This primary is like a lantern screen onto which pretty much any cultural construct can be projected.
Kia Gregory recently posted here. She's a good columnist, and she talks about a lot of things that loom hugely in the lives of a lot of people in this city, and which shockingly few other writers touch. But she also wrote this, in a list of reasons why she loves Barack Obama:
Hillary sometimes comes off like an angry drag queen.
and
She’s proven she can’t control her husband.
That's shameful. Actually it is f---ed, the same way Hillary Clinton has been, by everyone, and I mean that in the Catherine MacKinnon sense (subject-verb-object). Gloria Steinem, another very white girl, rightly got in a lot of trouble when she tried to defend her claim that America is more comfortable with (a very certain type of) black man in power, than they are any woman. (Also Kia Gregory, also pretty problematic: "Obama is the better candidate. He just happens to be black. He’s not running as a black candidate.") But there is some there, there.
I was watching Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer on tv, with the sound off, and I was thinking about the drag queen thing (which Ms. Gregory quoted, kind of out of context, from Matt Taibbi, who is not really the best one to go to on gender issues, whatever his other charms). Anyway, there's also some there, there. There's a drag-like element to Hillary, and to other women who have to navigate the--I'd argue, unnavigable--gulf between the conventional markers of feminity society expects from every woman and the conventional markers of power and authority. Barack Obama, though African-American, makes DE II comfortable. He makes me comfortable. He seems smart, calm, competant. He looks really good in a suit (another thing Ms. Gregory notes).
I don't think anyone, even those who hate her, thinks Hillary isn't as smart or smarter than Barack. It's Yale Law versus Harvard Law, for god's sake. But she doesn't make people comfortable, she makes them uncomfortable, and her uneasy blend of power and femininity looks like drag because it is. There is no model for that blending, because each of those poles demand conflicting things.
Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect is the closest thing I've ever seen to a woman in power who is still totally a woman, and still powerful. She's a chief detective in a British police agency who is constantly negotiating a power structure that was not built with space for women; the men below and above her actively collude to impede and undermine her. And she's not young, but she's hot. She gets home, alone, or to her older white professor lover, or her younger black detective lover, gets undressed to just a half-buttoned white shirt, pours some whiskey, and she is at that moment powerful and sexy and human without any of those things being in conflict. That's what a woman looks like without the drag queen mask. And that is what all the half-sketched-out women in the Wire miss: they, together, reflect all the fragmented projections that are placed on women. D'Angelo's girl is needy and sexually manipulative, Daniels's wife gains power and turns cold and loses her marriage, Kima is is all boy, Rhonda, well I'll leave the race and gender stuff there alone.
So I think that Hillary does suffer from all this. I don't have statistics and polling or some way of objectively comparing the reductive narratives the media insists on imposing on everyone at every turn. But I will argue you to the ground if you tell me that Hillary is not hurt by the position she is in (I think spending a couple minutes reviewing Chris Matthews' random association hyper-analysis of Hillary's comportment would give you a pretty solid exhibit one). Her husband screws her and screws her by screwing someone else, and we screw her for that. What would a Hillary look like, for example, who didn't need to project Lieberman-level foreign policy aggressiveness?
Kia Gregory also wrote in that column that "When I heard Obama speak at a journalism convention about the image of him and his wife Michelle and their two daughters on the White House lawn, I got goosebumps." Me too. In the end, I honestly think when I weigh race and gender (and it is hard not to, even if it is pointless to try), I think it matters more to have a black president right now than a woman one. It is ridiculous that so long after the civil rights era the image of a black first family is still so foreign, and as sad as it is I think that having a black man white people think is "articulate" and with whom they are comfortable in the highest office in the country could set off a real and sudden and revolutionary shift. But Hillary can't make the same jump. Even if she were elected, and little girls suddenly really thought they could be president, they would still have to figure out how to do that without ending up in drag.
Disclaimer
Here's the disclaimer: I don't know which of the two would make the better president. I wish I did. I know I can't wait until this is over and I can go back to being mad at Republicans.
I know I can't stand that after two terms of a hugely destructive administration, the Democratic Party has given us a choice between self-reflexively having "hope" in "change" and a damn red phone.
I know I don't feel all that different than the protestors did in 2000 when they chose to demonstrate at both conventions, the RNC and the DNC. Or that different from how Matt Taibbi felt when writing about how the 2004 Democrats squandered their anti-war mandate. I hope that some people are right that 2009 will be the second and better coming of 1964, but I don't buy it based on what they are selling.
I do also think, though, that if people do want to convince themselves that Obama is the new Dean, that even though I might agree with crochety Paul Krugman that he is not ("Some progressives are appalled by the direction their party seems to have taken: they wanted another F.D.R., yet feel that they’re getting an oratorically upgraded version of Michael Bloomberg instead"), I think it is good for the Democratic Party to have people believe it. And to believe they are voting for change. Because lord to we need change.
Obama is the new Dean in the
Obama is the new Dean in the sense that Obama is running with the Dean organizational model while Clinton is not.
And you know, I appreciate Paul Krugman's take on Obama, but I still just do not see how a difference of opinion on health care mandates adds up to Obama being some kind of covert right-winger. And I am still not sure that Krugman's critique of Obama as an anti-progressive boils down to anything more than that.
You don't think
that the idea of bipartisanship or nondivisiveness as a campaign theme is part of it?
Krugman's most recent book is an argument for exactly the opposite approach, for very concrete economic/historical reasons. I agree that the columns have been very one-note, but I think there is more going on to support a critique of Obama's rhetoric and positioning.
I think
that the rhetoric of bipartisanism and nondivisiveness has to be couched again in a rejection of the red-states-don't-matter political strategy and the idea that there may be a greater constituency for liberal policies now than there was in 2000 or 1992. It's also more about appealing to Republican and independent voters than right-wing politicians.
There just isn't anything in Obama's record or his proposals that amounts to the kind of centrist triangulation that Clinton plied, and that Gore and Kerry both tried to sell.
It may be excessively optimistic, but it's possible that Obama could be the liberal Reagan -- a genuine progressive who talks national unity, governs from the left, but is liked and admired and supported by more than a 50-plus-1 majority. I mean, isn't it the Republicans' turn to fall for that? Democrats can't be the only ones who are suckers, right?
I agree, Tim
And more than than, as the campaign has played out, Clinton's has been decidedly "anti-progressive" in a number of ways that extend beyond the 50 States strategy.
Yeah but Krugman's book
goes way beyond--destroys, I think--"red states don't matter." Most of the work done in the book is deconstructing the way Republicans have used race to eek out a majority where by economic policy rights, they shouldn't have one. But he breaks it down, and give something of a road map for Democratics to restore numerical majority, and it is not through invoking a middle ground that doesn't exist (I do think the hope of a new democratic Reagan figure is probably excessively optimistic, since a hell of a lot of people want their money and power, and a lot of other people want to stop abortion, sex ed, gay rights--remember the horrible state popular votes on marriage, just to start).
Obviously Krugman being engaged in a project like that (figuring out how Republicans used manipulative racial fear-mongering to help bury Democratic national control) can't be written off as "red states don't matter" (even if he writes for the paper that has maybe the greatest culpability for the red states thing, or at least the stupid fake-cultural anthropology angle on it).
And, yeah, maybe Obama is the lever for the way forward. I am certainly sympathetic to the idea of wanting such a lever.
On a certain level, there are empirics involved: how many voters aren't invested in financial dominance or religious ideology, and can be pulled off back to the Democrats on the basis of the economics of the middle and working classes and a desire for a (and it pains me to repeat this) Reaganesque Democrat. I don't know. But I instinctively fall in with Krugman in recognizing that from a position of disempowerment, compromise will only bring you further from where you need to go.
