Campaign Round-Up

As Obama prepares to accept the nomination tomorrow night, I'd like to recap my coverage of the primary season:

* Campaign to boycott the election
* The disenfranchisement of Democratic women
* Time to harness the power of 51%
* Eleanor and John in 1959
* Not just another sex scandal
* The Real Obama?
* The perils of taking things at face value
* If they don't do it, they don't win
* Kicking us when we're down
* Gore-ed: Or How "Conventional Wisdom" Makes Sh*t Up
* You don't have to support Hillary to deplore the sexism that brought her down
* Obama supporters attacked Hillary, but Obama attacked Bill
* Another way to spin: or, the rosy view of things
* The question of racism
* The McCain threat
* The marathon
* Has Hillary's defeat set back feminism?
* The mob
* Dissing the dismal science
* Democrats will lose by playing dirty
* The double standard around the call to quit
* "Entitlement" another sexist code word
* Obama and the Democratic Party
* The Obama Strategy
* Small town America is seeing clearly
* Unreaveling the mess in Michigan and Florida
* Equality roundup
* The case for a Clinton/Obama ticket
* Caucuses vs primaries and the state of Texas
* Change you can't believe in
* Who will stand up to the Cuban-American lobby?
* Schlesinger roundup
* The war against women
* Gobsmacking nastiness
* Can any Democrat beat McCain in November?
* Questions for the candidates
* The Republican Nomination is all down to the veep
* Calling for a closer examination of Obama
* Ongoing bickering may doom Democrats
* Bill Clinton's presidency: mananger or visionary
* I am weary
* Some thoughts on women in politics
* Pushing back against the Hillary haters
* Obama
* The politics of black and white
* Trey Ellis on Bill-bashing
* Correcting the record: too little, too late
* Obliterating the front runner, cont.
* The twisting of truth: analysis of an event
* The Huffington Post and irresponsible alternative media
* What the next US president faces
* Don't get fooled again
* Analysing anti-woman media bias
* Endorsements for Hillary for president as of January 15, 2008
* The glass jaw
* When the media aims its guns
* Why Hillary won
* Democrats have something to learn from the Liberals
* John Edwards' version of change: dirty politicis
* Ain't no fun when the rabbit's got the gun... for lots of reasons
* Obama lost his way
* US health care
* Some thoughts on the Democratic race
* Would a woman president be taken seriously by an Arab state?
* Why the cleavage issue matters
* Why I endorse Hillary as Democratic candidate for president
* The lady vanishes... into a smokescreen of lies
* Another Bush coming in the back door
* Fatal flaw with Hillary and Barack?
* Mother Jones takes on Hillary
* Clinton, Obama, and Gore

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Campaign to Boycott the Election

I have been sitting here tonight watching the convention on CNN. It is soooo long and soooo boring. CNN isn't even covering the speeches... just endless yuckety-yuck punditry as the speeches drone on in the background. I don't think I'll be able to take another night of this.

But while I've been enduring this protracted nonsense I've been busily googling and reading, finding places to plant my campaign to boycott the election. I have left various versions of my message, but this is the current form:

At the 2008 Democratic National Convention Hillary Clinton challenged her supporters to support Obama by saying, “I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?” As a Hillary Clinton supporter, my answer is “No.” My interest was in finding a qualified person to be president. That is still my major concern.

But along the way, something else happened. The candidate I supported, who happened to be a woman, was ridiculed and demonized for being female. Over the last year I watched major media personalities say that Hillary is like a nagging ex-wife or that they were afraid that she would castrate them. Her biggest failing, we were told, was that she had a sense of entitlement – and people accepted that as fair criticism. The media was more interested in the husband than the candidate. She was criticized for her laugh, ankles, age, clothing. She was called shrill, a hypocrite, too mannish, too womanish. The final kick in the teeth was that the winner, his party and most of the media deny that there was even a problem and seem completely unwilling to address the issue.

I was profoundly disappointed that Obama did not choose a woman to be his VP, or even seriously consider the woman who got nearly half the vote. I continue to be appalled at the unequal treatment of Hillary as the losing candidate: no man has ever been expected to grovel to the winner so thoroughly. I don't understand why Obama has not made efforts to reach out to Hillary supporters and unify the party.

I don’t dislike Obama or Biden; I just refuse to sit by and accept that the first serious female candidate could be demonized and ridiculed for being female. There were multiple factors in her defeat, but the biggest and ugliest was pervasive, blatant sexism. We got the message loud and clear that a woman would not be taken seriously for president.

Consequently, if Obama and the party continue to ignore my concerns, then as a Democrat and a Hillary supporter I am planning to boycott this election. My goal is to send a message to the Democratic party that I will not stand for the treatment of women that occurred in the Democratic primaries; and that my future support depends on equal representation for women.

Under-representation and sexism have been around forever, and all we get is empty promises without sufficient progress. They'll remember us if we throw the election. It's short term pain for long term gain.

Women represent 51% of the population and yet have minuscule representation in the power elite. I want the backroom boys to get very worried about running a campaign without a woman on the ticket. I want them to start to get serious about moving to equal representation in congress, the cabinet, the judiciary, senior government posts, corporate directorships and senior management. I want them to see women as a demographic they have to take seriously.

My boycott is not in support of Hillary. If Hillary’s supporters turn their backs on Obama it could rebound very negatively on her: no matter what she does, she will be blamed for it. But this is not about her. This is about drawing a line in the sand and saying I will not take this anymore.

This text was updated on August 28.

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The Disenfranchisement of Democratic Women

We live in a world where women are vastly under-represented in the top ranks. We have only token representation in congress and the cabinet; in the ranks of CEOs, directors and senior management; in the most influential media posts; in every influential area of government and business. This is equally true in Canada.

It can no longer be argued that women are under-represented because we are unready to lead. More women graduate university than men. Changes in childcare practices, such as widespread availability of day care and better sharing of the workload between spouses, mean that women don’t have to drop out of the workforce for a decade.

We could write volumes on why women are still excluded from the top ranks. Many people (both men and women) are locked into a paternalistic framework where women aren't acceptable as leaders. Our vision of a leader is a man in business suit. A woman seems wrong. Lots of things reinforce this. There aren’t enough female university professors so people don’t see women as authority figures and women lack role models. Our society increasingly presents women as sex objects for men. The “old boy’s network”, still going strong, excludes women.

But this year we had a glaring, monstrous, public demonstration of how women are shut out. A woman – for the first time – was a serious contender for the nominee for president, and she was brought down – for various reasons – but publicly because she was a woman. She was ridiculed and demonized for being female. Some of the most widely watched and influential media personalities said they were afraid she’d castrate them. Her biggest failing, we were told, was that she had a sense of entitlement – and people accepted that as a fair criticism. She was criticized for her laugh, ankles, age. She was called shrill, a hypocrite, too mannish, too womanish. The media was more interested in the husband than the candidate. It was blatantly obvious that no woman would be taken seriously.

And after it was all over, the sexism was almost completely denied by the media, her party, and the man who won.

What people don’t seem to get about Hillary supporters who don’t support Obama is that our problem is not that Hillary lost; it’s how she lost. I fully understand that there were numerous factors in that defeat - that her campaign staff made mistakes, that she made mistakes - but the key issue is that the sexism was so egregious and blatant that the campaign represents an attack on all women.

I couldn’t bear to watch Michelle Obama’s speech at the convention last night because it was good. She is intelligent, poised, a good speaker with a great heart, and yet she cannot speak at the Democratic convention except as a spouse supporting her husband. As a woman, it is heartbreaking and maddening to see such ongoing blatant dismissal of our sex. It would almost be easier if women were dismissed as inferior, but we’re not. We have made huge strides in attaining equity in education and pay, but we’re still not equal citizens. We’re allowed into every segment of society except - other than a few tokens - the ruling class.

It is widely reported that over 30% of Hillary supporters have not yet decided to support Obama, and yet nobody, it seems, is taking our concerns seriously. The Democratic party seems to believe that it's up to Hillary to heal the rift. As I've said before, she is not the person to do that. It is the responsibility of the candidate and the party to address this issue. And as they seem to have absolutely no inclination to do that, or even to admit there's a problem, well... the only leverage we have is our numbers and our vote.

This is the time for women to take a stand. We have been promised better female representation for decades and virtually nothing has been done. We have been slapped down too publicly to just be able to say OK, fair enough, we’ll try again in four years. I can barely stand to watch the parade of men at the convention podium. I’m sick of it.

We have watched in horror as a high profile woman has been felled, and it resonates too painfully with all the little ways that each of us has been felled. Equality now.

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Time to Harness the Power of 51%

Watching the US political TV shows this morning, Hillary's name came up even more often than Joe Biden's. The question is why Obama didn't ask her to be VP - why he didn't even vet her - after she won half of the vote. The concern is that over 30% of Hillary supporters do not support Obama. The facile solution is that Hillary's convention speech will make the difference in bringing her supporters over to Obama.

Hillary can't do it. As one of the three in ten, I can tell you this: I don't support Obama now for the same reason that I didn't support him during the primary. I have been a fan of the man for years, but I don't think he's qualified - at this point in his career - to be president. Only Obama can convince us that he would make a better president than John McCain. Hillary can't do bupkis.

Proof of this is that she's been making strenuous efforts to support Obama and they're not registering. She made the most unifying concession speech in history. She has been actively stumping for Obama, appealing over and over to her supporters to support him. Not only are her supporters refusing to budge, but the media is asserting that she's not even trying. Witness an article in the Globe & Mail recently questioning her support for Obama (in complete opposition to the evidence); and a Diane Francis article that described Hilllary's concession speech as ungracious - which anyone who heard it would know is a bare-faced lie.

We might support our party just on partisan grounds, despite our qualms. But there is a huge rift in the party. Women were humiliated by the treatment of Hillary Clinton in the primaries. We haven't forgotten, when she was attacked in a debate for being unlikeable, Obama's condescending, snarky "You're likeable enough, Hillary." We haven't forgotten his half-hearted response to his pastor's vicious attack on her. Most of all, we are wounded by the vicious sexist attacks during the campaign. If Obama wants to bring us around, he needs to address our concerns.

Just as he made a moving speech about race, Obama needs to address gender issues in America. Women are incensed that the media and the Democratic party have all denied that there was sexism in the primaries. All of it has been denied: the comments about castration and ankles and cackle; the over-emphasis on the candidate's male spouse; the heckles and the insults. There was not only widespread refusal to take seriously a woman candidate, but the female candidate was ridiculed and demonized for being female. We're mad not on Hillary's behalf but on our own behalf.

So that's Obama's challenge. Convince us that you're better qualified than John McCain to meet the difficult, pragmatic challenges ahead; and address our concerns about the role of women in politics. So far Obama has been unsuccessful in the former and has shown no interest in the latter. If he doesn't change his approach - radically - then many women, myself included, may think about staying home on election day. And maybe that's not such a bad thing. It's time to send a message that we're a demographic that deserves some attention. In the short term we'd get stuck with another Republican president for four more years (it's unlikely McCain could seek a second term), but in the long run we might make great strides for women's equality. If Obama doesn't step up, I propose that women boycott the election. It's time to say enough is enough.

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Eleanor and John in 1959

Eleanor Roosevelt, political powerhouse, spent her life championing the plight of the disadvantaged. Hoover had her followed everywhere and had an enormous FBI file on her activities. The media and public believed her to be (at different stages in her life) a dilettante, communist, hypocrite; naive, manipulative; a shrill, pushy woman. Through it all she got a great deal done. As wife of the president she pushed her agenda relentlessly. As his widow she served on the board of the NAACP, spoke out against McCarthy, and chaired the UN committee that wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (among many things). By the time she was elderly the criticism had turned to praise and she was widely admired. Throughout it all she adhered to the principle that she had to succeed or her failure would be a failure for all women.

John Kennedy, young senator, was a populist candidate for president with very little experience.

Hmmm... anyone else see any similarities in modern day players?

Of course, in 1959 a woman couldn't have made a serious campaign for president; it was groundbreaking that Eleanor was appointed as representative to the UN. In 2008 a woman could be a contender - but perhaps only if she had the public profile and political machine that comes from being related to a powerful man (just as FDR was Eleanor's ticket to power). And historians may judge that even in 2008 a woman couldn't make a serious run for president - that inherent sexism made it impossible, ultimately, for her to be taken seriously. "Divisive" has become code for "not the male, paternalistic model we're used to."

Something that Eleanor Roosevelt said during the 1950s really resonates with me today. Speaking about the cold war, she said that racism in the US was so bad that there were two categories of citizen with two sets of rights, and that when the rest of the world saw that situation they couldn't take the US alternative seriously and would be more inclined to look to communism.

The treatment of African-Americans in 1959 was far worse than the treatment of women in 2008, and in making the comparison I don't want to suggest otherwise. But one of the connections is this: in an international community where women are strong, with female heads of state even in Islamic countries, the US drive for democracy and human rights seems empty and hypocritical.

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Not Just Another Sex Scandal

John Edwards' personal problems are bigger news than most political sex scandals for a number of reasons. He made his relationship with his wife a cornerstone of his campaign to be Democratic presidential nominee. They have young children. She is a widely respected and hugely sympathetic figure in the US. She has breast cancer, an illness that attacks a woman's sexuality - worse, she was battling cancer while he had the affair, and the cancer has now been diagnosed as incurable. Edwards may have misused political funds by paying his girlfriend to make a documentary (despite her total lack of expertise) as a ruse to travel with her. He may have fathered a child as a result of the affair. He may have paid people substantial sums of money to help cover up the affair and his paternity (and there will be questions about where that money came from). He may have lied to his wife when he fessed up to the affair and said it was over, sometime before the child was conceived. And the affair shatters a carefully-honed public persona that was a smoke-and-mirrors attempt to obscure his previous image as a sleazeball pretty-boy.

But what makes this story interesting and potentially more important to me is why Edwards entered the presidential race when it now seems clear that he couldn't keep this enormous scandal out of the press. People thought the documentary story was fishy almost from the start, and when his campaign pulled all mention of it, alarm bells went off in newsrooms. From that point on a number of journalists were pretty sure there had been an affair and were actively trying to prove it. Edwards must have known that if nominated as the Democratic candidate he could be exposed and lose the election. He put himself forward when his candidacy could have doomed his party to lose the presidency. Edwards has admitted to narcissism in having the affair, but the scary narcissism is that he ran for Democratic nominee given the powder keg he was sitting on.

I can't believe that narcissism is a complete explanation for why Edwards ran for president. Edwards did two main things in the primaries: he used his high profile as a top-three contender to (1) put forth an anti-poverty agenda and (2) attack Hillary Clinton.

The anti-poverty agenda always struck me as strategic rather than sincere. It gave him a cause that differentiated him from the top two contenders and it allowed him to play up his North Carolina roots, but it was too big a break from his previous policy stance. Just four years before, when Edwards ran for the Democratic presidential nomination and became the vice-presidential nominee, he was much more to the right.

It is unclear why Edwards used his high profile in the primaries to support Barack Obama and trash the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, but there's no question that he did it. During a debate, Edwards made it very clear that Hillary Clinton was one of the "forces of the status quo" when he said, "Everytime [Obama] speaks out for change, everytime I fight for change, the forces of status quo are going to attack. Every single time. And what we have to remember - and this is the overarching issue here, because what we really need in New Hampshire and in future state primaries, is we need an unfiltered debate between the agents of change about how we are going to bring about that change."

I was a Hillary Clinton supporter, and I have never understood how and why she was brought down from solid first place to loser. There were a lot of forces at work, including a sexist culture, but one significant factor was the attacks of John Edwards. This may have been part of a backroom deal to doom her candidacy, or it may have been Edwards playing kingmaker, or he may have just adopted a tactic of knocking off the frontrunner before turning his guns on the next challenger. He didn't seem to want to run for VP again, so his support of Obama doesn't seem to be based on an attempt at a joint ticket. We will probably never know Edwards' motives, but the result was that he was the spoiler in the Democratic primaries.

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Uniting the Party

I recently wrote about Hillary laying down the gauntlet in her concession speech, saying that she would fight to ensure Americans had universal health care - "no exceptions and no excuses".

Today, Obama said he's going to partner with Elizabeth Edwards on health care. Elizabeth Edwards supports Hillary's plan.

Why did Obama name Elizabeth Edwards? Is it a gesture of support for Hillary or a slap in the face? If it was meant to make Hillary supporters happy, it is uncharacteristically inept.

It's starting to bother me that Obama isn't making a move to unite the party. Everyone gave Hillary grief about waiting four days after her defeat to endorse Obama (even though past candidates have received no grief for waiting up to four months) but I'm starting to think Obama should get some grief for not immediately reaching out to Clinton supporters. It's not that he needs to make concessions; it's that he needs to make a gesture. Not doing so indicates a disturbing arrogance. There's nothing worse than a sore winner.

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What Hillary Wants

In her speech today suspending her campaign and endorsing Obama, Hillary said:

We all want a health care system that is universal, high quality and affordable so that parents don't have to choose between care for themselves or their children or be stuck in dead-end jobs simply to keep their insurance. This isn't just an issue for me. It's a passion and a cause, and it is a fight I will continue until every single American is ensured - no exceptions and no excuses.

With this statement, Hillary declared her determination to achieve universal health care for Americans - "with no exceptions and no excuses" - even though Obama opposes universality. In fact, during the campaign Obama released a series of ads attacking Hillary for seeking universality. More than one carried the slogan "Hillary's health care plan forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it." Paul Krugman estimated that under Obama's plan, at least 23 million Americans would remain uninsured.

