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My fellow Emily, as usual I read your acerbic post and find myself about to disavow my own previously held views. Why did I find myself aflutter over the prospect of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton again? Oh right: She could ace this job! You are right that she has not proved herself as an administrator. But here are three quick retorts: That is only part of the state job, three's the charm, and she is too smart not to figure out (finally) how to successfully delegate the management of this. Plus the bonus: She must be through with some of her worst campaign managers. On the soap opera front, for once I don't want Bill drama to disqualify her. I hated the idea of the retread of the two of them back in the White House. But this would be her work, her office, and I can't believe the Obama people haven't made it clear that Bill's role should be limited to the cheery star-power glad-handing he is so good at. If they think that they can work with her, then like Hanna says, I'm ready to trust them. Also, I want the Democrats' rival houses to come together this way. This president is taking over with all the world in economic shambles. It's the right time for putting aside past differences, for our most prominent politicians to act like their biggest and best selves. That's what Secretary Hillary would signify to me, on both sides of the détente.
Also, while I resist the idea that Hillary Clinton deserves this, in the sense that no one deserves any incredibly prestigious plum of an office, the Tracy Flick fan in me wants her to have it. And wants her to shine. Yes, she could also just go on being a good senator. But this gives her the opportunity for a grander next act. I want her to keep the pantsuits and the toughness but lose the brittle edge of her image that the campaign left us with. She should be the bitch who gets stuff done, as Tina Fey put it, but less bitchy.
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It is tempting to believe that Hillary seemed so relaxed, and confident, and generous this afternoon because she has finally accepted her place. And that place is, once again, second to a giant of male charisma. But this would be insulting, and also not true. I think she projected such calm certainty in her bowing out speech because she is at her best out of combat. When the white shirt is out, she can put her demons to rest and, for the most part, let go of the enemies-under-every-rock view that seems to always darken her mood.
If this had been her hello instead of her goodbye I might have felt more enthusiasm for her, or at least affection. She opened on a historic note, mentioning the little girls who now understand that "we can be whatever we want to be." She placed her candidacy in a string of civil rights victories. She mentioned the 50—50!—women who have orbited the Earth.* It's not merely that she cheerfully checked the boxes all the sour pundits drew for her—enthusiastic, repeated endorsements of Obama, calls for Democratic unity. It's that she finally accepted her role as a pathbreaker for women, and not the victim of constant attacks.
Yes, there were some uh-oh moments. The digression about "barriers" and "biases" that went on a little too long. The weird metaphor of her supporters as 18 million shards of glass chipping off the glass ceiling. But for the most part, she hit the notes Meghan was complaining had been missing from her candidacy.
Yes, the female Hillary and Obama supporters will be fighting it out for some time. But with this graceful exit, she allowed the larger conversation to move on. After her speech I was listening to conservative talk radio—in this case the talk show hosted by Richard Land, the enlightened Southern Baptist leader. He is obviously no Obama supporter but he could not help but describe his nomination as the symbol of the greatness of America, and how far we have come. This could stem from conservatives' reluctance to hit hard at a black man (as Peggy Noonas argues) Or it could be genuine. Either way, it can't be bad for the Democrats.
Read more XX Factor posts about Hillary's exit.
*Correction, June 9: The post originally said that 50 women had orbited space.
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David Brooks raises an excellent question in his column today about demographics and the Democrats: I understand why affluent, college educated voters are drawn to Barack Obama, but how did Hillary Clinton become the candidate of the working class voter? She went to Wellesley and Yale Law School. People in Arkansas found her snooty and bizarre. She didn't shop at Wal-Mart, she served on the board. There was the "cookie baking" flap. In the years since the White House she and her husband have taken in more than $100 million and their best friends are billionaires. Brooks offers only, "Clinton's talk of fighting and resilience plays well down market", but is that it? Whatever it is, Hillary has wrought an absolutely extraordinary political transformation.
