Masculinity and the Right

Susan Faludi, of backlash fame, has an interesting piece in today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/opinion/15faludi.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print. In it she argues that Republicans will again attempt to win the vote by being more manly than their opponents. With McCain, they certainly have a legitimate manly candidate, but the interesting aspect of this campaign is that Obama seems comfortable toeing the gender line and accessing his "feminine" qualities in public (with apologies to the essentializing aspect these analyses always engender).

The problem is the press will probably play along. No big surprise that Tucker Carlson, Don Imus and Scarborough are already using the tact, or that Newsweek is preening over McCain without any of the expected critique. But will the purportedly "neutral" press play along as well. Early signs are not good. The New York Times and Washington Post have already been quite critical of McCain and his many faults, inconsistencies and obvious hypocrisy on Campaign Finance Reform, but neither paper wins elections.

I'm back from a minor hiatus and hope to now contribute daily to watching the press, the campaign and hopefully the next step in moving beyond the power of the Republican machine to control the dialogue and win elections without any substantial dialogue on America and our future.