Hillary’s Obstacle 2016 Course

For all the talk that Hillary Clinton may be invincible in 2016, the woman does have baggage.  Plus she has Bill who can be both a secret weapon and a gun held to one's own head.  The their is the visceral hatred that some on the far right hold for Hillary, probably in part because they view here as an uppity woman who doesn't know her place.  Can't you hear the Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land decrying Hillary's failure to be submissive?  A column in the New York Times looks at the obstacles that Hillary may face if, indeed, she makes a play for the White House in 2016.  Here are highlights:

Reince Priebus made a joke on Sunday.  I don’t know that he meant to — comedy isn’t his forte — but the only way to hear one of his comments on “Meet the Press” was as a put-on. He said that Hillary Clinton wouldn’t run for the presidency if “she has another month like she just had,” with questions about Monica, about Benghazi, about Boko Haram, about her brain.

I almost fell down. For one thing, she’s had countless months like that. For another, they’re the only kind on the horizon: Hillary as the fodder for the morning talk shows (on Sunday’s panels, she came up 98 times, according to a Washington Post tally) and Hillary as a piñata for late-night comedians; strenuously marketed Hillary scandals with a modicum of merit and strenuously marketed Hillary scandals with none.

If Republicans believed in global warming, they’d surely divine her hand in it.

With all politicians, you worry about the intensity of the hunger that enables them to suffer the snows of Iowa and the slings and arrows of outrageous pundits. With Hillary and Bill, you worry that it’s rapaciousness beyond bounds.

You also grow weary. The Clintons are exhausting. And that’s just one of many drawbacks worth discussing as Hillary plays Hamlet, mulling what to do.

She’s without doubt the contender to bet on. But she’s a contender with baggage and obstacles that get woefully short shrift in all the nonstop chatter about her inevitability.

For starters, Americans have been in a pessimistic mood for an unusually sustained period, their faith in the political system at rock bottom. How does someone who’s been front and center in that system for more than two decades — who’s a symbol of intense partisan warfare — become the voice of change?

He [Bill Clinton] was also serving notice that despite his screw-ups during Hillary’s 2008 campaign, it may be impossible to muzzle him in 2016. Just last week, on yet another stage, he again joined the fray, proclaiming Hillary blameless for Benghazi and vouching that her concussion was merely that. There’s a thin line between chivalry and butting in. Can he stay on the right side of it? If not, he could hurt her candidacy, overshadowing her and undercutting her feminist story line.

She has additional challenges. If Obama’s approval rating doesn’t rise, his would-be successors will be best served by breaking with him. For Hillary that’s hard. Given her history on health insurance, she can’t run against the Affordable Care Act. Given her role in his administration, she can’t run against his foreign policy.  How does she simultaneously defend and defy him? It’s a balancing act that Al Gore never perfected in regard to her husband.

The last month has indeed been instructive, demonstrating how practiced Republicans are at attacking her — and how exuberant they are about it. I think they want her to run. She’s the devil they know. She’s the dragon worth slaying.

Maybe any sense of staleness will be expunged by the prospect of a first female president, but she lacks an opportunity that many successful presidential candidates enjoyed: that period of the rollout when a more detailed biography emerges, a personality is defined and voters get a chance to swoon.

We can’t fall in love that way with Hillary, not at this point. We’re too far past the roses and Champagne.

Hillary certainly has her issues, but compared to the possible GOP opponents, she still looks better.

 

Selective Feminism

The Washington Post has an op-ed column today that looks at a less than pretty side to feminism - the unequal support that black women seemed to receive from otherwise militant (or at least dedicated) feminists. What prompted the column is the silence of many feminists as Michelle Obama is finding herself subject to all kinds of bashing by minions of the far right who, truth be told, are anti-black as well as anti-anyone else who doesn't look just like them. Were Michelle Obama white, I suspect would have many main stream feminist up in arms and sceaming foul. Sadly, it is one more testament to the distance this nation still needs to cover before we have a society that is colorblind. Here are some highlights:

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Michelle Obama has become an issue in the presidential campaign even though she isn't running for anything. An educated, successful lawyer, devoted wife and caring mother has been labeled "angry" and unpatriotic and snidely referred to as Barack Obama's "baby mama." Democrats, Republicans, independents, everyone should be offended. And this black woman is wondering: Where are Obama's feminist defenders?