And hey, if Paul Krugman
And hey, if Paul Krugman were running for President, or Clinton's campaign manager, I'd be right there. Instead, we've got Mark Penn.
Seriously, I think that Krugman is (rightly or wrongly) totally apoplectic about the health care mandates issue, and this has caused him to paint Obama as way more centrist and Clinton as way more liberal than either of them actually are.
And hey, that's fine
and it's fine if you haven't read the book (god knows you have a lot more than me to read) but I admitted twice over the columns are dismissable. I don't think the book and it's approach (an advocacy of a new partisanship) are, even if you end up disagreeing with its conclusions once you've read it.
I don't think we all have to agree. It's an election, and I said from the outset, I really don't think that there is a right answer we can know from this vantage point. So I am (Dan's request for posts aside) really not interested in advocacy. I am interested in following all of the tangents and all of the stupid but unfortunately meaningful stuff this primary has summoned up.
The reading
Yeah, I've got to say, Krugman's book is pretty far down my list right now. I read the man's blog and his columns and his Brookings articles and I think that's about all I can take. After all, we Comp Lit PhDs are excessively diligent in our reading.
I get that you're not really interested in partisanship, but come on -- you took a shot at me for "convincing myself" that Obama was the new Dean, and not in my thread but in yours (which I guess is one way of framing the debate on your own terms).
I don't think this is all make-believe, or (more to the point) that Krugman's litmus tests are the only way to go. Dean talked about reaching out to guys with confederate flags on their cars. While he may have pushed a harder economic argument than Obama has, I really do think that the Dean strategy to grow the party is the most appealing, and I think is beginning to prove the most effective. I also think that if the Clinton camp wins, they will kill that strategy and move more sympathetic faces into the DNC. So I also think that anyone who is invested in that kind of politics needs to think through the institutional consequences of a Clinton or an Obama victory.
Okay. Now I'm going to pivot to something else.
Economist Krugman: Good/Campaign Manager Krugman: Not So Good
I went around preaching from Krugman's The Conscience of a Liberal so much over Winter Break, and I still love the book so much for its diagnosis of how movement conservatism since 1980 recreated the conditions of the last dire period of severe economic inequality (what Krugman calls the Long Gilded Age that ends with FDR in 1932) and for its common sense prescription for how to fix that immiserating inequality (tax rich people more, rebuild unions and public education, and pass universal healthcare), that I feel compelled to add my experience with the book's one shortcoming: it's blueprint for how to win back the presidency.
Krugman basically tells the next Democratic president not only to GOVERN like FDR, but to also CAMPAIGN like FDR as well. He goes so far as to note that an FDR 1936 campaign speech can be downloaded on the internet.
The message that Campaign Manager Paul proffers turns out to be basic American History 101 class warfare:
All of which sounded great to me in December.
I had never had much use for moneyed interests anyway, and a new poll out in the first week of that month showed that John Edwards, the candidate who was running by far the most Krugmanian campaign, was also running the best against all of the Republicans. I headed out to Iowa right after Christmas to campaign for Edwards, stoked by the prospects of simply beating up on the economic bad guys, winning the nomination, and then heading towards a Democratic sweep in November.
When I arrived, I indeed found the candidate quoting from Krugman right on the stump, just as if I had dreamed it into being. In speech after speech, he indeed was beating up on the economic bad guys.
But the funny thing was...the crowds were not responding. I mean, these were crowds in Steelworkers' Halls in Des Moines, packed into an under-sized music club in the working class suburbs with John Mellencamp's lament for little pink houses still reverberating around the room. Edwards would raucously launch into attack after attack on moneyed interests, basically welcoming their hatred...and there would follow awkward silences after what I knew were supposed to be the applause lines.
Which, when you think about it, is not so funny or surprising.
Class warfare 101 is simply not going to have the same effect in 2008 that it had in the middle of the Depression. (I am not saying that it SHOULDN'T; I'm saying that it WON'T) And FDR's'36 campaign was after all for reelection, and having a popular sitting president go balls-out negative is different from having a one-term senator go that route.
I finally turned on the television in my motel room two days into my trip, saw one commercial, and declared privately to a friend on the campaign that I was sure that Obama was going to win.
All of which, by the way, does not detract from Krugman's being a world-class economist and from his being right about how a Democratic president can fix the inequalities caused by the cruel policies of movement conservatives since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
It's just that he doesn't know how to manage the campaign that can get a Democratic president in office.
That's ok. Obama's people do.
I swear I actually DON'T usuallly agree with Sam on this stuff
but I am SO GLAD he showed up to write this, because he's right about all of it. (I get that the book is far down your list, but there is really great stuff there and I am again glad that Sam tried to telescope those things here.)
I hate the way Obama's campaigning, personally, but it seems to be working for other people and that is really really great. And I hope he DOES govern like FDR (or whatever) though as always I worry and worry about that. But that is what I do, as a Jewish grandma before my time.
To compensate
I haven't read Paul Krugman, but I have seen all of the Prime Suspects. And you're right, they're great, an unacknowledged precursor to The Wire and with an infinitely more compelling and complex female character, with real subjectivity.
I like Series 3 (the Soho vice investigation) the best. It is also pretty good on GLBT issues.
See also, Kyra Sedgwick
She watched Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect to shape her role as Chief Brenda Lee Johnson on "the Closer." The show is eh, as a police procedural, but I just love watching Kyra play her role.
Like Helen Mirren's character, Kyra's Brenda is a woman set upon by men from all sides: the good old boy detectives who subtly or actively try to sabotage her, other department heads who resent her crossing into their territory or for maybe jumping rank because she once slept with her now-boss. Yeah.
Anyway she is southern, and has that beyond-cliche syrupy charm that hits you like a wall of hot humid air. She makes people do want she wants by drawling "thank you!" and no one half knows what hit them. She's always getting lost, can barely drive, can't find things in her giant purse, and is always sneaking chocolate from her messy desk when she has a second alone. And she does her job really well. I don't know if a woman like that really could get and keep a position of power like that, but I love to think she could cause that's um pretty much how I am.
the real lesson
See? We should totally have a TV blog.
War all the time
I remember someone (maybe Matthew Yglesias?) saying that the way to guarantee that no Republican will touch any universal health care program is to walk around saying that universal health care will revitalize the entire idea of the New Deal and ensure a permanent Democratic majority. Which is another thing that Krugman likes to do.
Your mention of Edwards brings up another point re: the broader identity themes we've been discussing here. I wonder whether it is easier for a white man like Edwards (or Dean or whomever) to campaign on combative, class-warfare progressive themes and policies than it is for either Clinton or Obama. (Here's another quiz for you. Try to think of anyone other than a white man who has been referred to as a "populist." I bet you won't need more than one hand to count.)
I started thinking about this when I advanced the idea here some time ago that the Democratic nominee should campaign on justice, as a referendum on the Republican administration and Congress. And since I support Obama, I thought, that's what Obama should do more of. But to a good chunk of America, a black man chastising people and talking about justice starts to look a little like Malcolm X. After all, as soon as Michelle Obama started out on the stump, delivering a message more like Edwards's than her husband's, right-wing media went nuts. "Is she a militant? Why is she so angry? Does she hate America?" And I imagine that Hilary, were she to go too far, would face the same kind of tags.
After all, a white guy is only "militant" if he's just led a successful coup. Otherwise, he's "a populist."
