ever have the opportunity to vote for a woman for president on a major party ticket let alone see her elected. For many others, this monumental moment in the history of our democracy is not even registering as historic. Perplexing and frustrating. But next week, if Hillary Clinton is elected, history will have been made. And while women currently hold less than 25% of elected offices at any level, the significance of breaking this highest glass ceiling for women in politics cannot be denied.” —Debbie Walsh, Director of Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University
Definitely read the whole thing.
Joy Reid writes for Refinery 29:
As a Black woman covering this campaign, I have been well aware of both its historic nature, and the narratives that could easily be missed if there weren’t correspondents like me “on the bus.” While there are still not enough of us in the newsroom, women, and women of color, have been key to keeping the narratives of the campaign representative of a country whose demographics and culture are changing fast.
Race and ethnicity have been undercurrents in American politics for 240 years. But today, they could have a direct impact on who gets the keys to the White House next January. And yet, the way we talk about politics often glosses over that fact. We talk about “evangelicals” without noting that white and nonwhite evangelicals have polar opposite politics, with the latter mostly siding with Democrats and the former remaining mostly staunch Republicans.
This country has a fraught racial legacy that culminated in the election of Barack Obama in 2008. But issues surrounding gender have at times been just as toxic. Women waited 55 years after the ratification of the 15th Amendment, which gave African-American men the right to vote, to see the franchise extended to them. Many formerly enslaved Black women didn’t live to see the day when they could cast a ballot.
Meanwhile, Black women have carried a twin burden of racial and gender identity, one that colors the way we are perceived, in the workplace, in politics, and now, in the White House.
Van Badham writes for The Guardian:
People are surprised when I express support for Hillary Clinton. My economic politics are hard to the left and, unlike hers, explicitly socialist. But it’s entirely because my analysis of inequality is economic that I endorse Clinton – not as a least-worst option, not even due to the nature of her opponent, but on her own terms as a leader pledged to the material improvement of women’s economic and social reality.
This is a structurally radical framework for broad-based American change. Yet over the course of many a bleating bro-beating on the internet, the dread realisation has landed with me that among too many men who identify themselves as on the left, notions of what constitutes social progress and radical redress of inequality are gendered concepts – with the result that Clinton’s activist leadership is wilfully dismissed.
Problems of pay inequality, parental leave and access to affordable childcare exist across the western world because of the scarcity within political leadership of those who fight for women’s causes beyond lip service and make actual legislative change.
Fighting inequality in the US – and global – context has defined Clinton’s political engagement for her entire career. Her campaign is unashamed in its commitment to women’s policy. As an Australian, I look upon the opportunity Americans have to exercise a vote for her with envy.
The hatred of Clinton from the testosterone left is a dangerous, self-defeating omission from those who insist theirs is a project of fairness. Clinton has progressed from community activist to presidential candidate with relentless dedication to equality causes.
CNN reports:
Obama laid out a strong pitch Wednesday to black voters with radio host Tom Joyner, imagining what it would be like to prepare for a transition to a Donald Trump presidency and calling on African-Americans to come out and vote to make sure his legacy is not reversed.
"I need you and everybody who is listening to make it their sole focus over the next seven days that every single person is out there voting. And I'm gonna be honest with you right now, because we track, we've got early voting, we've got all kinds of metrics to see what's going on and right now, the Latino vote is up, overall vote is up, but the African-American vote right now is not as solid as it needs to be," Obama said.
"And I know that there are a lot of people in barbershops and beauty salons, you know, in the neighborhoods who are saying to themselves 'We love Barack, we love -- we especially love Michelle -- and so, you know, it was exciting and now we're not excited as much,'" he added. "You know what? I need everybody to understand that everything we've done is dependent on me being able to pass the baton to somebody who believes in same things I believe in."
Clinton’s debate prep was extensive, even beyond policy talking points.
