Over the past few weeks, a group united under the banner of the ‘Just Say No Deal’ has been feted on American cable television, has raised an undisclosed but ‘large’ sum of money and has claimed to have attracted over 2 million members, including 200 anti-Obama bloggers. Formed despite of a public show of solidarity between Clinton and Obama, this group of Clinton supporters emerged from an acrimonious and exhausting primary contest with shared frustrations — frustrations that led them to threaten to boycott Obama in the general elections, by either staying home on election day, voting for John McCain or a third party candidate, or writing in Hillary Clinton’s name on the ballot.

The reasons for the No-Dealers’ opposition to Obama are varied, and range from dissatisfaction with the allegedly undemocratic rules of the contest to a distrust of Obama himself, whom many see as nothing more than a slick snake-oil salesman. However, for most No-Dealers, their refusal to vote for Obama is predominantly an expression of protest against the Democratic Party for its role in the unabashed display of misogyny against Clinton during the recently concluded primary season.

The most blatant forms of sexism directed at Clinton have been well-documented by now: “Iron My Shirts” placards, the Hillary Nutcracker, in which a leering Clinton doll promises to bust your nuts with her stainless steel thighs; the merry amusement or cold indifference of the media. Television commentary against Clinton plunged to disgraceful testosterone-charged lows: first reprimands for sounding like a “scolding mother” and a “nagging wife”; then “every man’s first wife” and eventually a “she-devil” and a “white bitch”. At times, it was a struggle to remember that political punditry did not always sound straight out of men’s locker rooms.

... contd.