The politics of nipple rings: Where do Clinton and Obama really stand?

Here's one thing that the two remaining Democratic candidates for president have not yet argued over -- nipple rings.

We haven't heard a peep out of either Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama about this pointed issue that's been all over the news in recent days. Maybe then, the nation can move along in this seemingly endless political stalemate over their party's nomination.

(By the way, have you voted yet on whether Clinton should just give up and get out of the race? Click here to cast your crucial ballot.)

In the five years this Democratic presidential campaign seems to have been underway, the two presidential wannabes have debated pretty much everything else of real significance for the nation's future -- whether Obama's grandmother is a typical white person, whether Clinton prefers diamonds or pearls, what someone once wrote in a kindergarten paper.

Revealing his proclivity for government secrecy, Obama even refused to disclose what kind of underpants he wears, if you can imagine such a thing in a society where a magazine offers an ex-governor a bundle of money to pose nude.

So, all that's left really are Mandi Hamlin's nipple rings. She thought she....

was simply headed for a 351-mile flight from Lubbock to Dallas, Texas. But she set off the airport metal detector. And when the agent of the Transportation Security Administration passed the magic metal-detecting wand over her, uh, chest, it beeped.

According to Hamlin, she announced that, well, yes, she was wearing metal nipple rings. Another agent was called over and he announced in return that she'd have to remove them in order to board. The TSA website does warn that body piercings may have to come out if they excite the alarms.

Hamlin says she got one out all right, but had trouble with the other. And -- if you're squeamish, you may want to move straight to the next paragraph -- the agent gave her a pair of pliers, which she used to twist the metal thing out of her nipple.

Hamlin recalls she was in pain and crying and that, once scanned again, she was allowed to board her flight, although she was still wearing another undetected ring in her navel. She also says she overheard male security agents snickering and has endured further pain because she's actually chosen to reinsert the metal pieces into her body. And she wants an apology.

She got better than that. A TSA spokesman in Salt Lake City, Dwayne Baird, said once a metal detector alarm sounds, "until that is resolved, we're not going to let them go through the checkpoint, no matter what they're wearing or where they're wearing it."

And the agency announced that while procedures were properly followed with Hamlin, it would prevent such future discomfort by giving a passenger the option of a visual inspection by a TSA agent.

If Obama and Clinton don't think this is a political issue, they should know that Hamlin has retained as her attorney someone named Gloria Allred.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Comments

[bulwark]

I don't feel sorry for her in the least. If infants and grandmas get searched, so should a nipple-ring wearing adult female. If I have to take my belt and shoes off, she can remove her metal jewelry.

[Matha Davidson]

STORY BEHIND THE CLINTON MYTH

One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.

Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic super delegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party's most reliable constituency.

Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote -- which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle -- and use that achievement to pressure super delegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.

People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.

As it happens, many people inside Clinton's campaign live right here on Earth. One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.

In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe.

Politico's top editors draw on their experience at the nation's largest news organizations to pull back the curtain on coverage decisions and the media mindset.

Journalists have become partners with the Clinton campaign in pretending that the contest is closer than it really is. Most coverage breathlessly portrays the race as a down-to-the-wire sprint between two well-matched candidates, one only slightly better situated than the other to win in August at the national convention in Denver.

One reason is fear of embarrassment. In its zeal to avoid predictive reporting of the sort that embarrassed journalists in New Hampshire, the media -- including Politico -- have tended to avoid zeroing in on the tough math Clinton faces.

Avoiding predictions based on polls even before voters cast their ballots is wise policy. But that's not the same as drawing sober and well-grounded conclusions about the current state of a race after millions of voters have registered their preferences.

The antidote to last winter's flawed predictions is not to promote a misleading narrative based on the desired but unlikely story line of one candidate.

There are other forces also working to preserve the notion of a contest that is still up for grabs.

One important, if subliminal, reason is self-interest. Reporters and editors love a close race -- it's more fun and it's good for business.