People reports:
The Democratic nominee tells PEOPLE in an interview for this week’s issue that she focused on keeping her composure during the debates, including in regard to her facial expressions. “It is something that I really was conscious of because this is the first time a woman had ever been on a debate stage in a general election,” she says.
“It was not clear to me which Donald Trump or how many Donald Trumps would show up during the course of each debate,” Clinton continues. “So I really did have to think very consciously about how I was going to deal with whatever he said and however he behaved.”
“That was one of the reasons I prepared so much, because you cannot just think about it, you have to go through it. If you’re in a town-hall setting and somebody is crowding your space, you need to know what that feels like,” Clinton tells PEOPLE now.
“So if it happens as it happened to me on that second debate stage, you’re not taken by surprise. Because, look, if somebody is like all of a sudden over your shoulder, it’s easy to be startled or to turn around. But I was determined to be very focused on what I wanted to say to the American people — draw a contrast with whatever Trump had to say and try to be as calm and composed as possible.”
USA Today reports:
"I know what happened not far from here at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. I was in New York City on 9-11 as one of the two senators," Clinton said.
"I will defeat ISIS. I will protect America," she said, drawing cheers from the jam-packed Sanford Civic Center crowd.
Clinton criticized Trump on a variety of fronts, including Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, the $900 million-plus business loss he reportedly claimed in 1995, a move that let him avoid paying federal income taxes for 18 years.
"He took everything. He took everything our great country has to offer. He scooped it up with both hands. And then paid nothing to support us," Clinton said.
"And then he has the nerve to call our military a disaster and insult POWs — and he doesn't pay a penny to support the people who put on the uniform of the United States of America," she said.
Civil Rights legend and U.S. Representative John Lewis will lead an early voting march in Charlotte.
The Charlotte Observer reports:
U.S. Rep. John Lewis will be in Charlotte on Thursday to support Democrat Hillary Clinton and lead a march to the polls.
Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, withstood violence and arrest during the civil rights marches in Alabama in the mid-1960s. He also served as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
The Charlotte event is at 5 p.m. Marchers will begin at MLK Park (2600 Ravencroft Drive, Charlotte) and proceed to Bette Rae Thomas Recreation Center (2921 Tuckaseegee Rd, Charlotte) to vote.
The Latino vote is on track to be historic in number this year.
According to the latest data from our national tracking poll, Latino Decisions projects that between 13.1 million and 14.7 million Latinos will vote in 2016. This estimate represents a three percent to five percent increase over the 2012 Latino turnout rate which, coupled with the dramatic growth of the age-eligible Latino population, will yield between 1.9 million and 3.5 million additional Latinos voters in 2016 compared to the 11.2 million who voted four years ago.
Latino Decisions also projects that 79 percent of Latinos will vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, 18 percent for Republican nominee Donald Trump, and the remaining three percent voting for other candidates. Clinton’s projected share is higher than both Latino Decisions’ estimated 75 percent Latino vote share and 71 percent exit poll share Democrat Barack Obama received during his 2012 re-election bid.
Over the past seven weeks, the Latino Decisions weekly tracking poll has demonstrated heightened enthusiasm for voting in 2016 and record-high levels of support for Hillary Clinton. Each week, the released poll has captured a rolling cross-section of 500 bilingual interviews conducted nationwide with Latino registered voters and has found little fluctuation either with respect to likely turnout or the proportion of the Latino electorate anticipated to vote for each presidential candidate. From a statistical modeling perspective, this stability is good and suggests more confidence in our model estimates for Election Day.
Melissa McEwan writes for Shareblue:
The emails made public by stealing, hacking and leaking, the veracity of which we cannot even be certain, also have not contained anything damning. Some sniping among colleagues does not amount to a negative reflection on Clinton’s character.
How many of us could have survived, with our reputations intact, the public investigation of virtually every private communication we and our colleagues have exchanged?