Not exactly a big sample size
Sam, it's interesting to hear from someone who was in Iowa. But, I think effectively drawing a conclusion about campaigning as an economic populist from one campaign might be a little much. Edwards was badly outspent in Iowa, and came in second, right? He also dealt with very deep questions, such as, why did you get such an expensive haircut? And, people had seen him before, and he didn't necessarily always talk about poverty like this, and had a mediocre career in the Senate, so there were genuineness issues- like Feingold going after him.
(And, maybe it was just particular crowds, but, I certainly saw speeches where people seemed to be jumping to their feet a lot.)
If you draw conclusion from effectively two races (NH, Iowa) about the lessons about economic populism, from does that mean you can't campaign on change or whatever Obama's theme was in New Hampshire, or Ohio or California or New Jersey?
Anyway, I guess my point is, like the statement that Senators cannot win Presidential Elections- which, barring a Ron Paul Revolution, is about to happen- I don't know that you can draw such deep conclusions from the campaign of John Edwards.
Hmmm
I don't know. I don't think Sam's saying that he's surveyed all of the candidates and all of the elections and said that economic populism is a loser. He's saying that it was surprisingly difficult to use economic populism to rally blue-collar Democrats in Iowa. And this was John Edwards, a very talented, nationally known, white southern male former Senator and VP candidate. Add that missing dose of authenticity and you're talking about near-perfect laboratory conditions to test that message. If it really did get knocked off track because of a haircut, then that just shows how fragile that politics can be.
A couple points:
A couple points:
I grew to really, really suport Edwards. However, even me, someone who follows politics at unhealthy levels, was pretty cautious at first, because he was a bad Senator, and milquetoast VP candidate. He voted for the war, the bankruptcy bill, etc. By the end, he had convinced me this was real, but if it took a while for me...
Why did Al Gore, after being down with a few weeks left in 2000, make a jump in the polls to beat Bush? Most political bloviators I heard say it was two things- negative stuff for Bush when his DUI info was released and... Al Gore letting go and talking about 'people versus the powerful.'
If Gore had been back- and campaigned on single payer health care, and the rest of the 'radical' ideas he has started to talk up, he might have been a different story. Or, if someone like Sherrod Brown, a true, blue progressive populist for a long time, keeps on his upward path, maybe something will happen.
Or, back to sample sizes, how about this: Barack Obama has no chance in Philadelphia. Sure, he will have plenty of money and he is generally well thought of both in Philly's minority communities and white liberal communities, too. But he will be exposed as seeming less policy knowledgeable than his competitor and will drop, drop, drop in the polls. After all, David Axelrod has proven that he cannot win a campaign in Philadelphia with a well-liked front runner.
Of course, that is not true, and Obama will stomp Clinton in Philly. But, again, with small samples, you can make quite a few jumps.
I tell you what though
Axelrod should take a lesson from history and put together an Obama ad featuring Michelle and their daughters. That stuff plays. :)
More seriously, I agree with you about Gore, but I think there's a alippage here between "radical" and "populist." You can easily campaign on health care, the environment, etc., in a different way from what's been tried to date. And again, while there are strong moneyed interests that need to be taken on, I think there is a broader constituency for these policies than even the Democrats realize.
That last sentence
is exactly the point of the Krugman book! I am such a broken record. I am going to go back to talking about women on tv I find compelling cause they remind me of myself.
It's the message and the messenger...and the time and the place
In a competitive executive race, both have to work together enough so that they seem believable ("real") and compelling to the electorate at the time of the vote.
At least in January, in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and his birthplace of South Carolina, it did not work well enough for economic populism coming out of the mouth of John Edwards to keep that campaign in the race.
Josh is right to question the messenger. Up close Edwards is impressive but lacks the rockstar bigger-than-life charisma that Obama and Hillary Clinton are projecting right now. Maybe it's haircut, the too-varied background, or the lousy voting record. Maybe it just didn't seem real. Whatever it was, it did not work for him at that time in those places.
Since both Obama and Clinton beat Edwards, they have little reason to adopt his (Krugmanian) message and tone, though I'd argue that he played a major and positive role in defining the debate while he was in. He was the first in with a universal healthcare proposal, and so he pushed the others to do the same or similar, and his flat refusal of corporate lobbyists' money encouraged Obama to similarly refuse, kind of a big deal for restoring confidence in the party.
I'm with Helen by the way. I'm excited we’ve come far enough to have Obama and Hillary as frontrunners. While Ray is right that their ascendancy signals neither an end to racism or to sexism, it certainly shows a rent in the low ceilings those two prejudices cause, a rent that was never there before. That's progress however you look at it, and a good reason to feel good about being a Democrat in 2008.
I’d argue that what Krugman’s book is really about is what Democrats are up against in 2008 (the 30 year legacy of movement conservatism) and what they should do once they are in office.
Sure, he also wanted FDR's messaging too, but other messages in the mouths of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were more persuasive to the electorate at the time.
I’d add that I don't hear anything from either of those two transformative campaigns that would prevent them from pursuing Krugmanian goals in 2009. A President Obama or a President Rodham Clinton might and might not pursue those goals, and we should discuss the relative likelihood, but neither is campaigning against them.
The only thing that would definitely prevent those goals from be pursued would be losing.
Sample size and personalities
I agree with Dan about the subjectivity of your conclusions. He focuses on the "sample size" aspect - but I think there is another aspect, which he emphasizes less, that was actually more important.
You may really like Edwards, but I think that Edwards just didn't come across well to a whole lot of people. While I don't really buy into idea that Obama's speaking ability is all he's got - I do think that to compare the relative impact of Obama's campaign speeches to those of Edwards' based only on their rhetoric, and not on their rhetorical skills, is missing something.
Sen Clinton not Trustworthy - Disclose Fraud Trial in Primaries
The Clinton’s are named defendants in a Civil Fraud Case connected to Campaign Finance irregularities and have not disclosed the appeal of the case. There will be a trial date set at a hearing on April 25th, just 3 days after the key Pennsylvania Primary for the Fraud Case Paul v. Clinton in the Los Angeles Superior Court. Plaintiff says he will call Gov Rendell will be a witness in the case. He probably should not be raising funds for Michigan until he has answered questions about this 2000 Clinton Fundraiser. From what I understand, this case began when prior to Sen. Clinton’s 2000 New York Senate campaign and also raised donations for Pres. Clinton’s Library.
We don’t know the Clinton’s side of the story because they have not disclosed this. But Peter Paul tells his side of the story on Video.
Just Google: “Hillary Uncensored”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7007109937779036019
Los Angeles Superior Court of Appeals: http://www.lasuperiorcourt.org
Then click on Civil Case Summaries and enter case number to see case history.
Case Number: BC304174
Los Angeles Superior Court Public Information Office at (213) 974-5227.
The GOP has utilized the services of a 527 Citizen’s United to produce a 90 Minute Movie they are already showing to defeat her in the Fall if she wins the nomination. THEY USE THIS FRAUD CASE IN THEIR MOVIE AS ONE OF MANY REASONS SHE SHOULD NOT BE PRESIDENT.
This is the Movie that the Citizens United has created for the GOP to for the Fall.
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_PEHskBuQg
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5_SfPvtY-s
3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rog6WBL7jog
4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqlYlTxnUdE
5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9hXf5yckbY
6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKftVPA85jI
7) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCQOgTKtNhA
8) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRHPrjf4h6g
9) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm-5MrOrqPE
Great post. Choosing
Great post. Choosing Clinton or Obama-rama doesn't mean you are making value judgments about whether it would be more transformative if we had an African-American or Woman President. But, without trying to need to argue which one is better, we should really be examining the challenges that each of them face given who they are.
