Women and Politics

Continuing the ” Women on the Street” series of interviews visiting everyday women in Denver, I stop Caroline to ask her view point. She shares her views on the speeches of Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and the surprise appearance of Barack Obama.

Ambassador Swanee Hunt takes time out of her busy schedule to explain why women should get active in politics at the Democratic National Convention. She is the first in the series of profiles of politically active women.

Ambassador Swanee Hunt has a very active her professional life.

Ambassador Hunt answers why she became active in her political life:

Here is how she got active politically:

Getting active, for Ambassador Hunt, was as simple as advocating. What could you do to get active in politics?

Tess and Holland were on 15th street, getting ready to go into a restaurant, when I stumbled up them. They were eager to talk to me about Senator Hilary Clinton’s speech. They had very different views. One was clearly a supporter of Clinton and the other Obama. They were good friends, telling me stories about sharing clothes and always going out to interesting places with each other. Although they were friends supporting different candidates it was evident that they did not let it affect their friendship.  One struggles with her words while the other is more certain about how Clinton’s speech influenced her decision to support Obama. Listen in:

One of the nice things about covering the Democratic convention from the comfort of my own laptop in a home office, is that there are plenty of opportunities for the convention to come to me!

I was sad to miss the EMILY’s List events at the DNC. But conference calls are a pretty good substitute, especially when I realized that I probably wouldn’t have been able to ask EMILY’s List President Ellen Malcolm any questions with a thousand other people around, but quickly got in the queue by phone!

She and Denise Singiser, the Women’s Vote Director for the Obama Campaign, started off talking about how Barack Obama is a long-time advocate of equal pay for women and supports legislation to accomplish that, including the Lily Ledbetter Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act.

That’s great, but my longstanding question has been how much will he really do if he is elected to ensure their prompt passage, rather than seeing them shuffled to the bottom of the list, only to languish.

I know that no candidate is going to pledge a time-line for any agenda item — the Clintons learned the hard way with their health care plan that maybe that wasn’t the best way for a new administration to get moving.

But Malcolm had a great answer about how to get legislation passed that will give workers a fair shake when it comes to pay issues, one that addressed it from a different angle…

[The rest of this post can be found at Pundit Mom.]

Ilana Goldman, President of Women’s Campaign Forum, explains to women why they should be involved in politics. There are three key things that women should know about how they can take part in the the political process each day. View the video to find out what they are:

I will be in the Pepsi Center live blogging the role call vote. I have spoken to several delegates and listened to Super Delegate Donna Brazile announce at the Women’s Caucus yesterday that she will be voting for Hillary Clinton.

Many of the delegates feel passionate about making history. A woman candidate that was the front runner in the race for President is a significant milestone for women. Delegates have told me that they are compelled to mark this moment in time for all to remember. The role call has been an historical message that began with the campaign of Shirley Chisholm for President. In the blog post at the Huffington Post, Adele Stan and I mentioned these facts in Memo to Obama: Let the Floor Vote Roll.

Look for the follow up of the live blog and profile of some of these delegates.

After live blogging Hillary’s speech I went to the streets of Denver around the Pepsi Center. I asked several women what what they thought of Hillary’s speech. I came across a young African American women waiting for a cab on her way to a DNC party. Catching cabs in Denver have been challenging for everyone; I knew I could talk to her while she waited. This is what Angel had to say: