What’s amazing is that these guys–who are presumably savvy, gender-sensitive, liberal, etc.–are so completely clueless about their biases and perceptions. She’ll agonize over long meetings with them, where she’ll make an empirical case, citing incident after incident of their behavior, and only after the overwhelming mountain of evidence will they concede that maybe she has a point. But then they continue to do it again and again. It drives her nuts, and even though she’s the most driven and competent person I’ve ever known or worked with (we were colleagues before we were friends and more), it still has a cumulatively demoralizing effect on her. It’s really rough.
Do you remember that Doritos commercial where the a business work team of four is in an office–the woman at the laptop, the 3 guys shooting the breeze staring out the window–and when she finishes the project, they all congratulate each other for a great team effort? Sometimes that’s what her day entirely consists of (although largely without the humor).
So I can understand how women of a certain age and experience (which largely constituted Hillary’s most reliable base) can look at the campaign and draw some (IMHO, false) analogies to what they see and encounter still. I don’t think it helped that the media could not be counted on to be as gender-sensitive as it is (mostly out of fear) racially-sensitive. But POTUS isn’t like being next-in-line for promotion, and the fact that many thought she “earned” the right to believe it was is where the seeds of this disconnect–and subsequent rage/resentment–were planted.
But I think a lot of the misogyny she encountered had to do specifically with her, and not just any woman. I live in a state with two female senators, and they never ever receive the same type of treatment that she does. But they also don’t have the same baggage–both personal and political. Clinton had created an image for herself that she now kept trying to massage and redefine as expediency demanded, plus she had a reputation from her husband’s presidency that conveniently crossed a take-no-prisoners and victim/martyrlike persona.
As reprehensible as some of those soundbites (on Fox and others) were, I don’t doubt for a second that it wouldn’t have been as overwhelming in volume or negativity if it had been another woman, even a Democrat. But Hillary supporters seemed unwilling to see why this baggage and history made her a fundamentally bad choice for a nominee in many others’ eyes–not because she was a woman (or a “strong” woman, a “tough” woman, an “opinionated” woman), but because she was–for better and for worse–simply Her.
I really, really hope that the convention proves to be a significant forum to demonstrate the joy and anticipation and excitement that an Obama candidacy represents. I want to believe that many of the Hillary supporters will see this enthusiasm not as a cultish personality sweepstakes but as the party’s best chance to accomplish what Hillary’s platform claimed to be about.
This will take some diplomacy on Obama’s part, but it will also require some genuine humility on the part of Hillary and her most fervent followers. They will have to admit that she wasn’t the only Magic Bullet to the problems this country faces, and to vote for McCain out of any residual resentment or anger will be to cut off their noses to spite their faces.
In addition to the CIC threshold comment, the way she used race as a wedge issue WAS shocking to me. Encouraging the notion that she had a lock on “hard working white people” (which was also a lie) WAS shocking to me. The way she and Bill drove black voters away from their campaign in order to gain credibility with potentially racist white voters WAS shocking to me. I guess you can say that it was politics as usual, but even still, I did not expect this from Bill and Hillary Clinton of all people.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it will have any impact on these people.
I just briefly checked out the pumapac blog, and the anger these people feel has not subsided one bit.
Maybe in a pre-blog society, these people would have no way to communicate, and their anger may have slowly dissipated. But now, with all the easy organization and communication that the Internet allows, blogs like pumapac are becoming an echo chamber and everyone is feeding on everyone’s else energy and resentment.
There is a chance that they are simply a very vocal minority, without enough numbers to make a difference, like the Ron Paul people in the Republican side. But, it seems to me that people may be underestimating what effect this movement will have in November.
In any case, the “arguments” they make are completely irrational. It’s funny that in a blog post where the writer calls for people to give reasons for wanting to protest the 2008 election, and calls on them to give specific, all the responses amount to “we were betrayed”, “our voices were ignored”, etc. Completely insane. Get a fucking grip on reality, already.
This is a strawman. You can point out your opponent’s weaknesses to give yourself an advantage, or you can do what she did: Make him seem completely unacceptable and incapable of doing the job, and even worse than the opponent from the other party (especially at a time when your opponent has a very high probability of being your party’s nominee)
If this is so common that we shouldn’t be shocked, can you give us some examples from recent elections where this has been done?
She is a lawyer with an Ivy League education and real-world experience as a litigator. (Do any of our current justices have experience as civil litigators?) She has experience (and therefore perspective) in both the executive and legislative branches of government.
You think only law professors should get appointments?
Personally, I’d rather Obama would appoint someone younger (who could therefore hold the post longer), but Hillary is fully qualified to be a justice.
Well, it’s a precedent for a forner First Lady to lay claim to that as relevant, professional experience as a candidate for the Presidency. Of course, it’s a precedent for a former First Lady to be a candidate at all, but historically, First ladies have not been viewed as being part of the Executive Branch, or really being part of the government at all.
Moving from the general to the specifc, though, Hillary is Hillary and she wasn’t like other First Ladies. Her real argument (that everybody gets) is that she’s Hillary, but that’s a hard thing to qualify in conventional CV terms. Technically, she does not have Executive experience, but in practical, real world terms, I think she does (in ways that most First Ladies do not).
Right, but we’re not talking about Hillary claiming the experience as candidate for the Presidency. We’re talking about claiming the experience as candidate for the Supreme Court. There’s a difference.
If I’m considering Hillary as a presidential candidate, I might discount her “experience” as first lady, because that experience wouldn’t really tell me whether she has the leadership skills to run the show herself.
On the other hand, if I’m considering her as a candidate for the Supreme Court, the question is not whether she has acquired presidential skills, but whether she has acquired an academic and practical understanding of how the executive branch is run. Such knowledge could be very useful on the bench in cases involving the executive branch or conflicts between the executive branch and other branches, or in simply understanding how laws are enforced by the executive branch and its departments.
Why? There are plenty of justices already who have that experience. (And sitting on a bench involves a very narrow skill set, by the way. Anyone with brains and some experience practicing law can easily make the transition to being a judge.)
I’d rather broaden the experience base of the court, and Hillary has a pretty broad base of experience.
This idea that only federal judges or law professors should be nominated to the Supreme Court is a recent one, and I think we need to move away from it.
Paglia’s my kind of feminist, the real kind who recognizes faux-feminism in the guise of personal ambition fueled by self-pity. I wonder if Hillary’s disgusting campaign tactics could lose her seat in 2012? Not the one that (barely) fits into those pants-suits, that would be an impossible dream, but her Senate seat. I know I’ll vote for anyone who opposes her in the primary (and I’ll register Demo. just to vote in the primary) and I’ll probably contribute and work the phones for anyone who isn’t a total sleazeball.
Given that many (if not most) people assumed that the Senate seat was merely a vital stepping stone towards a Presidential bid, the big question is whether she will continue to stick around the Senate at all or move on to “greener” private or political pastures.