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What does Gloria Steinem think? She was out front with her support of Clinton, promoting the importance of a female president. She has even endorsed Barack Obama. What's her reaction now that the knives are out for another strong woman? How about Geraldine Ferraro, the former vice presidential nominee whose racially tinged denunciations of Barack Obama sparked a media firestorm? Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, has said: "We're going to keep watching because we think Michelle Obama will be the recipient of the same kind of attacks that Hillary was." A feminist ray of hope.

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I've long been frustrated, as a black woman and a feminist, with our national conversation. I didn't hear the cause speaking up for women of color or for women who have always worked in blue-collar or service jobs. Choice was not their issue. The woman who employed my educated mother to clean her house never quite saw her as a sister in the struggle for equality.

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But in America, there's seldom a cost for disrespecting black women. I'm waiting for feminists who speak of second-class citizenship and being pushed to the back of the bus to remember the civil rights movement that gave birth to those words. After all, it was a black woman, Rosa Parks, who took her seat up front and pulled others there, too.

Hillary Clinton - Anti-Feminist

I spoke last night by telephone with my mother and as is the norm in my family, part of the conversation drifted to politics and her wish that Hillary would get out of the campaign for president. In fact, she said she's so sick of hearing about Hillary and/or clips of her speaking that she has cut back on watching TV news programs. She just wishes Hillary would go away and again commented about other former Republicans who would vote for McCain rather than Hillary.

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While never a militant feminist, as the youngest of three daughters, my mother was raised by her dad as if she were the son he never had, for many years had her own career - plus significant assets of her own - and was never the meek house wife completely dominated by "the man of the house." She would and did put my father in his place. Perhaps she should have done it more often, but Tammy Wynette she wasn't. Thus, I think she typifies many older women in the voting pool. And her views are much like those of Camille Paglia based on Paglia's column in today's Daily Telegraph entitled "Why women shouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton."

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In many ways Paglia is right on point. Hillary makes use of the feminist mantra, but in fact acts quite the opposite - particularly in staying married to sleaze boy, Slick Willie. A number of my female friends still back Hillary because "she's one of us." Truth be told, she's not, but they cannot see it and do not want to hear it explained to them. Perhaps coming from another woman, the criticisms will sink in. Here are some column highlights:

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All women, on pain of excommunication from the feminist claque, must now support Hillary. Never mind her spotty record or her naked political expediency. Any woman with the temerity to endorse Barack Obama (as I do) is condemned as a "traitor" to her sex. "Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life," trumpeted Steinem earlier this year in an article promoting Hillary in the New York Times. Barriers of race, class or economics are waved away as mere frippery.

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Hillary's voter base consists of middle-aged to elderly white women who identify with her caustic, stubborn, bulldog resilience. Humiliated and upstaged by her philandering husband, Hillary is the champion of an army of women who were stymied, betrayed or outmanoeuvred by men. Over the past year, whenever her cowed male opponents mildly rebutted Hillary in debate, her campaign jumped into über-feminist mode: male bullies, they screeched, "ganging up" on a helpless damsel.

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Losing ground with other core groups - notably her own cohort of upper-middle-class, baby-boom career woman - Hillary played the gender card to the max. When polling showed she had seemed too harsh to the caucus-goers of Iowa, she rolled out teary eyes for New Hampshire, which handed her a primary victory. Hillary will scratch, claw, and morph through every gender trick if it rakes in votes.