As I have said to many people- the bottom line is that currently, it is okay on the radio to refer to Clinton as all types of specifically-female derogatory names. For Obama currently, most of the right-wing smears are not aimed at his 'blackness,' but instead to pretend that he is a Muslim, that most hated 'other' in our society. It sure doesn't mean we are magically post-racial, but that our attitudes towards race are pretty complicated.
It is dorky, but I <3 all my links so much
Hillary being accused of asking black women to play Mammy to her Scarlett, Matt Taibbi explaining how he likes foreign women because they are sexually compliant, the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (which I hear Sam Durso can recite, on command, in bars).
Anyway, Ray has been pointing out how complicated a lot of the race and gender stuff is in terms of how it actually plays out in the campaigns, and in the effect (or lack of effect) either victory would have on the lives of African-Americans, or on gender relations and identity.
If people want to talk about any of that stuff, which I clearly find really really interesting, that is cool. And you should all read the linked Democracy Now transcript of a talk between Gloria Steinem and Melissa Harris-Lacewell, because it frames a lot of the issues (even if it makes you cry anew for how misguided the Second Wave sometimes reveals itself to be).
awesome post
I love you Jennifer, and we talked a lot about this on gchat, but there is one part of your post where I ask you (and others to dig deeper):
Let's not forget that women of color in Philadelphia, and the country, and the world, are the most economically disadvantaged and disempowered of anyone (and in the US at least, queer women of color for instance earn less money than anyone less...and don't get me started on trans folks or those with a disability.)
So what specific revolutionary shift do you see Obama vs. Clinton (or even if someone wants to argue the inverse) actually making?
Like would he fund more community-organizing, anti-corporate advocacy, or redistribution of wealth than she?
And how much do we really expect in terms of substantive change, from either as the leader of the "free" world?
If we are not looking at substance, what are we looking at symbolically? What value does symbolic achievement for African-Americans or women (white women only?) achieve concretely for all members of the identity group at hand?
Ray's comments are great
and I hope they also help frame discussion about all this.
I think that, when I write something like that last paragraph, I am focusing on my awareness of Hillary's privilege and tight ties to power. Sure Barack Obama has privilege too: educational, economic, and in some ways ethnic. But I also think that while he may not be African-American exactly, he still is not white. And I think that matters; he can't un-black himself. But obviously privilege here is clearly multi-valent, and I think Ray posed the more important questions:
And I think those questions matter a lot because all the people Ray named and more--women of color, gay people, trans people, disabled people and on and on--are still marginalized regardless of who ends up sitting in that White House, unless they somehow catalyze change directed at those margins in the way Ray describes.
let's boil this down more
question 1
Will the election of Hillary Clinton cause a revolutionary shift in our country? Y/N, explain.
Will her election have a symbolic impact? Y/N, explain.
question 2
Will the election of Barack Obama cause a revolutionary shift in our country? Y/N, explain.
Will his election have a symbolic impact? Y/N, explain.
Interesting, that
I just heard on the radio that an Obama campaign staffer (from Harvard, a woman) just resigned because she called Clinton a "monster" who would do anything to get elected.
At any rate, the point that I've been trying to make is that it has been extremely difficult for me, at a personal level, to disentangle the sexism from the objective reality in response to Clinton. And further, as an extension, I have struggled with disentangling where, in the the media coverage and general public reaction to Clinton, legitimate reaction to her personality/how she's run her campaign/her connection to the previous Clinton administration leave off, and sexism begins.
You say that everyone is screwing Clinton - but at what point does she bare responsibility for choices she's made - as a candidate, as someone whose vying for a position of power, as someone who already has a great deal of power, as someone who has exercised that power in highly questionable ways, as someone who makes decisions about how she conducts her campaign and what policies she advocates? I'm kind of scared to type that, because it sounds like I'm saying that a woman deserves to be raped if she chooses to wear provocative clothing. But again, I have no less or more antipathy for her than I do for her husband, or than I would for anyone else that has staked out the policy issues she's staked out, or who chose to run a campaign the way she's run hers. Should I feel some sense of obligation, because she's a woman, and necessarily must withstand the sexism and misogyny inherent in our culture, to mitigate my distaste for her politics and her politicking? I honestly don't know, and that's why I'm asking these questions.
It seems that you want to direct this conversation in a different direction - but I'm curious, Jennifer. What do you think about Clinton? Is your only reaction to her based on her political orientation? Do you have a sense of her as a person? If you do, is your sense a positive one? If it is negative, do you just consider that to be basically irrelevant to her candidacy?
Oh yeah, and just a pet peeve
I know that you didn't intend your comment to be interpreted in this way, but I as an educator who has worked with kids that don't always do well in school, it bugs me when people's comments support the tacit assumption that attending an Ivy League school is a indicator of intelligence.
Haha okay
I agree in general, but as someone who tried and failed and really really wanted to get into Yale Law School, I feel pretty confident in saying that there are lots of smart people who didn't go to Yale Law, but the people who did go...
yeah, well
I'm probably just jealous anyway.
It's like the anti-Zionism = anti-semitism thing!
I hate Clinton I. The more I read as an adult, the more I hate him, the DNC, welfare reform, all of it. If Clinton II would be significantly different, as some of her domestic policy positions suggest, then I would consider voting for her like I'd consider voting for Barack Obama. There's a lot that 'legitimately' makes me uncomfortable with her, which I swept into the phrase "her ties with power," but there is a lot that makes me uncomfortable about her that is not legitimate, that is based on messed up gender stuff. I do think there is a lot that is tragic about her and her career.
(N.b. there's a lot I like and a hell of a lot that makes me uncomfortable about Barack Obama. Hence the disclaimer.)
Anyway, that Steinem/Harris-Lacewell discussion isn't all that deep (Harris-Lacewell is an Obama partisan) but I think makes some of your points about Clinton's responsibility for her position as white and as a wife to a powerful man, and the privilege that she has had from that. But that doesn't mean there isn't that tragedy and that difficult bind that I tried to descibe. And regardless of who people are voting for, I think it is really important to bring to the surface. And it's disturbing to me to focus on just making structured arguments for one candidate over the other, and to submerge all these things that this particular primary raises.
Thanks
Great response. I get the "messed up gender stuff." Maybe I need to read more about the tragic stuff about her and her career. I suppose that if I'm going to allow myself to judge her at a personal level, then I need to have the integrity to know more than just the surface details as portrayed in the popular media.
I don't get it
Largely, this convo is not about the individuals running for President. That is a meritorious convo, but not one this thread, or really the other presidential threads here have covered (if they did, we'd talk purely about electability in the general or impact on key issues that vary between the two).
This convo is mostly about what this Democratic race has exposed or made concrete about both sexism and racism in our country, and basically this thread is fleshing out more of the sex and gender identity side of things.
So what does it matter so much about Clinton's personal choices? They could well be messed up--certainly her vote for the war and the bankruptcy bill are. And I, like Jennifer, hate what Bill Clinton did on welfare reform. But Hillary Clinton was born female, and identifies as a woman, and in that context, there are some privileges she does not have that might influence her behavior and/or are indicators about the role and power women have in our country generally.
Again, not totally related to the election at hand, but a) interesting generally and b) worth considering since there are being claims made about the transformative nature of electing Obama, largely because of his racial identification (not his identity), without a corollary examination of Clinton's possible contribution substantively or symbolically.