The media are also enamored of the almost mystical ability of the Clintons to work their way out of tight jams, as they have done for 16 years at the national level. That explains why some reporters are inclined to believe the Clinton campaign when it talks about how she's going to win on the third ballot at the Democratic National Convention in August.

That's certainly possible -- and, to be clear, we'd love to see the race last that long -- but it's folly to write about this as if it is likely.

It's also hard to overstate the role the talented Clinton camp plays in shaping the campaign narrative, first by subtly lowering the bar for the performance necessary to remain in the race, and then by keeping the focus on Obama's relationships with a political fixer and a controversial pastor in Illinois.

But even some of Clinton's own advisers now concede that she cannot win unless Obama is hit by a political meteor. Something that merely undermines him won't be enough. It would have to be some development that essentially disqualifies him.

Simple number-crunching has shown the long odds against Clinton for some time.

In the latest Associated Press delegate count, Obama leads with 1,406 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,249. Obama's lead is likely to grow, as it did with county conventions last weekend in Iowa, as later rounds of delegates are apportioned from caucuses he has already won.

The Democratic Party has 794 super delegates, the party insiders who get to vote on the nomination in addition to the delegates chosen by voters.
According to Politico's latest tally, Clinton has 250 and Obama has 212.
That means 261 are uncommitted, and 71 have yet to be named.

An analysis by Politico's Avi Zenilman shows that Clinton's lead in super delegates has shrunk by about 60 in the past month. And it found Clinton is roughly tied among House members, senators and governors -- the party's most powerful elite.

Clinton had not announced a new super delegate commitment since the March 4 primaries, until the drought was broken recently by Rep. John P. Murtha
(D-Pa.) and West Virginia committeeman Pat Maroney.

Clintonistas continue to talk tough. Phil Singer, the Clinton campaign's deputy communications director, told reporters on a conference call Friday that the Obama campaign "is in hot water" and is "seeing the ground shift away from them."

Mark Penn, the campaign's chief strategist, maintained that it's still "a hard-fought race between two potential nominees" and that other factors could come into play at the convention besides the latest delegate tally -- "the popular vote, who will have won more delegates from primaries [as opposed to caucuses], who will be the stronger candidate against McCain."

But let's assume a best-case scenario for Clinton, one where she wins every remaining contest with 60 percent of the vote (an unlikely outcome since she has hit that level in only three states so far -- her home state of New York, Rhode Island and Arkansas).

Even then, she would still be behind Obama in delegates.

There are 566 pledged delegates up for grabs in upcoming contests. Those delegates come from Pennsylvania (158), Guam (4) North Carolina (115), Indiana (72), West Virginia (28), Kentucky (51), Oregon (52), Puerto Rico (55), Montana (16) and South Dakota (15).

If Clinton won 60 percent of those delegates, she would get 340 delegates to Obama's 226. Under that scenario -- and without revote in Michigan and Florida -- Obama would still lead in delegates by 1,632 to 1,589.

The only remote possibility of a win in delegates would come if revote were held in Florida and Michigan -- which, again, would take a political miracle.
If Clinton won 60 percent of the delegates in both states, she would win 188 delegates and Obama would win 125. Clinton would then lead among pledged delegates, 1,777 to 1,757.

The other elephant in the room for Clinton is that Obama is almost certain to win North Carolina, with its high percentage of African-American voters, and also is seen as extremely strong in Oregon.

Harold Ickes, an icon of the Democratic Party who is Clinton's chief delegate strategist, points out that every previous forecast about this race has been faulty.

Asked about the Obama campaign's contention that it's mathematically impossible for Clinton to win, Ickes replied: "They can't count. At the end of it, even by the Obama campaign's prediction, neither candidate will have enough delegates to be nominated."

This is true, as a matter of math. But even the Clinton campaign's own best-case scenario has her finishing behind Obama when all the nominating contests are over.

"She will be close to him but certainly not equal to him in pledged delegates," a Clinton adviser said. "When you add the super delegates on top of it, I'll think she'll still be behind him somewhat in total delegates -- but very, very close."

The total gap is likely to be 75 to 110, the adviser said.

