With apologies to Richard Dawkins (author of The Selfish Gene), I have to point out a noticeable selfishness on the part of some Democratic women voters. When Hillary Clinton declared she was "in it to win", many women around the country felt a rush of pride and hope. As Senator Clinton progressed throughout the primary season, she galvanized women all over the country, who came out to work for her and vote for her.
But now that Clinton is not going to be the nominee of the Democratic party, we are hearing a terrible moaning and whining on the part of Clinton's women supporters, even to the point that some are saying they will not vote for Obama in the Fall. As much as many of us would have liked to see a woman President, it has become apparent that to insist on a woman candidate is mainly about "us" not about what the majority of Democratic voters may want or need. It is selfish of us to insist on a Clinton victory, and appalling to hear such women leaders as Geraldine Ferraro implying she might not vote for Obama because she is so disappointed that Hillary cannot win. A McCain victory would be anathema to the causes that Hillary Clinton has always supported like choice, a repudiation of No Child Left Behind, health care for all, and women's rights.
Selfish women like the ones who are grousing about Hillary's loss are precariously close to embarrassing our entire gender. If we can fight for a nomination as good or better than any man (and Hillary has fought as hard as any man would or could), then we ought to be able to lose as good or better than a man. That is, losing without pouting, without recriminations, without blaming -- the media, our opponent, men, etc. I so want women voters and Hillary Clinton to be exemplary losers. There is nothing to be gained now by this complaining and finger pointing. It has been over for months, and insisting on having Clinton fight to the finish is not only somewhat unique in political campaigns (most candidates bow out long before the so-called 'end'), it has been undoubtedly damaging to the fight against McCain in the Fall.
Clinton's argument that she can still win, as she has been proclaiming on the campaign trail for weeks, is completely incomprehensible to anyone who can count and dishonest to those who cannot. In order to overturn the long tradition of counting "delegates" as the measure of who is the Democratic nominee, Clinton would have to do a number of very damaging things -- to herself, her supporters and to the Democratic party. She would have to overturn an agreement she herself made not to campaign or count Michigan and Florida's votes; she would have to overturn the concept of using pledged delegates as the metric for victory and replace it with "popular vote"; she would have to convince 75 to 80% of superdelegates to change their votes or vote for her because of her version of an electoral map metric -- alienating not only the women who support Obama, but all of the other Obama supporters, who are more than half of the Democratic party at this point. Would that victory be worthwhile? Would that victory be a feminist victory? What would we have proved? Only that women are the most selfish of all voters.
Posted May 20, 2008 | 10:36 PM (EST)