This speaks to the discipline and decency that have been the hallmark of Clinton’s entire campaign — a campaign that has had unusually few unforced errors; orchestrated a well-executed roll-out of the running mate announcement; choreographed a tremendous general election roll-out; has a digital team firing on all cylinders; has continued to introduce smart policy in the midst of a chaotic campaign; and has built a commanding ground game, which includes a superb early GOTV effort.
Through all of this genuinely impressive campaigning, the candidate and her campaign have been under enormous and unprecedented scrutiny of their communications. And what has emerged is a team whose private emails are less objectionable than Donald Trump’s public tweets.
The Huffington Post reports:
With early voting under way, millions of Americans have for the first time marked their general election ballots with the hope of sending a woman to the White House.
For some, the experience has been unexpectedly moving.
Sarah Dean recalled driving her mom, Vickie Wilkinson, to her local polling place in Bozeman, Montana last week. “I watched her hand in her ballot and took a picture of her,” she said. “And when we got back in the car, she was just so emotional.”
The importance of her vote snapped into focus.
“I had forgotten what was happening. This has been such a circus of an election cycle,” she said. “But when my mom started crying, I thought, ‘Oh yeah, this is an incredible thing that is taking place right now. We should be really excited that we get to do this.’ So that’s why I took a video of her.”
New York Times reports:
North Carolina has become perhaps the most important state in the election. It has the potential to decide the Senate and the presidency.
Hillary Clinton has led every live-interview survey conducted there since the first presidential debate, even though Mitt Romney won it four years ago. She has a comfortable lead in the surveys taken after the third presidential debate, with Upshot/Siena, NBC/Marist, Quinnipiac, Monmouth and Elon polls showing her ahead by an average of four points.
It’s also a state where the election is well underway. Nearly two million voters — perhaps 40 percent of the electorate — have already cast ballots, and the data from early voting suggests that she has banked a considerable lead. The same data implies that pre-election polls are largely right about the composition of the North Carolina electorate.
FiveThirtyEight reports:
We’ll have to wait a week to know for sure, but the early vote in Nevada suggests Clinton is relatively safe there.
Indeed, the pattern in early voting looks pretty much the same as in 20121. After one week of early voting in 2012, Democrats made up 45 percent of early voters and Republicans made up 37 percent. Those numbers held through the second week of early voting and into the general election. Democrats had a 7-point edge after early voting that year and a 6-point edge after all the votes were counted. The fact that the registration numbers didn’t change very much after early voting shouldn’t be surprising, because absentee and early voters made up about 70 percent of all ballots cast.
The similarity to 2012 in the early numbers in Nevada is good news for Clinton. Obama won the state by 7 points (or about the Democratic edge in the registration of those who voted). Some polls have given Clinton the same-size lead in the past month, but the current FiveThirtyEight polls-only forecast puts her advantage at between 1 and 2 percentage points in Nevada. If Trump were to lose Nevada, the polls-only model gives him just a 9 percent chance of winning the election. It’s a near must-win for him, as most swing states are.
David Frum writes for The Atlantic:
Those attempting to rally reluctant Republicans to Trump seldom waste words on the affirmative case for the blowhard businessman. What is there to say in favor of a candidate who would lie even about his (non) support for a charity for children with AIDS?
To vote for Trump as a protest against Clinton’s faults would be like amputating a leg because of a sliver in the toe; cutting one’s throat to lower one’s blood pressure.
I more or less agree with Trump on his signature issue, immigration. Two years ago, I would have rated immigration as one of the very most important issues in this election. But that was before Trump expanded the debate to include such questions as: “Should America honor its NATO commitments?” “Are American elections real or fake?” “Is it OK for a president to use the office to promote his family business?” “Are handicapped people comical?”
If we arrive at the bizarre endpoint where such seemingly closed questions are open to debate, partisan rancor has overwhelmed and overpowered the reasoning functions of our brains. America's first president cautioned his posterity against succumbing to such internecine hatreds: “The spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension … leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.” George Washington’s farewell warning resounds with reverberating relevance in this election year.
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Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to the electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States.