That means Clinton would need either some of those pledged delegates to switch their support -- which technically they can do, though it would be unlikely -- or for the white-dominated group of super delegates to join forces with her to topple Obama.

To foster doubt about Obama, Clinton supporters are using a whisper and pressure campaign to make an 11th-hour argument to party insiders that he would be a weak candidate in November despite his superior standing at the moment.

"All she has left is the electability argument," a Democratic official said.
"It's all wrapped around: Is there something that makes him ultimately unelectable?"

But the audience for that argument, the super delegates, will not easily overturn the will of the party's voters. And in fact, a number of heavyweight Democrats are looking at the landscape and laying the groundwork to dissuade Clinton from trying to overturn the will of the party rank and file.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has not endorsed either candidate, appears to be among them. She told Bloomberg Television that super delegates should "respect for what has been said by the people." And she told ABC's "This Week" that it would be "harmful to the Democratic Party" if super delegates overturn the outcome of elections.

A Democratic strategist said that given the unlikelihood of prevailing any other way, Clinton now must "scare" super delegates "who basically just want to win."

The strategist said Clinton aides are now relying heavily on the controversy over Obama's retiring minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to sow new seeds of doubt.

"This issue is the first thing that's come along that I think is potentially fatal to his electability argument," the strategist said.

"They're looking ahead and saying: Is it possible this thing is just going to drip, drip, drip, drip -- more video? Where does that leave us if he's our presumptive nominee and he's limping into the convention and the Republicans are just ready to go on him, double-barreled?"

The strategist also said Clinton's agents are making more subtle pitches.

"I've heard people start to say: Have you looked at the vote in Ohio really carefully? See how that breaks down for him. What does that portend?" said the strategist. "Then they point to Pennsylvania: In electoral important battleground states, if he is essentially only carrying heavy African-American turnout in high-performing African-American districts and the Starbucks-sipping, Volvo-driving liberal elite, how does he carry a state like Pennsylvania?"

Her advisers say privately that the nominee will be clear by the end of June. At the same time, they recognize that the nominee probably is clear already.

What has to irk Clintons' aides is that they felt she might finally have him on the ropes, bruised badly by the Wright fight and wobbly in polls. But the bell rang long ago in the minds of too many voters.

[Dura lex sed lex.(Tough law but the law)]

Obama uses a private Jet and is excused from the scanning procedures. He refuses to answer the underware question because of two rings hidden under
the secret garments. A medical professional friend has
told me that such rings when affixed to testicules are
quite effective in correcting one's precocious ejaculation.
A well known expression is beeing changed to Wham¨,
Obam...thank you mam.

[keith]

I read your writing Martha, and all I can say is that for Hillary to attempt to persuade on issues of electabilty, that's really the pot calling the kettle black ( no pun) as her negatives are extremely high. That argument should fly like a rock. As a matter of my own opinion, super delegates foiling the popular drumbeat of the primary process would be disenfranchisement on the grandest scale possible. The Democrat party is flirting with disaster and, after all of the considerable failures of the recently elected Democrat Congress, should consider the future of the party carefully with this nomination. I would have never dreamed this primary process would peel back the onion so deeply of the Democrat party soul and that this is what we would find. I myself am disappointed.

[Girl with the bushy armpits]

To : Martha Davidson
You always leave that R out and it irks regular folks.
You fail to touch on the subject wich is Nipple rings,
MARTHA , HELLO ? Your long winded snow-job reminds us of
the never ending speeches of that verbose guy who
needs to brush-up on his bowling skills and learn to tell
the difference between the teachings of the Gospel and
hatefull anti-American racist hogwash.
If you cant sell em...then confuse em ! Thats the story behind your beside the point dissertation. And ,lastly,stay
away from creative mathematics

[Rooty tooty]

Matha Davidson

Besides a couple of well deserved derogatory comments
your laborious monologue seems to have fallen flat.
Try again and this time make sure you have a valid point.

[Nipple jewelry]

How do we get from Obama's underwear to non piercing nipple jewelry? Try www.nipplecharms.com as they have some kewl stuff. go obamba!

Salli