Bankruptcy Bill Votes
To her credit, Clinton did not vote for the last one- she actually voted against Cloture, and then was in the hospital with Bill during the up or down vote.
She did vote for just as shitty earlier versions- and Bill loved the bills when he was Prez- but maybe she realized what a disaster it was.
Obama was also against it.
Ray, maybe it's easy for you to distingish
between the Clinton as an individual and Clinton as a woman in our society components of what Clinton represents to you, or in in how you respond to her - but it isn't for me. Your question:
suggest to me that you see some obvious cleavage (which reminds me of the amount of press Clinton got when she wore a low-cut blouse) between the personal identity and gender identity elements. I just don't get how you can question why her vote on the war was important. We seem to be missing each other in these discussions - which is interesting to me.
And I have seen quite a bit of claims being made about the transformative nature of each of their campaigns.
On "Transformative"
I'm confused as to who claimed that Obama's merit as a "transformative" candidate rests largely on his racial identification? I realize that any suggestion of a "post-racial" politics is likely to be met derisively, and I think people probably DO have to face up to the fact that some white folks voting for Obama will feel that they're atoning for subconscious sins by doing so. I agree that on the face of it, the "first black President" is a transformative moment in American politics, while the "first woman President" is certainly also a transformative moment. (Though one could argue that on an international stage, it's possible to name a dozen female heads of state over the last 25 years while I'm racking my brains trying to think of a racial minority head-of-state.)
Nevertheless, I really don't think that's the kind of transformative nature that Obama's making claims on. When he claims to be a transformational politician, he's not promising simply to be good politically-correct P.R. for the U.S. His candidacy is based on a bet that it's possible to alter the rhetorical contours of the Democratic party - without compromising almost any core progressive values, mind you - in such a way that includes a healthy majority of the American people and allows us to begin setting our own agenda, finally. I don't think Hillary Clinton - as "different" a candidate as she is - is promising this kind of transformation.
A final thought - and more on topic, I guess - is that I think the stagy umbrage-taking on both sides of the campaign with regard to race and gender has made somewhat of a mockery of the real racial and gender-based issues at stake in this campaign. Instead of digging through every statement for "dog-whistle language" with the diligence of a Comp Lit Ph.D, we could be having more conversations like this one. Too bad.
Thank you
a lot of this is spurred (like the discussion on your post was) by the fact that when there is not that tangible (I think you said significant) policy differences, we are in the land of symbolism, prejudice, and instinct. And I feel instinctively comfortable about voting for Barack Obama despite real reservations about how he has framed his campaign, and I think that I need to think critically about why that is.
I'd also like to say, while we are being picky, that "monster" thing being a thing is ridiculous.
I'll also say, in line with my last last n.b.
that even though I feel like I am picking on you, Josh, you don't need to "read more about the tragic stuff about her and her career," you and Sean and a lot of us just need to think about it more, because it is not that hard to put those pieces together. And empathize (something women are either socialized to do, or, if you are Carol Gilligan, maybe do instinctively).
Dan corrected me
that Jewish boys are also socialized to be empathetic. I will let someone else broach the gender role implications of all that.
I don't feel picked upon
Maybe I'm just out of touch - but I don't feel that what I've said on this topic reveals some lack of empathy. Your and Ray keep suggesting that I'm minimizing the effects of sexism and misogyny - but I'm not really seeing (owning up to?) that.
Ignorance is bliss?
My point about reading up on her career is focused on the personal level - not the sociological level. I'm saying there that if I'm judging her somehow on her personality - and in doing so running the risk of mis-attributing reaction to her personality which somehow reflects my internalized sexist attitudes, I should know more about her personally. Just like knowing something about Bush's background is relevant to understanding him as a politician, so, I guess, is understanding something about Clinton's background (or Obama's). What I realized is that actually, I know very little about her on a personal level.
Now Sean, on the other hand.....
Empathy was really just there
to get to make fun of Carol Gilligan.
Personal backgrounds
I actually went to the same Quaker meeting as most of Chelsea's classmates (I'm much older)at one point but my single Quaker mom was way, way too poor for me to even think of attending school with those kids. And then she kicked me out for being a rowdy teen-aged boy who went to see Minor Threat concerts.
Oh wait, you meant something else.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
I thought that Gilligen's point
was that females develop empathy through their play - whereas males develop the proclivity to insult each other on blogs through their play.
But the goal is reifying those qualities, right?
Her position isn't that gender roles are fluid because shaped by socialization. There's definitely essentialism there. If I keep talking, though, I am going to get the "like a comp lit phd" insult turned on me!
Shut up, DE.
Shut up, DE.
Hahaha
I only read the first part. Truth to power, indeed.
I’m with DE II on this
I’m with DE II on this one. I struggle with separating what many beliefs in this race are from what may be my own inherent sub conscious sexism. See here is the thing. The traits that I don’t like in Hillary Clinton are traits that I would not like in a man either. She comes off as overly scripted and non authentic. She has conducted her campaign in some pretty shameful ways. She, and the people that surround the Clintons, are basically a symbol of everything that is wrong in the Democratic party in my opinion.
The thing is that I love strong women. I LOVE strong women. This might almost sound like I’m saying that I have a Black friend while criticizing Black people. My aunt says that she is supporting Clinton because Clinton is a “strong woman”, but I’m really not buying that. I mean, I consider strong women to be women who stand up for their convictions and really don’t care what people think about them. In Clinton’s case, visa vi, the War, she and most of her male counterparts buckled there. Now, was Clinton Hawkish because, as a women, she can’t look weak on defense, or because, as a Democrat, she felt that she couldn’t look weak?
It must suck to be a powerful woman. I mean, there is one hell of a balancing act to pull between being a smart opinionated go getter and not coming off as a “bitch” and being thoughtful and caring and not coming off as overly emotional or sentimental.
I think that Clinton’s campaign has sort of deflated a lot of the honest to God arguments about sexism in this campaign by the way she has conducted it. If you think that she has not tried to play on women’s sympathies by playing the sex card, then you have another thing coming.
It’s like we need to have this great discussion about sex and sexism in America, but it almost seems contrived in this instance. It almost feels like how we talked about race in the OJ case.
On this, I think we are all in agreement
And that is precisely why I feel so out of sorts in my reaction to Clinton.
Another nota bene
It is pretty interesting to me that none of the conversation, as interesting as a lot of it is, really touches gender role/identity, and what they have meant for Hillary Clinton in her life and career and in people's reception to her as a person and politician. (Except maybe to defend the proposition that it is not really about her gender after all.)
But the tough part is, how
But the tough part is, how do we start such a conversation? I mean the whole thing came out of people, rightly or wrongly attacking Clinton who were then rightly or wrongly accused of sexism and then reacted. It sort of sucks, because as I said before, an honest conversation is important.
We also need to talk about race in the same way. I, as someone who is mixed race like Obama am troubled that NO ONE sees to get why this is important (I wrote about this here. I also think that people should think about the fact that he may be Black, but because he is not a descendant of slavery, it makes things a lot different.
One more point on the gender/power spectrum
Huma Abedin, who I first read about in Vogue magazine (my very favorite, see above), and who you can read about in the Observer, if you want to be jealous of her clothes. Anyway, according to Oscar de la Renta, who I love to turn to for political and social analysis: “She is an unbelievably feminine and gentle person, but at the same time she can accomplish so much...” He recalled that she had great style, but hastened to point out that “she’s a Muslim” and “she’s very conservative.” So maybe it is just Hillary that can't strike the right balance.
it's a simple problem really
For the first time ever, you have a serious chance of nominating a woman or a person of color to the Dem. party's presidential ticket. One of these two is gonna lose, and like identity politics or not, they exist, and someone is going to think that their chosen candidate has lost because of her gender identity or his race.
in that context, what do progressives do to mitigate this? there may be a net gain for movement building (especially with obama) but there's still an uncomfortable loss.