Everything else in her speech was aimed at subsuming Hillary's political machine into Obama's to help him become president. On this one issue did she defy him. And I think that gives us a little ray of insight into her goals.

The pundits have been opining that Hillary has been using her photo finish power to force Obama to give her the vice presidency, or the supreme court, or some other big job. I think it's more likely that what Hillary wants is to finish what she started in 1993 and obtain health care for all Americans. It's more than a Herculean task - it's the sort of monumental achievement that might use up the entire career of a great person. And she seems ready to give it her all.

Now that's a legacy to make the vice presidency seem pretty trivial.

(Note: Thanks to my friend Ellen for pointing out that Hillary broke with Obama on this issue. It sailed right by me when I first listened to the speech, and all the pundits also seemed to miss it.)

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Reflections

My initial urge to start a blog, some years ago, had to do with some things I wanted to say about Al Gore. That was back before Gore's image was rehabilitated by his Nobel prize, Academy award and great work on the environment. Back then I was fascinated/horrified by the mind-bogglingly unfair character assassination that Al Gore was subjected to in the 2000 presidential campaign. I supported him, and then the world came to believe - unbelievably - something that was completely untrue: that he was a delusional liar and an incompetent boob.

One of my early posts went,

My fascination with Al may have been rooted in his potential to create a vastly different, vastly better world than the one we live in now, and it may have been driven by the shocking events that split our history off into this world of torture, death and government surveillance, but it took the form of a frustrated need to understand how he was defeated and how he has coped.

...how did the Republicans convince Americans that Al Gore, who had a sterling reputation as a conscientious, hard-working, all-around straight arrow, was in fact a self-aggrandizing delusional liar?

...Then there's his coping. This guy was so buttoned up that there were jokes that he made FBI agents look like hippies. After his defeat he went through a brief phase in which he gained weight, always seemed to appear with a drink in his hand, and affected a devil-may-care attitude. My collection of Al photos from 2001 includes one of him shirtless and barefoot, sitting in a back yard in what appears to be a trailer park, leaning way back in a lawn chair and brandishing a bottle of beer.

What went on? What lessons does this teach us about how to overcome being crushed, humiliated, and cheated? Did his transformation help him get past it, or is he a broken man?

Later I wrote,

I don’t usually get too worked up about politicians losing elections, even when I’ve busted my butt helping their campaign. As good as they are, as unfortunate as it is that they didn’t make public office, they always have pretty good fallback positions.

Al Gore, as of this writing, is the president of a television station, the chair of an investment company and a board member of Apple Inc. Some call him the “conscience of the Democratic Party” and he makes a lot of high profile speeches.

Al’s no Gregg Allman, coming home from tours where thousands scream his name to a rented house and long dusty walks down country roads lugging beer and wonder bread because money he could have spent on a car has gone to drugs and alimony.

So then... Why did Al act like that for six months?

So now I find myself in an eerie period of deja vu, feeling that the candidate I supported, Hillary Clinton, was demonized in a way that was breathtakingly unfair: that "coventional wisdom" is perpetuating complete lies and misinterpretations of things she, her husband and her campaign did and said; that the attacks on her were rooted in a prejudice against powerful women that is so entrenched that there is widespread denial (despite overwhelming evidence such as that provided on this site) that it occurred; and that all this was done not by Karl Rove but by her own party - by my party!

Commenters on this site have accused me of being overly partisan to Clinton. I support her, for sure, but my passionate reaction to this campaign is due to the blatant, ghastly displays of sexism and to my living through, for a second time, the fictionalization of a great person. I have been transfixed by this horror story ever since it really started rolling, sometime late last year. The crazy demonization seemed to peak around February 5, just long enough for Obama to sweep Super Tuesday. Then there was a backlash as Clinton supporters started to rally, but even millions of passionate Clinton supporters couldn't make a dent in the "conventional wisdom" that she is a nasty, hypocritical, power-mad bitch.

Now that she's lost it's easy to pick out all the mistakes she and her campaign made, but I think Hillary Clinton's failure really comes down to one main factor: people are uncomfortable with the idea of a female president. A president is a paternalistic figure: he wears a suit and tie, he rolls up his shirt sleeves, he projects a certain authority that we simply don't connect with women. As the pundit famously put it, "When Hillary Clinton speaks men hear, Take out the garbage!" But this isn't a problem of men versus women. Many men have acted admirably, and many women have been sexist. This is a matter of a systemic problem in our society.

As with Al, I have no fears about Hillary Clinton's future. She may end up as VP, a member of the supreme court, governor of New York, a powerful senator or, really, whatever she wants. There's no reason to feel sorry for her.

But I feel great remorse at the idiocy and malice of the mainstream media, the so-called new media like the Huffington Post, and mostly the moronic US (and Canadian) public who bought and perpetuated the lies.

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Kicking Us When We're Down

The second most disturbing thing about this video, to me, is not the mentally deranged Roman Catholic priest who seems to be hyperventilating as he spews his venom, but the gleeful reaction of the parishioners in Barack Obama's church, Chicago's Holy Trinity. And there's nothing new about their reaction. These vile lies have been repeated with glee all over MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, the New York Times Op-Ed page, the Huffington Post and a host of other news/opinion outlets. It has, in fact, become "conventional wisdom" that Hillary Clinton is a hypocritical white bitch whose political aspirations are rooted in a sense of entitlement. (And how DARE a bitch feel entitled to run for president.)

The most disturbing thing about this video is the lackluster response from Obama.

John McCain responded promptly and unequivocally, saying, "I think that kind of language and that kind of treatment of Senator Clinton is unwarranted, uncalled for and disgraceful."

Obama waited four days to respond, and then issued a statement saying he was "deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric, which doesn't reflect the country I see or the desire of people across America to come together in common cause."