And what is everyone thinking about Obama's tepid response to Jeremiah Wright's "throw Obama under the bus" tour? Is Obama right to simply say, "He does not speak for me He does not speak for the campaign. He may make statements in the future that don't reflect my values or concerns. I think certainly what the last three days indicate is that we're not coordinating with him, right?" and just hope Wright burns himself out. Or does he have to make a stronger, more specific statement saying that while he still has love for the Rev. Wright and appreciation for the role he has played in his life, he is filled with sorrow over the ugly, damning, just plain wrong things he has been saying, etc.—which runs the risk of looking like he is getting into an under-the-bus throwing contest with his pastor and which might offend some black voters?
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Noooo... it wasn't Monica.
It was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, of course, joining Bill and Hillary for a breakfast with "religious leaders" on Sept. 11, 1998. There is a lovely photo, too.
Q. Does this mean Bill & Hillary are closet Wright parishioners who share Wright's every opinion?!
A. Nope. But I think now we can all stop talking about Jeremiah Wright. If Wright was good enough to be considered a major national religious leader by the Clinton White House, then maybe Barack Obama wasn't uniquely obtuse in his decision to stay on at the church where Wright presided. And maybe Hillary Clinton's campaign should stop trying to use Wright to discredit Obama.
Just a thought.
And in case you were wondering what Bill, Hillary, the Rev. Wright, and the other religious leaders chatted about over their coffee and muffins: Bill took the occasion to repent. Even the absent Monica got an apology from Bill, at least in passing: "It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine. First and most important, my family, my friends, my staff, my Cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people."
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I love that Woolf quote, Judith, and it's sadly apt, lo this century later. And I think you're right that's both Hillary's own doing and a product of how she's been treated. But I wonder about your claim that she has weathered horrors and Obama's hasn't. Yes, she wore the straitjacket of being the first lady, which was never more strangling than in Bill Clinton's White House. But Obama is a 46-year-old black man with an amazingly unconventional and also difficult past; see his autobiography. Forgive me if you were talking about their public and recent political personas and experiences rather than their whole selves and lives, but since I don't like the race-and-gender-suffering one-upsmanship, I can't help pointing out that Obama knows a real trial when he sees one. His have been different kinds of crucibles, and maybe that explains why he's sunny Jane Austen, but maybe it's more apt to think of him as a black writer with a light and wry side, like Langston Hughes (who Rosa reminded us of the other day.)
I'm curious: Does the comparing of your racism as worth than my sexism, and vice versa, distress any one else? Or is it just me who sees this as singularly unproductive?
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I hear you, Hanna and Emily et al.—OK, pretty much everybody, now—and no doubt you're right, but I have to confess that I don't feel entirely ready for this to be over. I like this contest. I like the analysis and entrail-reading. I like getting up in the morning to find out how the returns came in overnight. I like watching as the Democratic party tries to manage the Godzilla-versus-Mothra nature of this battle between two formidable candidates and as superdelegates and party people try to decide which side to side with. It's suspenseful and exciting—like a great basketball game that's now gone into overtime. It doesn't seem such a bad thing if these two candidates continue to differentiate their positions and levels of readiness; and if Obama starts getting tougher media questioning and being obliged to respond, surely that will enable all of us to get to know him better. And I think that the primary results do enable us to look for illuminating patterns among voters.