I'd posit, that first, everyone acknowledge equally that discrimination is in play to start moving this convo in a direction that works. i'd also ask why a few people have said this convo is difficult and hard to start. it sure doesn't help that it is all boys and our token woman, Jennifer. so maybe that's a clue right there...
Interesting about Abedeen
The frothing right wingers were circulating the lovely Huma Abedeen as "Hillary's lover" a little while ago right along with Obama's Indonesian "madrassa education", I believe.
Edit: god my response to jennifer looks stupid after Ray's post.
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
Hahaha
a moment of clarity and introspection on my thread finally!
Why do we beat ourselves up over this choice?
Not to be overly repetitive, but let me chime and say this is a fantastic post Jennifer.
I want to reiterate that I was extremely disappointed to see Kia go after Hillary in such a shallow, lowest common denominator way. But I also want to say that I really hate seeing ourselves play into the Obama-Clinton discussion as a choice of whether a black president is better than a woman president.
As progressives, the debate over vision and experience, the challenge to both candidates to strengthen their isssues and beliefs, is the debate that is so lacking in the other party. Internally, I think we should be celebrating that this is how far our party has come -- and to be able to handle this in a way that highlights needs/concerns without playing into the tendency to do exactly what I think the other party wants us to do -- which is to undercut and undermine the other candidate for as long as possible to inculcate the negatives. In other words, the other party is hoping that we absorb the negative race/gender politics and beat ourselves up over it -- either through race/gender bashing or extreme guilt and apologies.
On the contrary, I see this race as a critical opportunity to engage in the kind of dialogue where the choice is hard over issues and vision, but that the result is a consolidation around the final candidate. There is no doubt about the neanderthal tendency to carp on the race/gender stereotypes, but our role is to analyze those politics and present a different vision in terms of how far the rest of the country needs to go in their vision.
Obama-Clinton is not a zero-sum game but one which should bring all of us further along in our vision and understanding of race and gender.
for the first time ever...
...i disagree with you Helen (sort of).
The reason we're not celebrating internally is that neither a movement of women nor African-Americans, or anyone else has eradicated racism/sexism within the Democratic party's membership. And the number of women and people of color in state legislatures (and the US Congress) is pathetic. (Let's not forget that Philadelphia is on its 125th male Mayor, and only the 3rd African-American, and Pennsylvania is on its 49th male Governor--never having elected a Guv of color.)
And frankly, it's due very much to the personalities of Clinton and Obama that they are where they are, as opposed to them being the representatives of a sustained movement for change from within the party.
That's just a fact, and it is a disturbing one. I, for one don't plan to let that get in the way of electoral victory in the fall, which is your point here:
But when people--men--on this very blog don't understand why anyone would bring up sexism in the context of the presidential race, or are referring to Clinton as having a "combative personality," with no sense of irony or introspection, or who acknowledge sexism might be present, but can't beyond flagging it and move into talking about beating it back...well, I'd say that we can't just skip past what you call "a Neanderthal tendency to carp on the race/gender stereotypes" without unpacking it.
That's not beating ourselves up--that is holding one another accountable.
You just wait Ray -
till I release those photos of you in traditional Sudanese garb. Then you'll see what "combatitive" means.
For the record - I do realize there is a big heaping hunk of irony about me of all people describing perhaps any other human being on the entire face of the planet as "combatitive".
On the other hand I also do honestly think there is a case to be made that in the case of Hillary Clinton there is (#1) a basic level of blatant sexism, (#2) a level of unreflective sexism like you describe Ray and(#3) a level of qualities both good and band that are unique to Clinton in particular.
Is that such horrible idea to consider, that some individuals are in fact that, individuals whose unique personality characteristics transcend their most obvious characteristics?
-Sean
MrLuigi, my cat, actually only types half as badly as I do.
Ray, I am down with you
on the issue of our need to call people out on their sexist behavior, and especially here. I guess I should have framed it in terms of your question of "how do progressives mitigate this behavior"? And I think the immediate step is exactly what you and Jennifer have done, which is call people out on their s$%! (and you are verrrrrry good at that).
I don't think we should avoid the conversation at all about the crazy race and gender politics going on -- and my feeling is that from both sides Hillary gets the way short end of the stick. I guess I am just reacting to how superficial a lot of the comments have been about both the candidates (not necessarily here), how exactly what you are saying -- people tend to react to the candidates based on what emotions they evoke while failing to look at their background, their rhetoric and their vision. I wonder whether a lot of that is based on the mystery surrounding Obama while Clinton has simply lived every second of her last two decades in a powerful position whose consequences have now become obvious in the public eye.
So for the record, I am not asking anyone to not call people out on their Neanderthal tendencies -- that's what makes this conversation great and important, holding people accountable but moving ahead to a more enlightened space.
As a neanderthal who's surprisingly learned how to type
I think you're still missing something, Ray.
Apparently this:
was directed at me.
I don't know where you get that I can't get beyond "flagging it and move into talking about beating it back."
Your attempts at moving into talking about beating it back are too broad for me to have a response. How am I, (as a progressive), supposed to mitigate the sexism that is present in reactions to Clinton's campaign if I can't quantify and identify it? Do I do it by supporting a woman candidate that I think pandered to war-mongering in her vote in the run up to invading Iraq? Do I do it by supporting a woman candidate who I think has deliberately decided to co-opt Rovian fear-mongering as a campaign tactic? How about a woman candidate that is ridiculing the strategy of diplomacy as a foreign policy in order to get elected?
Should I ignore the reality that I find her personality and campaign style inauthentic, and instead just assume that my reactions are based in a sexist response to a powerful woman? Should I castigate anyone else that reacts to her similarly as being inexcusably sexist?
A little story. I was with a friend yesterday who is a "strong woman." I was telling her about this YPP discussion and she told me that she had recently switched from supporting Obama to supporting Clinton. I asked her why, and her response was that as a strong woman she identified with Clinton and felt that Clinton was getting a lot of shit that a man wouldn't be getting. She also said that she felt that Clinton was getting treated unfairly and that she tends to gravitate to supporting the underdog.
As we talked more about what evidence she had seen that Clinton was being treated unfairly, or that Clinton was getting shit because she's a strong woman - she began to admit that her evidence wasn't really based on a careful analysis (she isn't very focused on politics); for the most part, it was an impression she derived from a combination of factors. First, her awareness of how difficult it is, as a strong woman, to walk a line that men aren't asked to walk. And second, from the notion that's been put out there in the media recently that while Obama has been treated with kid gloves by the press, Clinton has been held to a very high level of scrutiny.
There's no questioning that since she is a strong woman of power, Clinton's campaign triggers sexist responses to women of strength. But what's tough, for me at least, is how to see where that reality mixes with what is a non-reality in my book: the notion that Clinton was being being treated unfairly in the press in comparison to Obama.
Clinton has been picking up on the rightwing attack line that Obama is an empty suit and is only popular because he hasn't been "vetted" by the press. A major subtext in that line of attack is that she's being victimized because she's a strong woman. As real as that phenomenon is in our society, I think that in this context it's bullshit, and my point is that I think that in my friend's reaction, I can see the danger of not clearly quantifying and identifying where and to what extent my and other people's reactions to Clinton and her campaign really are really based in sexism.