On the same day as Obama, Plefger issued a sort of backhanded non-apology: "I regret the words I chose on Sunday. These words are inconsistent with Senator Obama's life and message, and I am deeply sorry if they offended Senator Clinton or anyone else who saw them." (That phrasing, "I apologise IF you were offended" is a classic non-apology, implying that perhaps there's something wrong with you for taking offence; and "I regret the words" implies that he doesn't regret the message, just the way he conveyed it.)

The next day, Friday, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said, "We remain disappointed that Sen. Obama didn't specifically reject Father Pfleger's despicable comments about Sen. Clinton. We assume that he will... We think that he should because when Sen. Clinton's supporters see those comments, they are understandably angered by them. And it's important, I think, for the spirit of unity that we are all trying to create for Sen. Obama and his campaign to condemn them specifically."

We're still waiting.

This ongoing Hillary hating is all the more personal and nasty because she's lost. Obama supporters are just kicking us when we're down. I understand why a lot of women are starting to feel that they can't support Obama in the general election. I'm starting to wonder if I can.

And to those who say that Obama is not responsible for any old thing that gets said in his church, remember this: Pfleger was a member of the Obama campaign, actively stumping for him in Iowa; he was a member of an advisory committee to the Obama campaign called the Catholics for Obama Committee; he is a donor to the campaign; and he is a long-time friend and political supporter.

Obama's wishywashy half-hearted response, that he was "disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric", doesn't mention any of the hurtful issues: the sexism, racism or personal demonization of Hillary Clinton that was Plefger's main message and has been persistent throughout this campaign.

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Gore-ed: Or How "Conventional Wisdom" Makes Sh*t Up

What she said:

CLINTON (5/23/08): Between my opponent and his camp and some in the media, there has been this urgency to end it. And you know, historically, that makes no sense, so I find it a bit of a mystery.

SIOUX FALLS ARGUS LEADER: You don't buy the party unity argument?

CLINTON: I don't, because, again, I've been around long enough—you know, my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June, in California. You know, I don't understand it.

Why did she mention Bobby Kennedy? As a memorable example of a primary continuing into June. The 1968 Democratic primary was still in full swing in June.

Why not mention other examples of primaries that went on into June? As I have mentioned before, there are plenty. The following candidates all took the fight to the convention, despite being far behind the frontrunner: Ronald Reagan in 1976, Ted Kennedy in 1980, Gary Hart in 1984 and Jesse Jackson in 1988. Why not mention these? Because, while they are good examples of occasions when the media and party did not howl for a candidate to drop out as they are doing to Hillary Clinton, they are poor examples in that the candidate who prevailed lost the general election. It could be argued that the decision to prolong the primary contributed to their defeat. (Which totally misses the point that even with the negative impact on party unity, there were no cries of foul when those men decided to keep their campaign alive.) In addition, had she used those examples it would have seemed that she is planning to continue on to the convention.

The misinterpretation of Hillary Clinton's quote was precipitated by an email sent to journalists by Obama spokesman Bill Burton. The backlash has been unbelievable, with allegations from dozens of sources that she is staying in the race because she wants Obama to be assassinated, that she is exposing her evil desires, that she is deliberately trying to get him assassinated, that she has made this claim "multiple times".

In fact, she said something similar once before, in March. What's telling about the March quote is that, while it was widely reported, nobody saw anything malicious in it. Everyone at the time understood that she was talking about primaries going into June, not assassination of candidates. Conventional wisdom decided that last week's quote was sinister only because the Obama camp told journalists that it was.

Joan Walsh (not a Clinton supporter), wrote, "to argue that she was suggesting she's staying in the race because Obama might be assassinated - even after both Clinton, and the journalists who interviewed her, said her reference was to RFK's June campaign, not to his heartbreaking murder - requires either a special kind of paranoia or venal political opportunism."

Walsh concludes that this is "an important and disturbing issue for Democrats." She supports being critical of the candidates for real reasons, but not twisting the truth out of all recognition.

The Daily Howler (one of my favorite sites), says, "Our culture is built on the basic idea that you can’t just make sh*t up. But that standard has been eroding for years in the cartel we still call a press corps. Al Gore said he invented the Internet! No: Al Gore said he discovered Love Canal! (Soon, the words “invented” and “discovered” - words Gore never said - began showing up, by themselves, inside quotes!)" The Howler adds, "[Hillary] didn’t say that she’s staying in the race in case Barack Obama gets killed. You can imagine she said that if you want to, of course; but that is what you are doing. You’re imagining."

I almost didn't bother to write this post because the waves of "conventional wisdom" are so powerful that no airing of the facts will stop them. Even before the 2000 election there was convincing evidence that the lies against Al Gore were just that, but enough people believed it that he didn't secure the presidency; even today, many people believe that Gore is a delusional liar. (Way to go, Rove!) Prior to the Iraq invasion all of Bush's justification for invading Iraq were debunked in the international press, but the lies were believed long enough for Americans to support the war. In 2004 there was abundant evidence that the swift-boating of John Kerry was totally unfair, but it cost him the election. Again and again "conventional wisdom" fueled by crafty negative campaigning arises that is totally in opposition to reality.

For more info, see The Daily Howler for May 28, 29 and 30 and Why You Don't Have to Support Hillary to Deplore the Sexism that Brought Her Down.

For more info on the general issue of making shit up, see Eric Boehlert in Media Matters.

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You Don't Have to Support Hillary to Deplore the Sexism That Brought Her Down

Commenters on this blog have frequently made the claim that there was no anti-woman bias in the Democratic primary. I have provided plenty of evidence of it in the past, but here's some more material I happened upon today.

This video was put out by the Women's Media Center:



In addressing the issue of misogyny in the campaign, WMC President Carol Jenkins wrote this, in part: "Networks - in the year 2008 - still cannot seem to find women to anchor serious political programs. That every lead anchor for every network’s campaign coverage is a white male, suggests the work of inclusion is not being done. That every Sunday morning talk show—where what is news is decided—is hosted by men; that every late night show that gives us clever interpretation of the news is hosted by men; and where women behind the scenes still seldom hold veto power over blatant sexist behavior— it means that we have a media that is dysfunctional."

