Dan's Papers - June 13, 2008 - Democratic Women Need Counseling Now

Debbie Foster is one of the more prominent members of the Town of East Hampton. She was a long-time teacher in the Springs School, one of those that those she taught do not forget. She taught gym and coached some of the sports teams, and she was outspoken on the issues of the day. She taught every one of my kids. Her retirement was a big event in this town.

After retiring from teaching, she ran for, and won, a seat on the East Hampton Town Board as a Democrat. She served three terms there and retired from that only a few months ago.

She was in the news last week in a way that she might not have liked, but which is one of the major ways you get in the news here in the early part of the 21st century. She was on YouTube. And she starred in her own little one-and-a-half minute show, as it happened, just moments after she and some other people were thrown out of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel where the Democratic National Convention Rules Committee meeting was being held. You can watch her there, just outside of the meeting, talking to a reporter, trying to control her emotions after being thrown out. Just type in YouTube.com and search for "Deb Foster." In the search, her video is the second one down.

The scene in that hall is tumultuous. Inside, the rules committee is either voting or is about to vote on what to do about Florida and Michigan, which held their votes in the primary earlier than the rules permit and would therefore have to be penalized in some way. The range of things to be done went from nothing, and letting the delegates from those states be seated at the convention and voting (mostly for Hillary), or barring them from having their votes count altogether. Apparently, a compromise was being worked out that would get them all seated and with half a vote, which essentially ensured that Hillary would lose the nomination, and that Obama would get the nomination.

We can go into that another time, but this story is about Deb Foster. She, among other Hillary supporters, saw this compromise for what it was. Something happened in there. And they were physically thrown out of the meeting because they were clogging up the wheels of progress.

On YouTube, Deb Foster is emotional. She's angry, but she's containing that anger as she talks to the reporter. She is also in that disheveled state you get when you are physically thrown out of a room.

Reporter: What's your name?

Foster: Deborah Foster, and I'm a school teacher.

Reporter: Where did you come from?

Foster: Long Island.

Reporter: What happened?

Foster: A bunch of us in the back, obviously upset with the fact that they've taken votes away from the state, were chanting "Denver! Denver!" And these guys swarmed down on me and said, "Let's go, you've had your last chance." And I pulled my arm away and they hung on.

(Foster pulls up her sleeve to show bruises on her arm.)

Reporter: What state are you from?

Foster: New York. I'm just so sad about my party. I've been voting 40 years. Those idiot bosses in there have given me two winners in 40 years, and now they are going to tell us how people are voting and take votes away? The party elite sucks. And that's from a teacher.

Reporter: What do you teach?

Foster: Physical education. Health. I would be embarrassed to show this to the kids.

Reporter: So why did you decide to come down?

Foster: I feel very strongly that this election is being manipulated away from Hillary and it's just not right. And boy, was it reinforced today. The big boys will come out and try and shut us up. There were Obama people chanting downstairs. I watched, and nobody came in on them. I watched. They took two other women away, too.

Out in that hall, the reporter interviewed another Hillary supporter who was thrown out. But this one was not able to contain herself. I found her interview because after the one-minute-and-20-second clip with Debbie takes place, YouTube immediately gives you three suggested clips to watch, suggesting, "If you liked this, you might like these." This clip is one of them.

The woman lashes out into the microphone, but directs her comments at the door to the meeting inside.

"This would never have happened. If a woman hadn't been running for President, they'd have never nominated a black, a man - I think I am allowed to say this, you can say 'black' and 'white.' It's TERRIBLE."

She starts to walk off.

The reporter shouts after her, "Are you going to vote for Obama?"

She turns. "I am THROUGH with this party. And John McCain is going to be the next President of the United States." She stalks off.

Once this past spring, I went to a party in Manhattan for Obama that was held to honor the volunteers, mostly young women, who manned the phones for that candidate and made all the phone calls to get the vote. The party was held in an Upper East Side apartment and was thrown by a group called "Women for Obama." There were lots of speeches and "thank yous" and applause, and among other things, a woman got up and spoke about the fact that after Obama won, if he were to win, there would be a great need for psychologists and other caregivers to help those women who voted for and supported Obama over Hillary and felt guilty about having done so - about having failed to rally themselves behind the candidate of their own gender.

I was there because I am an Obama supporter, but I do have to say I thought it a strange thing to be telling these women. But now, as I see how this has unfolded, I can very well believe how these women who might think they had betrayed others of their gender could be in need of such counseling. Surely the women who supported Hillary are in need of counseling.

This article was written on a laptop at Sagg Main Beach. It became clear to me as I began to write the beginning of this story that I would need the YouTube video transcribed. To save time, I used my cell phone to call the office four miles away, got an intern there, Ryan Engelbert, and asked if he would go online, go to YouTube, play the video and transcribe it into the body copy of an email that he could immediately send to my Gmail account, which had instructions to immediately forward everything to my Verizon account. Thus I got it at the beach. When I got to the part I needed, I got it on the screen of the BlackBerry, then typed it into the laptop. And here you are. Thanks, Ryan.