Ruth Marcus has a terrific column today in the Post. She convincingly refutes Hillary Clinton's complaints about sexism: Given that Clinton began this race as the establishment favorite, Marcus point out, it's ludicrous for her to plead that the playing field, for her, isn't level. However, Marcus also points out that for future female presidential candidates, sexism, while it may not be the most constraining "-ism" in America, cannot be dismissed. Noting that Hillary Clinton doesn't do as well among Democratic men as she does among women, and that there have been sexist overtones to some criticisms directed at her—the b-word among them—Marcus says, "I've been wondering whether the country, particularly the male half, can comfortably fit a woman into its mental picture of a president. Obama's success stems in large part from his ability to use rhetoric to inspire and persuade. The country has scant experience of a woman in that role." She quotes Ruth Mandel, director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, pointing out that Americans lack "historical memory" of a charismatic leader who is a woman. Would we accept one, I wonder? Would voters flock to a woman with Obama-like charisma? If not, why not? Hillary Clinton isn't the candidate to answer these questions; there are too many variables, too many other reasons why someone might oppose her, besides gender. But I think these are interesting conversations to have and I'm prepared to keep having them for a while longer. It beats working.
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Today, the front page of the Washington Post has another installment in the "feminists are pissed" series dominating the press (and soon to dominate more if Hillary loses today). They call her a witch, a hag, an old bimbo, say the leaders of NOW. They are threatened by her power. Once again, I can't relate, particularly since the NOW leaders never even consider the possibility that people simply may not like her. But one thought did strike me in reading this. One of the NOW leaders tells the story that she was wearing a Hillary sticker in a hotel and a man came up to her and said, "Ah, come on. A woman's place is in the kitchen." I'm not sure I believe the story, but let's say it's true. Maybe what it means is this: There are people who still believe this. When I travel around conservative Christian circles, it's commonly held that a woman's place is not in leadership. This is true even for modern, highly educated conservative evangelicals. In my book, I focus on a couple of highly successful young career-minded women who are facing this dilemma—work or cede your life to your new husband and family. Basically, they all choose the latter. This makes this "ism" different from "racism." No conservative Christian would argue anymore that the black man needs to be kept down. But they do have a coherent, theological, philosophical explanation for why a woman's place is fundamentally still in the kitchen. One may disagree, but is this the same as sexism?
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Newsweek's Jon Alter has a piece about Bill Clinton's recent hostile and aggressive campaign behavior. Alter quotes former Clinton lawyer, now Obama supporter, Greg Craig wondering "if Hillary's campaign can't control Bill, whether Hillary's White House could." I think we probably have all the evidence we need (see the former No. 1 best seller known as "The Starr Report") that no, Hillary Clinton cannot control her husband. Even if she became the most powerful person in the world, if he started embarrassing her, probably the best she could do would be to declare him an enemy combatant and ship him off to Guantanamo.
I guess Bill's attacks have been working -- Hillary won the last two contests. But in the long run, won't his self-righteous rants hurt her? Every time he gets riled he seems like someone who, for the past seven years, has only had to deal with questions from lesser mortals such as, "Would you like one pillow or two in your sedan chair, my liege?" In last night's debate Obama criticized Bill's attacks on him, and Hillary responded that she was the one running for president. Obama replied that sometimes it was hard to tell. Isn't that truth terribly undermining of her claim to the presidency?
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Dahlia
argued yesterday that Obama is appealing because it's simpler "to be yourself
than to be a piece of precision machinery." At the outset of Hillary's victory
speech last night, she claimed to have had an epiphany along these lines: "Over
the last week, I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice." The
crowd roared, and I was moved, too. I'm undecided still, but leaning toward
Obama (even though he seems a little windy) because I think he has a better
chance in the general election. When I heard Hillary's opener, I was
momentarily convinced that her Iowa loss, the debate dust-ups, and the Diner
Sob--and the seemingly positive voter response to all of it--had delivered us a
new Hillary, one who can win: open, honest, authentic. But then the speech
rolled on, and as the crowd subsided it became possible to hear the clanking of
her political apparatus as it shifted from the Experience setting over to To-Thine-Own-Self-Be-True:
"very full heart", "we all spoke from our hearts", "politics isn't a game", "this
campaign is about people". A calculated pitch to show how authentic and
uncalculated she is!
I'm happy about the New Hampshire results. It's great
Democrats will have more time to make their decision. But I don't think Hillary
the Authentic will be convincing for long.