Here's a really good summary of one woman's reaction to the campaign: Misogyny I Won't Miss by Marie Cocco. It concludes, "There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture."

And a perspective from Andrew Stephens in the New Statesman: Hating Hillary: "History, I suspect, will look back on the past six months as an example of America going through one of its collectively deranged episodes - rather like Prohibition from 1920-33, or McCarthyism some 30 years later. This time it is gloating, unshackled sexism of the ugliest kind. It has been shamelessly peddled by the US media. ...The danger is that, in their headlong rush to stop the first major female candidate (aka "Hildebeast" and "Hitlery") from becoming president, the punditocracy may have landed the Democrats with perhaps the least qualified presidential nominee ever. But that creeping realisation has probably come too late, and many of the Democratic super-delegates now fear there would be widespread outrage and increased racial tension if they thwart the first biracial presidential hopeful in US history."

Obama supporters like to make the argument that misogyny doesn't matter because Obama has faced racism. To this I say:

(1) Obama has faced nothing like the overt female hatred that Hillary has faced. Find me one example of racism to rival the many examples of misogyny in the video above. And that video is really just the tip of the iceberg. Try reading the comments in any Huffington Post (or Washington Post) article about the campaign.
(2) It is illogical to dismiss a problem by citing the existence of another problem.

Want more proof? Try this video or this video or this one.

So when Paul Krugman says, as I quoted yesterday, that "many grass-roots Clinton supporters feel that she has received unfair, even grotesque treatment. And the lingering bitterness from the primary campaign could cost Mr. Obama the White House," Krugman is saying something serious. The campaign is over. Obama won. But we're left with a fractured and unhappy party heading into the general election. It isn't helping Obama's chances for his supporters to continue with the hate.

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Obama Supporters Attacked Hillary, but Obama Attacked Bill

In his column today Paul Krugman wrote, "many grass-roots Clinton supporters feel that she has received unfair, even grotesque treatment. And the lingering bitterness from the primary campaign could cost Mr. Obama the White House."

I am definitely in the camp that sees the treatment of Hillary as grotesque. Some of the attacks on Hillary Clinton have been nothing more than anti-woman hate crimes. Some of the anti-Clinton sentiment has been caused by fear of women gaining equality. As Robin Morgan wrote, "This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrage—as citizens, voters, Americans?"

Some of the attacks on Hillary are not rooted in sexism. Things she said have been horribly twisted and horrible claims made about her: that she is evil, racist, power-grubbing. The character attacks are so ubiquitous that some people believe them implicitly. This demonization is just inexplicable to me, but it seems to be inherent in US politics, where there seems to be a need to hate the person you don't support.

The culprits behind the misogynistic attacks and demonization are the mainstream media, new media, Obama supporters and - doubtless - Republican operatives, working in the shadows.

But my disgust at the course of this campaign goes beyond the attacks on Hillary. I am also angry with Barack Obama for his treatment of Bill Clinton. Obama has repeatedly attacked Bill Clinton's record as president, popularizing the notion that Clinton achieved nothing worthwhile and was either a right-wing lap dog or just uncaring and incompetent. I recently saw a town hall meeting in which Obama was asked a rude question about Bill Clinton. Obama laughed derisively, sharing a little sneer and letting the audience join in with a laugh at the former president's expense before answering more diplomatically. It was ugly.

It has been a central strategy of the Obama campaign to undermine the record of Bill Clinton. I can see why he did it: to tear down Hillary he felt he had to tear down the record of her husband. It was unfair, it was nasty, and it was bad for the party, but it was good politics.

Krugman concludes that "it’s up to Mr. Obama to deliver the unity he has always promised — starting with his own party." Krugman suggests this might be done by offering Hillary the vice presidential spot. But I think Obama has to go beyond that. He has to heal the bitterness felt by supporters of Bill Clinton. That is necessary to unite the Democratic party.

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The Marathon

Every four years there's a marathon and I follow the race very closely. Usually by about Mile 13 it's pretty obvious who's going to win, but everyone cheers on all the others anyway. There's a chance, after all, that the lead runner will trip on a rock.

One thing about these marathons: women never win. They never even come close to winning. Then one year a woman enters the race. And she takes an early lead! But at around Mile 13 a guy passes her, and after that it's pretty clear that she doesn't have a chance.

This time, though, something is different. All the commentators and spectators start screaming at the woman to drop out of the race. Why are they doing this? It sounds like they never thought a woman should have been in the race in the first place, so they're taking their first opportunity to hound her out of it.

I'm just sayin.

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Has Hillary's Defeat Set Back Feminism?

Feminism has been dead in the water - or at least flopping feebly - for quite a few years now. But I notice an even more disturbing trend in blog comments recently: when someone raises an issue about disrimination towards women (for example), commenters poo-poo the problems of women and say that racism is more of a problem.

I'm not saying that racism isn't a problem, but it isn't the only problem. It's as if Hillary's presence in the presidential primaries has made feminism into a partisan issue: you support feminism if you support Hillary, and you deny its importance if you support Obama.

This may be a transitory phenomenon that will pass when Hillary drops out. Or will it? As Maureen Dowd famously said, "feminism lasted a nanosecond while the backlash lasted 40 years." Feminism has proved to be so threatening to the status quo that it is under constant attack. A step backward will not easily be made up.

Many, many people in the world think that feminism is either irrelevant or evil. I have argued otherwise so many times that I won't do it again here (click the feminism label at the bottom of this post to see my other takes on the subject). I made my most direct attempt at explaining it in this post: Why We Still Need Feminism.

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The Mob

US politics is a terrible place of twisted truth and insidious character assassination.