I am sympathetic to a lot of your problems with Hillary Clinton
but take this in isolation:
No, you shouldn't ignore that. And I can't presume to know what is really going on with how you respond to person X or Y. But I think that for most people, including me, this response -- "Should I ignore the reality that I find her personality and campaign style inauthentic" -- is not just about her war votes, etc. It is very similar to the response of distaste Sean tried to claim was "Hillary-specific" on the other post.
I think that this direction of conversation is one of the few that gets anywhere near the issues I wanted to raise. I don't have the answer for you, and I am not saying that you are unaware of personal and institutional sexism. And I think it is totally legitimate to refuse to support Hillary politically.
My whole point here was that I think that she has had a very difficult time meshing her role as wife to a powerful man with that of her as a seriously smart and ambitious (and, at least at one point, pretty idealistic) person. My point was that the "inauthenticity" and the discomfiting "personality" are not just because she is simply an unlikeable conniving person (conniving is pretty gendered, anyway). To a large extent, it seems that she has had a hell of a time finding a workable public persona for herself; and, keep in mind, other possibly less put-on or controlled versions of that persona met with sharp and clearly sexist criticism in the past.
Chris Matthews is insane, but sort of a projection of our worst natures. If you read the compilations of his remarks on Hillary (and women in general; one of those political blogs did a series, aside from my friend's message board posts that I linked above) you can clearly chart the ways that personality and comportment matter in our responses to Hillary the candidate in ways that simply do not transfer across gender lines.
Here's one of an absurd number of examples
of Chris Matthews discussing Hillary's voice and whether it is shrill or grating or if she managed to adjust her tone to avoid sounding shrill:
And yeah, again, he's nuts, but what amount of truth is there to this? Can women take the same positions, have the same rhetorical approaches, and receive the same reception as men? What would be an "authentic" presidential campaign persona from a woman?
PS Matthews also likes to compare Hillary to Nurse Ratched.
No doubt Hillary's getting press bashed
D.E. are you really questioning whether the press has given Clinton a harder time than Obama? Jennifer has the most nauseating Chris Matthews examples, but even aside from that it’s just regular conversations with Dems that has me shocked about how much progressives have bought into the sexist stereotyping around Hillary.
For a while in the beginning there, you had to root for Hillary being in the race if nothing else for seeing all the TV pundits flip out and start exposing their mother complexes and sexual hang-ups in talking about her. But somewhere the tide turned and we Dems do what we’re best at which is cannibalize each other and begin repeating and absorbing all the hate and viciousness out there. Of course, that doesn’t mean whoever criticizes Hillary is a sexist pig, but I think all of us have to acknowledge the anti-woman rhetoric of the media and the campaign and be conscious of how we use our words as we critique Clinton for her many failures.
I might also consider that it’s not Hillary Clinton’s fault for not having a working public persona for herself. She’s a very human, and very flawed, ambitious person of power who’s been in the public eye for decades. She’s working all right, she’s just not necessarily “palatable.”
I really don't know, Helen
When Samantha Power calls Clinton a monster who will do anything to get elected, is it sexist? Was it a reflection of Power's mother complex and sexual hang-ups?
No doubt, Jennifer has provided some horrific examples of sexist stereotyping - but the difficulty for me is that there really is some there, there (to borrow a phrase). I think Clinton's campaign, and the style in which she's conducted it, can quite fairly be characterized as aggressive in a very negative sense. There really are tons of examples.
Obama and his campaign have taken a very different approach. At what point does the coverage of her campaign cross the line from an accurate portrayal to a sexist portrayal? At what point does portraying Obama and his campaign as being inspirational and positive cross from being an accurate portrayal to holding him to a different standard?
I keep going back to the last debate -- when Obama was being pressed on Farrakhan. I think that was a complete non-issue, one which was nothing more than a right-wing talking point I saw it as an example of Obama being held to a different standard than that I've seen being applied to Clinton; there are scores of similar right-wing talking points about Clinton which haven't been picked up by the mainstream press. Yet the general gestalt of what came out of that debate was that finally, the press was beginning to treat the two candidates similarly.
Jennifer asks two great questions above:
The problem is that I can't see that Clinton and her campaign - particularly when she's running against Obama and his campaign - provides us with a context where we can begin answering those questions. What I don't get is where people seem to have such confidence that what we're seeing is evidence that a woman can't, to any degree, have the same rhetorical approaches and receive the same consequent reception as men. I don't think that Clinton is a good model for evaluating to what degree any woman could create an "authentic" campaign persona.
And so
I don't think monster in the context Samantha Power said it (from what I've been able to find) says much except to express horror at and condemnation of Hillary's strategic campaigning decisions.
Which is why "monster" to me is okay (this is a there where there seems no there, there) and denouncing Hillary's war vote is okay. "Nurse Rachet" and all the many more subtle forms of that aren't.
For old times, though, let's have a DE/Jennifer moment, cause I like what you say below.
I dunno, Monster seems pretty personal
I'm wondering if your reading might be a bit generous.
It occurs to me that a fundamental piece of this puzzle is something that's blindingly obvious.
I don't have to face the "difficult bind" of being a strong woman (at least when I'm not in drag, anyway). Surely, there is a visceral horror for women who do have to face that bind on a daily basis when they see a strong woman - in fact the woman who has achieved a level of strength and power that is probably unprecedented in the history of our country (if not the planet) - in such a public forum, getting getting so much shit whether it be deserved to in some sense or not.
I get that horror, of course, but there's necessarily a few degrees of distance for me, being a straight, white male and all. The horror I feel loses some of its intensity, like light that's been reflected off an object as opposed to felt directly from the sun. Don't tell Ray, but he may have been more right than I was willing to admit.
And even when you're implying that I'm a Neanderthal, I always appreciate your comments.
Not sure whether you're talking to Jennifer or me
but I for one would never imply you were a neanderthal - I'd just tell you when you were.
I suspect the same is true
of Jennifer.
Better to be Freddy than Pauline
I think the thing about "monster" is that it's personal, and it's negative, but it's not gendered. It's a nasty thing to say about somebody, but the Clinton staff themselves likes to joke that either she/her campaign is like Freddy Krueger -- you try to kill her, but she won't stay dead. (This popped up in a New Yorker article recently too.)
Compare that to the "Perils of Pauline" trope that's worked its way around the media -- referring to the old silent movies where a heroine would be tied to the railroad tracks only to be saved at the last minute -- which may be more complimentary on its face, but is thoroughly gendered, and takes away her agency, suggesting that someone else (the voters?) saves her at the last minute.
In general, I think it's worthwhile to distinguish negative coverage, unfairly negative coverage, and negative coverage that's motivated by bias (and then there, whether that bias is personal, political, or identity-based).
The whole "monster" situation is really very sad, since Samantha Power was/is a really astonishing person and author. I have read (most!) of her book on genocide and strongly recommend it.
No doubt, Jennifer
I agree completely that
In that sense, the bar is undoubtedly set higher for her than it would be for any man. That difficulty she is having is not only a reflection of something “Hillary-specific.” The difficulty of what she is trying to do, absolutely, forces her to confront the inequality embedded in our society. And I don't doubt that there are many examples of responses to Clinton's personality and comportment which would never transfer across gender lines (for sure, if Obama were running an aggressive campaign, no one would liken him to a drag queen).
And in that sense, no matter if she wins or not, we will all be indebted to her for taking on that inequality in such a public forum. I believe that her candidacy will move our country, kicking and screaming, forward.
