On the other hand we've seen candidates, both male and female, being described as "playing hard to get." Is that the same thing?

Or should metaphors related to sexual relations/courtship be off the table?

Bryant

Gosh, lots of stop supporting Warren OPs today, coming from all sorts of angles.
In any event, NO ONE has declared yet, and people are free, I thought, to express their enthusiasm for anyone.
In this case, no matter what happens with Warren, the point is that Hillary is not a shoo-in. If she is running that is. Hasn't said.
But we are shown polls that say she is inevitable all the time. What's up with that?

Not sure who they're trying to convince.

They relentlessly badger people (in hopes of getting the big scoop o' the day), and continually force people to either stay away from them completely ("why is xxx hiding from media"?) or they force people to reiterate what they have been saying and NOT talk about whatever they really want to/need to be talking about..

direct reference to a popular quote and belief by rapists

I am also still a little heart-sick that Gore did not run. I mean, I really liked Kerry as a Presidential candidate, and I believed during that time, the timing was right to fix things, instead we got 4 more years of Bush.

This one is over the top because of the lack of sensitivity of the reporter (new crowd at the WaPo is getting worse and worse, as every single media is competing with the HuffPost and Politico in reporting vacuous news).

I have stopped reading them altogether as Beltway reporting is getting more and more stupid (I guess they are going to rush to Florida now to talk about Jeb).

it doesn't stand up to heavy scrutiny.

Perhaps one can be more sensitive when "parsing" a female/minority public figure's words and more circumspect when putting words in their mouths and ideas in their heads.

pestered to the extent it is happening with Sen. Warren.

And Al Gore's poll numbers were similar to Clinton's.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/grassroots-effort-to-nominate-al-gore-bolstered-by-zogby-poll-74754867.html

I was heavily involved in the Draft Gore movement and was almost certain that at his Brookings Institute speech he would announce he was running. But he didn't. I took that energy and put it into Dean's campaign. Dean lost and I haven't looked back to supporting non-candidates.

I think the difference between then and now is the internet, while getting popular back in 2004, was no where near as entrenched as it is now. The media knows that if Clinton runs unopposed by anyone remotely capable of unseating her, it'll be a lackluster primary campaign and she'll win easily. They want and need a dark horse in order to make a media campaign around it. Warren would be perfect because Warren can arguably get 10-15% of the Democratic base relatively easily. All it takes is her to make some grand speeches, rag on Clinton for being rich and a Wall Street lackey, and Clinton loses debates hand over fist, then her numbers jump to 40-50%, which is very much like what happened with Obama (though Clinton made too many mistakes in trying to make herself out to be more experienced than Obama).

The deliberate use of the same excuse that rapists have been using for centuries - that is only possible with a woman. And it is such a blatant example of rape culture I am surprised you do not see it. It is not only a refusal to accept that Sen. Warren hasn't given consent to run, but also a deliberate dismissal of her knowledge of her own wants and desires. The Dem source, if it exists, or the journalist is saying that he knows better than her what she wants - that he knows her mind better than her. She wants it - her verbal no is her lying to herself, because he knows that she wants it. That is a narrative taken straight from a rapist's mouth as he explains that what he did wasn't rape, because he knew that she wanted it. The journalist/source is using that narrative, and it is rape culture that makes people talk about the "rape culture gambit" because it is too uncomfortable to hear the truth!

No one ever said "Al Gore is still deciding."

The whole point of the Draft Gore movement was to draft him.

something she seems very serious about is borderline sexist. I don't think it resembles rape/sexual assault and refusing to honor a woman's boundaries there, but there is a sexist element to it.

I don't recall ever seeing a male candidate's firm decision not to run treated this way. She has asked folks attempting to set up PACs not to do it. If anything says "I'm not running for sure" directing people not to set up PACs and not do similar organization is a pretty serious tell.

She has said straight out, many times, that she does not want to run for President. She is entitled to change her mind, but we are not entitled to refuse to accept her no. And we are certainly not entitled to believe that we know better than her what she really wants. And to treat it that way, which you admit we would not do to a man, is exactly what rape culture is. It is the general belief that a woman does not know what she wants, that her consent or refusal of consent is fluid and can be disregarded if we think we know better than her what she wants. It is the acceptance that we have the right to mount campaigns to pressure her to give consent, because we do not like that she doesn't want to. How can that not resemble rape or sexual assault? Sexual assault is ignoring a refusal, or not making sure that consent has been given, or disregarding the fact that someone cannot give consent. The first is what we are doing to Sen. Warren, and the phrasing of that tweet is most certainly lifted straight from rape culture - she says she doesn't want it, but she does, says the rapist.

Rape culture isn't a culture where all men rape all women, it is a culture where consent is overridden, where refusal is doubted, where the integrity of a person's choices are ignored. It is a culture where women's 'no' isn't worth as much as a man's.

it doesn't matter that she says no? And it doesn't matter if someone says that they can hear her say no, but think her eyes say yes?

Remind me never to get alone in a room with you.

in 1980 kept saying till they were blue in the face that they had no intentions of running - but I guess their supporters convinced them to do just that. I guess they were raped?

I think this has got to be the most desperate and depraved argument I have ever read on DU. To put rape in the same category as trying to convince someone to lead the free world is just downright sick.

And as I stated below I do not think Sen. Warren is going to run and I hope to be supporting Sen. Sanders. But there is no excuse for an OP like this -- sick -- just plain sick.

Smells like steer manure to me. I'm really glad we didn't listen to Obama when he said "no I'm not running for President"

Our media keeps hitting new horrific lows.

We will never make any progress toward changing cultural misogynistic attitudes in this country as long as we keep whining over nothing burger bullshit like this.

unless we point out things like this. Because this underpins our very culture, it is built on this, and unless we challenge the belief that a woman's refusal is not the end of the matter, every time it rears its ugly head, we won't come very far in changing things.

This could just as easily been said about a male politician. You are overreacting and seeing things that aren't there.

Then Teddy Kennedy saying the same thing over and over and over again about running in 1980 and said clearly and unambiguously that he intended to support President Carter's reelection.

I guess their supporters refused to listen to them and must have also thought that their mouths said no, but their eyes said yes. I guess the two Sen. Kennedy's were confronting a rape culture too.

Although frankly, I personally doubt Sen. Warren is going to run. I tend to think she means it.

that, I know that. The fact that Teddy said he was not running and did or that Bobby did has nothing at all to do with it. It is not what is said but how it is said.
Example
A: She's revealing her intentions slowly for dramatic effect.
or
B : She's doing a sort of strip tease with her intentions.

Both say the same thing. Can you spot the difference?

obviously that tweet was terrible. The premise that the hundreds of thousands of men and women who want Sen. Warren to run even though she says she is not just like Bobby and Teddy Kennedy said they were not is somehow the moral equivalency of rape is just downright loony.

honest and truthful and not run.

I admire her, and take her at her word.

I think any Democratic Candidate will be infinitely better than any Republican Candidate. Warren's hat remains firmly on her head. But she is in a position where she can put enormous pressure on any Democratic Candidate.

I think that is a good place for her to be.

get a clue, phrasing not appropriate at all.

And yes agree Kit, the Dem party needs to work hard on eliminating their misogyny it is alienating.

Step away the smart phone, Philip Rucker, and then think about what you've done.