The brouhaha about Obama not wearing a US flag lapel pin is a good case in point. While this was widely cited as evidence that Obama is not sufficiently patriotic, it turns out that very few politicians wear the US flag lapel pin, including Hillary and McCain and just about every other elected official. The entire issue was fictitious, and yet it sticks like feces thrown at a plate glass window.

The Mob forgets the original issue, but remembers the smear (the questionable patriotism). Then a few complementary issues are blown out of proportion: the pastor who dares to raise uncomfortable societal problems is used to suggest the candidate is angry and anti-white; the acquaintance who was involved in a radical group long before the candidate was born is used to suggest that the candidate has a revolutionalry agenda. The candidate refers to his grandmother as "a typical white woman" and the pundits declare it a racist statement. In the mind of The Mob, the idealist becomes a snarling Black Panther. Lock up your women and make sure you vote for the other guy.

There's plenty of reason to criticize Obama for being inexperienced and naive and without the managerial skills to take on the challenges ahead. But political spin doesn't like cool, rational criticism: it seeks to demonize. Rational criticism can be countered. The goal of the opposition is to create the image that the candidate is most horrified by, to leave them sputtering and unable to respond. Then The Mob, swivelling their attention from partisan extremes like spectators at a tennis match, is left thinking that if the candidate can't refute it, it must be true.

Seeing through the lies isn't easy. Bill Clinton said something in his autobiography that helps me keep things in perspective: most politicians are good people who have devoted their lives to public service - even those on the extreme right. A trick I use is to try to ignore the criticisms of character, most of which is spin, and look at candidates as I would look at someone I was interviewing for a job.

Now that it's effectively over for Hillary (short of Obama's head exploding, which I suppose is statistically possible), it would be a huge relief if the Clinton-haters in the Democratic party would calm down or at least direct their vitriol at the Republicans. It has been apparent for months that her candidacy was a long shot, and the main reason I carried on in countering attacks against her is that the attacks were generally untrue, unfair and disturbingly sexist. The demonization of Hillary was ridiculous and it sets back attempts at greater equality for women.

But The Mob is not a self-reflective entity, so it's not clear that any of the lies and misrepresentations of any of the candidates will ever be seriously uncovered. Obama will survive the anti-patriotism attack not by arguing that the issue is hooey, but by using American flag backdrops and adopting patriotic rhetoric.

The difference in the upcoming presidential contest and the thing that gives me hope, is, strangely, the character of the candidate I don't support. John McCain is a standup guy, and he says he wants a clean campaign without negative ads. When asked, urged, even tricked into criticizing his opponents (as he was last night on The Daily Show), he steadfastly refuses, saying only that they're formidable people, friends, and that he has a lot of respect for them. Sure, the RNC and the interest groups will do their thing, but this presidential campaign might be just a little more rational than recent ones.

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Dissing the Dismal Science

The internet is overflowing with people who are outraged at Hillary Clinton (what else is new). Hill's latest Big Sin is seen as this:

* Her gas-tax-holiday proposal hasn't been endorsed by any economists.
* When asked about that on This Week with George Stephanopoulos she said, "Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to put my lot in with economists" - which has been interpreted as a complete dismissal of their input.

I agree that Hillary's response to George Stephanopoulos was a poor sound bite, but when you hear it in context you can see that what she's saying is essentially what we all should have learned in Econ 101: Economists provide input to policy-makers, but the discipline of Economics is not about policy making. In other words: we thank economists for their input, but economic considerations are only part of what policy-makers use to make decisions.

Furthermore, if you take the time to listen to her talking about her proposal, her focus is all about market manipulation by the oil companies that is responsible for nearly half of the current price of a barrel of oil, and the need to do something about that.

I am not a supporter of lowering gas taxes. I argue all the time that we need greatly higher gas taxes. Insofar as there is any justification for reducing the gas tax for the summer, I'd say that it would be a way to counter the recession by reducing consumer pessimism. For example, Americans might decide not to cancel their summer holiday when they see that the government has reduced the price of gas. (And Hillary has said over and over that her proposal is a temporary measure aimed at current market conditions.) It is not a disadvantage of the proposal, but an advantage, that it might bolster the economy while not greatly changing the price of gas.

CNN and other media outlets are going on about the gas tax holiday as if it were the only thing she's proposed. Media - both traditional and new - is failing us.

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The Double Standard Around the Call to Quit

The other day my local daily paper (yes, a Canadian paper) published an editorial calling on Hillary to quit the race for presidential nominee, opining that her terrible ambition would keep her in the race even though it was destroying her party's chances in the election later this year.

What's new about that, I hear you asking. Practically everyone is saying that! From new media like HuffPost to old media like the New York Times, there are dozens of articles every day demanding that Hillary quit the race... and they've been going on since the beginning of March.

No matter that the primaries haven't finished, that she hasn't lost, that Obama hasn't won. The same people who decry superdelegates as undemocratic seem to think that they should be able to circumvent the democratic process by hounding the candidate they don't support out of the race.

This is what Eric Boehlert had to say in Media Matters (So now the press tells candidates when to quit?):

In the past there was always an assumption among journalists that candidates had earned the right to decide when they should quit. Journalists also respected the fact that candidates represented a sizable portion of the primary voting public and that the candidates owed it to their supporters to fight on, that there was a symbolic significance for the candidates -- and their supporters -- to persevere.

With Clinton, though, the press seems to have almost complete disregard for the 14 million voters who have backed her candidacy, as well as the idea that she is their representative in this race. Instead, they treat her entire campaign as some sort of vanity exercise in which voters do not exist.
...
Looking back at history, it's hard to find evidence of the same media response to Ronald Reagan's failed 1976 presidential campaign. Taking on President Gerald Ford, Reagan lost more primaries than he won, and Ford won a plurality of the popular vote, but neither man had enough delegates to secure the nomination. So the campaign went to the GOP convention, where Ford prevailed. The bitter battle did nothing to damage Reagan's reputation (in fact, it did quite the opposite), in part because the media did not collectively suggest the candidate was acting selfishly or irrationally. Instead, Reagan walked away with a reputation as a resilient fighter who stood up for his conservative values.