But, and yes there has to be a but, I don't feel that being indebted to her means that anyone should justify the destructiveness of how she's run her campaign, or of her actions as a politician. For a Democrat to use fear-mongering as a campaign tactic is loathsome to me because I think it only further empowers reactionaries. When she runs a manipulatively negative campaign, she further legitimizes the bullshit electoral process we have. She isn't responsible for creating fear-mongering or bullshit campaigning, but she is responsible for embracing them.
I think that in balance, the positive impact of her courage in being willing to take on and battle against gender inequality will outweigh the negative impact of her being yet another bullshitting politician. But that still doesn't incline me to cut her a break, because given the alternative of Obama (as flawed as he is as a candidate), I don't want to see her as President.
I mean seriously, the YPP server when down before I could post this, and while I was waiting for it to come back up I went over to Dailykos to find this:
That is straight out of the Limbaugh/Hannity instruction manual. I don’t want a president whose staffers promote that kind of bullshit. We’ve already had one for the last seven years.
This is a totally legit and fair critique
of Clinton's campaign.
But calling her "conniving" or "drag queen" or typecasting her as hysterical or emotional without qualifying it in these ways is all the difference (at least for me) between woman bashing and calling Clinton out on her own s$#!. I'd also ditto Jennifer that Samantha Power's comment was calling into question Hillary Clinton's "do whatever it takes to get there" ambition (a critique based on observation of her campaign), without resorting to sexist insults.
I'd add though that saying that Obama being grilled by the media about Farrakhan and seeing that as evidence that he and Clinton are being treated the same is all the more evidence of a seriously screwed up media. We should reject the pursuit of the Farrakhan line of questioning just as we should reject the sexist insults of Hillary. But to be clear that doesn't mean we don't criticize both candidates or probe further for more accountability and clarity.
A seriously screwed up media
Which is the most frustrating aspect of all of this. If they just did some actual investigative journalism and actually asked real questions on real issues they wouldn't have the time to share their mother complexes and sexual hangups with us.
a few things
Barack and Hillary are not benchmarks for ending racism and sexism but, they still are examples of progress with regard to equality on both issues. Barack wouldn't be as successful if he weren't bi-racial. he probably isn't a descendant of a slave but, his father's country was colonized.
like many people i hate Bill Clinton. and let's not forget Hillary started off as a Republican. there is a credible arguement that both Bill and Hillary are conservatives.
Barack is transformative not because of his policy positions but, because of the cultural possibilities that he talks about. that is what a lot of people are attracted to and excited about.
identity politics is important. their success allows other Blacks and women to breach the glass ceilings that have limited them for hundreds of years in every aspect of life.
almost everyone underestimates what the influence of the congress will be in the next 4 years. the congress is more progressives than Barack. i think Barack would be more open to the domestic policies of congress than Hillary.
Hey
for once I got nothing to say, but I appreciate all these points.
Identities (plural, multiple, contradictory)
Yeah, I think this is where the identity politics gets really complicated, and where Barack and Hilary are fraught exemplars, but maybe more instructive for all of that.
Case in point: a quick survey of my family. I had a good talk with my Dad the other day about how both he and Barack Obama have immigrant parents, and he pointed out how it was only in his lifetime that an Irish Catholic (which he is also) had been elected president. For my Dad, those touchstones make much more sense with the Kennedy comparisons than the youthful Senator stuff. And it would have been astonishing to my grandparents that the son of an African immigrant would be President -- in my grandmother's case, in her lifetime. I don't know who my Dad would vote for (in Michigan, the ballot was awfully thin). He's also the kind of guy who won't tell me.
My mom is a classic Clinton voter -- white Catholic woman, mid-50s, high school education, rust-belt state. She says she's been waiting all of her life for a woman to be President. But she was also a civil-rights/anti-war committed teeny-bopper, 16 when Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were killed. As she puts it, she's torn -- Clinton is the most viable female candidate on the horizon in her lifetime, but she feels like Obama "has the dream," as she puts it.
My mother-in-law is black and lives in Georgia, and is a little younger than my mom, similar education but higher income, and she loves Clinton. But it's mostly because she loves Bill. The 90s were great years for her -- no war, cheap gas, cheap debt, lots of economic growth, and she wants that back. She is also deeply worried that Barack Obama would be killed if he were the nominee, and doubtful that white voters would vote for him. My mom mentioned this too. Again, I think it's a lot less far-fetched if you were old enough to pay attention in 1968.
My wife is black, 27, and loves Barack Obama. In fact, she convinced me pretty early. And I think part of what strikes us as a multiracial family is the idea of Obama as a multiracial candidate. And here, too, history is instructive. Obama was born in 1961. Loving v. Virginia was in 1967. And in 2008, with Obama vs. McCain, SurveyUSA says Virginia votes for Obama. That's pretty astonishing.
I don't think Clinton or Obama alone give you a pure sense of American attitudes about race, sex, or gender. (Ray's aggregate statistics are much better for that.) The identities are too confused, they deflect off of too many things. But that's partly because that's how identity works.
A Kia Gregory and Samantha Power comment
Kia Gregory is provocative, interesting, but not always correct. Having been a resident of the District of Columbia once upon a time, I cannot see how she can applaud Marion Barry. (It's in her list of reasons why she loves Obama.) Marion Barry was a corrupt politician, giving jobs to cronies. While he was mayor, the city deteriorated. He disrespected women, using them as sexual objects, and while in a position of responsibility he let alcohol and drugs control him. Two mayors after him have been trying vary hard to clean up the mess he left behind -- which includes a failing school system, and a crumbling infrastructure.
Marion Barry was non-discriminatory in that his weaknesses, bad judgment and corruption hurt every kind of citizen, young, old, rich, poor, black, latino, white, you name it.
Also, I have a comment on why Samantha Power really had to resign, something that goes way beyond the monster comment. Power also told the press on her Europe trip that once Obama became president, his campaign get-out-of Iraq plan was no longer operative:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Power_on_Obamas_Iraq_plan_be...
Here's what she said :
"What he’s actually said, after meeting with the generals and meeting with intelligence professionals, is that you – at best case scenario – will be able to withdraw one to two combat brigades each month. That’s what they’re telling him. He will revisit it when he becomes president," Power says.
The host, Stephen Sackur, challenged her: "So what the American public thinks is a commitment to get combat forces out in 16 months isn't a commitment isn't it?"
"You can’t make a commitment in March 2008 about what circumstances will be like in January of 2009," she said. "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator. He will rely upon a plan – an operational plan – that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground to whom he doesn’t have daily access now, as a result of not being the president. So to think – it would be the height of ideology to sort of say, 'Well, I said it, therefore I’m going to impose it on whatever reality greets me.'"
How important was her influence on Obama? She was Obama's senior foreign policy adviser, according to a story at Talking points Memo:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/182174.php
"In a conference call just now, the Clinton campaign called on Barack Obama to fire Samantha Power for calling Hillary a "monster."
There are advisers and then there are advisers. Power is Barack Obama's Condi Rice.
A Harvard Law grad, former foreign correspondent, and Pulitzer Prize winning author, Power left her Harvard faculty gig to go work on Obama's Senate staff for a year. It might be a little condescending to say she schooled him on foreign policy, but that's close to accurate. In the constellation of Obama advisers, the 37-year-old Irish-born Power has as high a profile and as close a relationship to the candidate as anyone."
It seems to me that if you are supporting Obama mostly because he has a "better plan" to get us out of Iraq, your theory needs another look.
PS Kia does not stand alone
as the only local woman columnist with some reactionary gender politics. Dan reminded me of the end of Fatimah Ali's February 5th column:
But over at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick is talkin straight to DE: