It continues to amaze me how many intelligent people are convinced that the media coverage of Hillary Clinton and the votes in South Carolina and Iowa prove that the country is ready for a black President but not a female one.
For example, one of the less hysterical and better written posts, from Jeff Dinelli at The Left Coaster, says:
At the same time, however, it’s abundantly evident that this same country is not necessarily ready to support the candidacy of a strong woman looking to lead from the Oval Office. The most discouraging aspect of this uncomfortable truth is the right wing hasn’t floated this theme; indeed, it hasn’t even had a chance to assign its formidable slime machine towards injecting some subtle sexism into the 2008 campaign. No, it’s the media, the lefty netroots and even members of the Democratic Party that have led the runaway train of shoddy treatment handed to Senator Hillary Clinton.
Huh? Hillary Clinton has treated the press like crap for years, and they’re supposed to ignore that? As Frank Rich says:
Since Mr. McCain doesn’t kick reporters like dogs, as the Clintons do, he will no doubt continue to enjoy an advantage, however unfair, with the press pack on the Straight Talk Express.
Hint: that’s not because McCain is male, it’s because he’s not a jerk. True, he’s a militaristic wacko; but that’s far less important to the press than access to the candidate, which Hillary has carefully avoided from the very beginning of the campaign. Jeff continues:
There is no contemporary phenomenon that better represents male sexual anxiety over a woman’s social power than the demonization of Hillary as First Lady.
Say what?
Where’s all this angst coming from? Perhaps these folks are simply Clinton supporters, openly or otherwise; that at least would explain the aggrieved tone. Perhaps they’re unable to see politics as anything other than superficial identities. Perhaps they’re simply angry that others don’t realize how wonderful their choice really is, despite her votes, policies, and lies.
All these explanations have a hint of hypocrisy about them. If you’re for a candidate, complaining about accurate attacks on that candidate is unseemly; if you can point to inaccurate ones, post them. If you choose candidates based on their gender or race or religion, you deserve the crappy Presidents you get. If you can’t see the massive negatives in your chosen candidate’s baggage, you’re disconnected from reality.
It’s particularly rich for Clinton supporters to whine about attacks from other campaigns when the Clintons are among the dirtiest campaigners in my memory, as Bill’s recent forays have made abundantly clear.
Has it occurred to any of these people that the former Goldwater Girl is not and has never been a real Democrat? That you can’t trust her as far as you can throw her? That she was for the war from the beginning and has never renounced that vote? That her main surrogate, her husband, is a lying jerk who’s taking out his latent frustrations with his wife by sabotaging her candidacy? That the last Clinton administration was a disaster for true progressives?
Are we supposed to vote for The Woman, despite the fact that we disagree with all her policies and votes and actions and statements? This is the shallowest of identity politics. Personally I vote for the candidate whose stated policies and known actions are the best fit for what I think the country needs. From my point of view, the difference between Clinton and McCain is trivial.
It’s just such an attitude that has Clinton and Obama partisans claiming that Edwards owes it to the party to drop out of the race. If he doesn’t, they fear, their candidates will be exposed as right-wing shams, and will fail to draw enough Democratic voters to sneak into office. Apparently it’s everyone’s duty to get out of the way; otherwise their candidates will fail.
Hillary is not being treated shoddily; she’s a shoddy candidate. The Clinton lovers, in my opinion, form the base of our national political problem. There aren’t enough right-wing Christians to elect a President — they don’t even control the Republican nominating process these days — and other than a few long-serving Senators, the moderate Republican seems to be an artifact of a different age. The coalition of Christianists, warmongers, and multinational corporations is crumbling, and if the Democratic party had not been destroyed by the DLC, we’d be looking at a bright future in the near term.
But the wimpy liberals continue to dominate the Democratic party, to the detriment of the party and the country as a whole. As the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration put it:
[T]he so-called center has continued to shift to the right because conservative Republicans stay put while Democrats keep meeting them halfway.
Real Democrats don’t vote for Clintons. And they don’t blame their candidate’s weakness on the press.
Look, I got stomped over at Echidne's a few days ago for saying that in fact I do value public emotional control in a President.
Also, I don't care for the Clintons because they destroyed public entitlements and fostered the pervasive "security" mentality with which we are now stuck.
HOWEVER, the orthogonal fact remains that Hillary Clinton is getting a type and level of demeaning abuse that no other candidate has to take. This Oliphant cartoon, for example, was inexcusable: http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/po/2008/01/10/
Posted by: Martha Bridegam on January 29, 2008 3:58 AM"Real Democrats don't vote for Clintons." Shut it, bub. Go to Glass Booth and find out which candidates' policy positions best and least match your issues. Kucinich most closely matched my beliefs and my favorite, Edwards, was my third best match; I am a very liberal Democrat. Clinton and Obama are both more moderate than I would prefer, but I will gladly support either as a Democratic candidate. So quit lecturing people to your left what "real Democrats" should not do. Go read the Tom Tomorrow cartoon; he's got you nailed.
Posted by: Craig Nelson on January 29, 2008 1:57 PMI don't mean to be claiming that Hillary isn't ragged on by the media; she certainly is. And she hits them back. It's not a pretty relationship. My claim is not that she's treated like Obama, but that the reason she's treated differently is not because she's female. It's related to her personality and her approach. (Not her policies, reporters are mostly too shallow to care about that.)
I've seen the question posed, if you wouldn't vote for Hillary and you claim it's not because of gender bias, then name a woman you'd vote for. Trivial: Cynthia McKinney, Elizabeth de la Vega, Elizabeth Holzman. And I've already voted for a black man for President, Ron Daniels.
My point is that the problems with the Clinton campaign are not mainly gender-based.
Finally, I don't think anyone who would vote for Clinton is to the left of me philosophically. If you think Clinton would be a good President, I encourage you to vote for her.
Posted by: Chuck Dupree on January 29, 2008 3:15 PMCheck out Glassbooth and see how liberal you are. See if Gravel/Edwards match you on issues or if you are more moderate.
"I don't think anyone who would vote for Clinton is to the left of me philosophically." In 2000, Nader said there was no difference between voting for Bush or for Gore. And Nader got how many votes from the Chuck Dupree's of Florida, with what effect? Idealism is not incompatible with pragmatism, but rigid idealism can be. Polls show that unnamed Democrat stomps unnamed Republican in 2008, but the results are much closer for some of the specific contests. Go look at the Tom Tomorrow cartoon to see where your attitude leads. I object to that attitude, not the Clinton-press discussion. It's at:
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2008/01/28/tomo/
Like yourself, a lot of Dems (and Dem bloggers)are choosing sides and picking their favorite and their reasons. It's been a wonderful race, with the candidates essentially sharpening their weapons for the real war.
I don't understand how anyone can expect Hillary to possibly allow more intimate access to a press corps which for the most part has ridiculed and even villified her, her daughter, her husband, her life, and her career, for a generation. Your post is a variation on the theme, that somehow you can be nice, and yet play to win in one of the world's toughest arenas. The bottom line is this. Bill and Hillary are the best political operators on the American stage. They have been, for oh I don't know, maybe 16 or 20 years? Bill's not gone rogue! Every thing is calculated, and if you will, triangulated. Barack just joins the long trail of "victims" that got beaten by them on the night of the vote. They win, in spite of how the press treats them or how they treat the press. It will continue to be ugly, on its face, and some times for real, until Obama, who really seems to strike some of us as the same type of big-machine politician with 20 or so years less experience (and granted, a better oratorical style), accepts the offer to be her running mate. Then we all better get behind them! What could be more indicative of progress, if that is indeed the root of "progressive", than the election next November of the first woman and the first minority to the nation's highest office? The potential to mobilize the female and the minority vote in this great nation should and does scare the shit out of this Fucktard Admistration and the Grand Old Party that used to claim them.
You can think McCain looks good by contrast, if you wish, but to that I would say that we've never seen him run from the front. I think he will prove himself no more substantial under fire than any of the other "Reagan Reduxes".
Wow! Thanks for inspiring me to type all that. It must have been when you quoted Frank Rich.
Cheers.
Glassbooth is interesting but nowhere near convincing. Same goes for the VoteMatch quiz:
http://www.speakout.com/VoteMatch/senate2006.asp?quiz=2008
But we're not really taking this to be solid information, are we? Does a result from Glassbooth indicate beyond question the truth of the matter?
Such quizzes are simply some group's take on the election. They are interpreting statements by the candidates according to their understandings of those statements. This is not factual or provable; it's thoughtful, to some extent informed, and often useful, but not true in any formal sense.
There are two main issues with such quizzes. First, have the groups posting the questions interpreted statements from the candidates accurately, and translated/simplified them accurately into checkbox-quizzes? That's a non-trivial problem with lots of room for error. Second, does the voter believe that the candidates will act on what they say?
And there's the rub. Hillary started repeating the word "Change!" as soon as Iowa was over. She was never about change before that time. I personally don't believe a word she says. My original point was that my issues with her are not gender-based; as evidence I offer the fact that I didn't believe a word her husband said either. I didn't vote for him either time, and wouldn't vote for either of them no matter who they run against. Unless, as I said at Corrente recently, they were to designate Siddhartha Gautama as running mate.
And I grant you that Nader was a factor in Florida. To be precise, he was the third most important factor, after the cheating by the Republicans, and the wooden and unconvincing candidate the Democrats nominated. Two questions: why do people blame Nader for Gore's failure to excite voters and to complain about being screwed? After all, Nader didn't keep him from winning; he won, but he didn't have the courage to pursue it. And why are DLC Democrats so convinced that everyone else, no matter how disgusting they find the DLC candidate, is required to dump their principles, hold their noses, and acquiesce in electing someone they don't want? Answer: because it's the only way such candidates can win.
BTW, I hold no brief for Obama either. His attempt to rise above partisan politics is childish. How well is that likely to work in competition with Mitch McConnell?
Posted by: Chuck Dupree on January 30, 2008 2:39 AMOops, meant to reply to Foam Boy's comment also. I agree that it's unreasonable to expect Hillary to be friendly with the press. It's also clear that the Clintons have never been the open, friendly kind of politician, like, say McCain, who I wouldn't vote for if he ran against Hitler, but you gotta admit he's affable. Bill is indeed the smoothest, one might even say slickest, politician we've seen for a while. Hillary is not in the league below the league below him.
And progress comes from policy, not from skin color or gender.
Posted by: Chuck Dupree on January 30, 2008 2:44 AMFor an example of the problems involved in simplifying a candidate's positions into checkboxes, look at Steve Clemons's post:
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002763.php
Someone forwarded me an email to take this American Public Media quiz that would select my preferred candidate based on my policy preferences. It's a very appealing approach to abstract away personalities and nuance and purport to objectively measure candidates simply on the issues. And it appears to be quite popular with 11570 responses last I checked.Posted by: Chuck Dupree on January 30, 2008 3:36 AMBut like all empirical research, there's the inevitable mediation of data that injects a set of assumptions, personal interpretations, and delimitation of options, all of which can problematize such a test. And I happened upon a fairly significant one in this test when it came to the candidate's positions on Iran.
Chuck,
Thanks for considering the Glassbooth suggestion. You had 2 objections.
For the first, you can look at the statements on which the ratings are based and see if the translations are sensible. The few I looked at seemed fine. If you are especially knowledgeable, you can judge if the selected statements are representative; I took their word for it. Glassbooth only claims to match your stated positions with the candidates stated positions, and I think it does a fairly good job of that. Your second objection -- will candidates, if elected, follow up on their campaign promises and will they succeed in delivering on them -- is clearly a different question.
If you voted for Clinton neither time and wish to downplay Nader voters' role in the disaster of the last 8 years and wouldn't vote for Hillary in a close race against McCain, that's your privilege. Too bad its my and 300 million other people's country. If you can tell me that I'm not a real Democrat because I would vote for my third choice in the general election, I can tell you that you are quixotic.
I don't think Obama's rhetoric about unity is ineffective even if I don't weigh it highly, so childish doesn't seem like a measured assessment. I don't know how he and the Senate Majority leader and the VP would deal with Mitch McConnell. Certainly Mitch would be in a much less powerful position without a Republican president, but the Senate was constructed to be the restraint on excesses of majority rule. Jim Crow lived for a century while the Senate was the graveyard of civil rights bills. I don't think Obama would be much more or less effective than Clinton or Edwards.
Posted by: on January 30, 2008 3:54 AMCraig (I assume),
I wouldn't claim that anyone is or is not what they want to be based on how they voted; everyone can and should vote the way they believe is best. But I would claim that the connection between what I consider the true Democratic party, as embodied by Franklin Roosevelt for example, has a connection that's tenuous at best with the triangulators of the DLC. The name is the same; the goals seem to me entirely different, to the point of being opposite. FDR attempted, however autocratically, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. The Clintons, it seems to me, do the opposite but are neither open nor honest about their goals. But that's my take. I'd love it if everyone realized that I'm right, but I agree that's unlikely to happen.
I do claim that by voting for the second-worst candidate we get crappy officials, and it's no one's fault but ours.
And I agree that McConnell et.al. will try the same tricks regardless of who's President. The question is which tack the President takes: fighting for regular folks, who are against the war and don't want to privatize Social Security; working out an agreement with the ultra-rich individuals and the companies that financed the election campaign; or attempting to rise above the fight to find areas of agreement with McConnell and his minions. The third option seems to me the least likely to work. The second option would work, but would screw me and everyone I care about and respect. The first is, in my opinion, the only approach likely to help. There are no guarantees, but as I teach my chess students, the right plan is more likely to succeed than the wrong one. Execution is certainly an issue, but no matter how well one executes a plan that screws me, I remain screwed.
Posted by: Chuck Dupree on January 30, 2008 4:56 AMHey, isn't ole Mitch up for reelection this year? Why can't he leave along with Bush and the Secretary of Labor? I hear he's got dirty linen of all kinds, and a credible challenger could get a lot of blog money.
Posted by: Joyful Alternative on January 30, 2008 6:36 PMHow come I can't get a $300,000 discount on a new house like Obama? Seems lkie business as usual. How is he going to change anything?
Posted by: SS in Bismarck on January 31, 2008 1:59 PM