And what about Sen. Ted Kennedy's doomed run in 1980? He trailed President Jimmy Carter by more than 750 delegates at the end of the primary season and insisted on fighting all the way to the convention, where he tried to get committed Carter delegates to switch their allegiance. The press did not spend months during the primary season ridiculing Kennedy, in a deeply personal tone, for remaining in the race.

And what about Gary Hart in 1984? He and Walter Mondale split the season's primaries and caucuses evenly, and neither had the 2,023 delegates needed to secure the nomination. Superdelegates eventually determined the winner. (Sound familiar?) Mondale had many of them locked up even before the campaign season began, so after the final primary between Mondale and Hart was complete, it was obvious that Mondale was going to be the nominee because Hart could not persuade enough superdelegates to change their mind and support him.

When Hart took his crusade all the way to the convention, the media did not form a posse and decide it was their job to get Hart to quit for the good of the party. (And the press certainly didn't form a posse in March to start pushing Hart out of the race.) Nor did the press collectively suggest that Hart had an oversized ego that had turned him into a political monster.

That new media standard has been created exclusively for Hillary Clinton.

And where were the catcalls in 1988 for Jesse Jackson to ditch his quixotic run before all the primary votes had been tallied? He finished with 1,200 delegates, nearly 1,400 behind Michael Dukakis, yet soldiered on all the way to the convention without having a prayer of winning the nomination. There were few if any media drum sections trying to pound him out of the race.

Or Jerry Brown in 1992? He continued his campaign against Bill Clinton through June despite the fact he tallied fewer than 600 delegates. (By contrast, Hillary Clinton has won approximately 1,600 delegates so far.) Brown's attacks at the time were far more personal and bruising than anything we've seen this cycle. As The New York Times reported on June 2, 1992, Brown "put his party on notice that he intends to carry his politics-is-corrupt, Clinton-is-unelectable message to the Democratic National Convention in New York in July, and beyond." Brown also told the Times that voting for Clinton was like buying a ticket on the Titanic.

At the time, Clinton was actually polling in third place nationally, behind President George H.W. Bush and independent candidate Ross Perot, so why wasn't the press in a frenzy demanding that Brown drop out of the race because he was hurting his party's chances in November?

If you look at Reagan and Kennedy and Hart and Jackson and Brown, those men all ran competitive races. But toward the end of the primary season it was clear most of them had no mathematical chance of winning the nomination. (Reagan was the exception.) Yet none of them was told collectively by the press to go home. Nor were they routinely depicted in the media as being self-absorbed.

Today, Clinton does have a chance to win. Yet she has been told by the press to go home and to get over herself.

It's unprecedented.

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"Entitlement" Another Sexist Code Word

I cannot recall ever hearing the charge that a politician running for office had a "sense of entitlement" about winning - until Hillary Clinton. In criticisms of Hillary, you hear it all the time - never substantiated, just presented as an unformed character indictment.

Early on in the campaign when she was way ahead of other candidates, "sense of entitlement" was used to criticize her for being the establishment candidate; it was used to imply that she was supported by the backroom boys and was propelled into the lead by her connections and position. As the campaign unfolded, this characterization was shown to be utter fiction - not just because she does not have the backroom boys sewed up, but also because everyone has had to admit that she's an enormously hard working, scrappy politician who keeps trying her hardest day in and day out, even in the face of terrible setbacks.

Now that she's losing, Hillary's critics are twisting the sense of entitlement barb to characterize her as some sort of latter-day Marie Antoinette - a vain aristocratic bitch who feels the party owes her the nomination and so will not back down from the race, even if it means destroying the party's chances in November. But the reality is that it's a tight race and it isn't over. Democratic primaries are won when one candidate gets a majority of delegates, and neither candidate has enough support for that. Hillary's popularity took a nose dive during a key part of the primary season, but her recent 10-point margin of victory in Pennsylvania indicates that Hillary has her momentum back. Hillary has a strong case to take to the superdelegates, given her uncounted victories in Florida and Michigan, her margin of victory in electoral college votes, her success in strategic states, and her wins in every big state except Illinois. It's not a slam dunk for Hillary by any means, but it's not over.

Hillary's public record shows a person who has never had a sense of entitlement. As first lady she didn't bask in the glow of her husband's success; she was the most active presidential spouse in history. She took on major policy initiatives, took risks, got pummelled sometimes. When she became a US senator Hillary was widely praised for her hard work, for listening to all sides, and for sticking to her junior status when she could have used her fame to grab the limelight.

Serious contenders for US president are, by definition, supremely ambitious, political and confident. They have to appear ready to take on the most powerful job in the world. In campaign speeches they always say "when I am president" not "if I am president." In this sense they all have a "sense of entitlement".

But in its use as a condemnation of Hillary, "sense of entitlement" has other connotations: that she is haughty, arrogant, the sort of person who makes other people do her dirty work. It's a code word for "rich bitch." It's also a way of saying that she has stepped out of her place - that as a woman she does not deserve to feel entitled to run for president. It's just another in a long long list of sexist criticisms that have undermined Hillary as a serious candidate for president.

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Hillary Currently Leads in Popular Vote

From Real Clear Politics: "One thing many people haven't noticed about Hillary Clinton's 55 percent to 45 percent victory over Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary is that it put her ahead of Obama in the popular vote. Her 214,000-vote margin in the Keystone State means that she has won the votes, in primaries and caucuses, of 15,112,000 Americans, compared to 14,993,000 for Obama."

It's funny how, when Obama was ahead in the popular vote, we heard about it all the time.

Update: As several commenters have pointed out, that figure includes Florida and Michigan, which the DNC is not including. Here's the breakdown. Sorry about that... I read the article last night, got excited, and posted without thinking enough about it.

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