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Whatever her official feminist credo, Hillary's public career has glaringly been a subset to her husband's success. Despite her reputation for brilliance, she failed the Washington, DC bar exam. Thus her migration to Little Rock was not simply a selfless drama for love; she was fleeing the capital where she had hoped to make her mark. In Little Rock, every role that Hillary played was obtained via her husband's influence - from her position at the Rose Law Firm to her seat on the board of Wal-Mart to her advocacy for public education reform.

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The argument, therefore, that Hillary's candidacy marks the zenith of modern feminism is specious. Feminism is not well served by her surrogates' constant tactic of attributing all opposition to her as a function of entrenched sexism. Well into her second term as a US Senator, Hillary lacks a single example of major legislative achievement. Her career has consisted of fundraising, meet-and-greets and speeches around the world expressing support for women's rights.

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She's a crucifix-wearing, Methodist do-gooder who confidently thinks she's God's agent. There's no room for random eroticism in her calendar. . . . Hillary's recent remarks about politics as a "boys' club" resistant to uppity women was sheer demagoguery. By progressing farther than any woman presidential candidate, she has become a role model for future aspirants. But by attaching herself so blatantly to anti-male rhetoric - particularly in view of her debt to her husband - she is espousing a retrograde brand of feminism no longer applicable to the US.

Conveniently Timed Election Eve Tears

As the father of two highly intelligent and talented daughters, I am all for women’s rights and believe that a woman should be able to hold any public office in the land. In fact, I could easily see my younger daughter running for office – she’s smart, tough at times and surely can hold her own a debate and argument (she’s debated her parents on just about everything since age 4 or younger). Nonetheless, I have to look at Hillary Clinton’s second bout of tears with great cynicism. Through all the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment hearings, Hillary remained dry-eyed. Now, facing the possible prospect that Obama will catch or pass her in tomorrow’s primaries, she shows up conveniently crying on camera again. What gives? If elected, is she going to be in tears in the White House when faced with a difficult situation or is this a campaign stunt? I agree with much of Andrew Sullivan’s analysis (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/02/clinton-the-ant.html) and agree that Hillary needs to either run on her own without Bill’s meddling or give it up. If she cannot rein him in, nobody can. Here are some highlights from Andrew’s remarks:

The second bout of public tears just before a crucial primary vote - after no evidence that Senator Hillary Clinton has a history of tearing up in front of the cameras - provokes the unavoidable question: should feminists actively vote against Clinton to defend the cause of female equality? What marks a true feminist is a woman who gains democratic office through strictly meritocratic means.

Think of Margaret Thatcher: a woman who came from lowly beginnings to master a chemistry degree and a legal career in the 1940s and 1950s, who won a seat in parliament single-handedly and eventually became a three-term prime minister for the Conservative party. Yes: the Conservative party. You think she didn't have to deal with prejudice and chauvinism? More than Hillary Clinton will ever know. But she never engaged for a second in the gender politics and nepotistic shenanigans that Clinton has. Thatcher had a rich husband but he was not a stepping stone to politics. She had two children, but never used them for public attention or photo-ops. She did it all - indisputably - on her own merits. Hillary Clinton could have done the same.

But it became clear pretty soon that the Senate was indeed merely a stepping stone back to the White House. It also became clear that she had absolutely no qualms about using her husband's former office, unrivaled party clout and acute political skills to advance her current, long-planned campaign. Bill was wielded as an attack-dog, in an unprecedented abuse of the prestige and honor of the Oval Office in the service of a campaign proudly dealing in blatant nepotism. It was an act of corruption by a corrupt dynasty fearful they couldn't win re-election without pulling every lever they had.

There were also, of course, the now famous New Hampshire tears - to evoke sympathy. And the blunt appeal on gender grounds alone. And the refusal to disavow the use of her husband for her own political purposes, even as he told lies and cast racist aspersions about her opponent. And, on the eve of Super Tuesday, the tears again. Can you imagine a male politician breaking down in public the day before a crucial vote - and expecting it to help? One day, there will be a woman worth electing to the White House. But not this one.