In the past few months, we've been hearing that women and erstwhile Hillary Clinton supporters are ticked off she didn't win the Democratic Presidential nomination. They are especially angered by what they consider sexist news coverage, and that the Democratic "machine" did not support her wholeheartedly. Many have threatened to make a stink at the Democratic convention to push for a Clinton vice presidency; others have stated that they'd rather vote for John McCain than for the Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, some refusing to vote at all.
There are many ideas floating around about why Hillary Clinton failed in her quest to become the first woman president of the United States. Hillary's vote for the Iraq War and how she handled the fall-out has been seen by many as a major blunder going into the race, but there were other issues that culminated into her failed candidacy. It's no secret in my immediate circle that I was never hot for Hillary and I've said for years that her nomination would be a bad idea. This, of course, is my opinion. For those who backed Hillary and continue to believe that she is the better candidate, I bear no grudge -- this is America where everyone is entitled to their own opinion and preference for a particular candidate. What I don't understand is how Hillary supporters insist that their candidate was treated unjustly by continuing to grind the "woman's vote" and "sexist coverage" into the ground, giving teeth to an issue that doesn't jibe with what actually happened to Hillary's campaign and her role in it.
Back in 1999, when Hillary Clinton declared her run for Daniel Patrick Moynihan's seat, there were some rumblings in New York about her being a carpetbagger (a politician who runs for office in a place to which he or she previously had no connection). This was reminiscent of Robert Kennedy who moved to New York in 1964 to run for the Senate. While most New Yorkers understood that Hillary's underlying reason for running was to bone up her resume to make a run for the White House, many were excited about her entry into the Senate race and were willing to support her efforts.
In the meantime, I remember my dad teasing me because I loved Bill Clinton. I wasn't completely blinded by this love, I didn't agree on all of his positions (the Welfare bill and NAFTA come to mind) and despite his sexual misadventures and his impeachment by Congress, I remained a true supporter. So when my dad asked me, with a chuckle, "So I guess you'll support Hillary for President?" curiously (at least to my dad), my answer was a resounding "no," but I would support her candidacy for the New York Senate.
Why not President? Because I had some serious "Hillary" issues, and frankly, I didn't find her endearing. It isn't that she hadn't faced tough times. From the moment she was introduced to the national stage, Hillary has been picked and prodded on, from her rapidly changing hair styles to her culturally dismissive remarks about Tammy Wynette; to her outlook on marriage and about women staying home and baking cookies and having teas. I recognized her intelligence, passion, talents and her tenacity back then, coupled with the sexism and double-standards she faced, but I just found it difficult to genuinely like her. But disliking her was a small part of it; over the years I had developed an aversion toward how she handled issues during her career as First Lady and later on, as Senator.
My Hillary dilemma began during President Clinton's first term when he appointed his wife to head the President's Task Force on Health Care Reform, overseeing research, investigatory trips, financial reports, numerous committees composed of medical and insurance professionals, lawmakers and other government officials, public service leaders, and consumer rights advocates. Moreover, Hillary was the only First Lady to keep an office in the West Wing among those of the President's senior staff. In this capacity, she became the third First Lady to testify before Congress, appearing to the House committee on health insurance reform in September 1993.
Many people griped that Hillary was not an elected official and that her husband was clearly using his powers as president to appoint his wife to handle such a task. Others called it inappropriate for the First Lady to play a central role in matters of public policy, pointing to Robert Kennedy's appointment as attorney general, which brought widespread criticism of the president-elect for nepotism.
On the other hand, supporters pointed out that Hillary's role in public policy was no different than that of other White House advisers and voters were well aware that she would play an active role in her husband's presidency. This unusual decision by President Clinton to put his wife in charge of the task force was attributed to several factors, including the President's desire to emphasize his personal commitment to the enterprise. My feeling on this was, so what? Isn't it true that the administration serves at the pleasure of the President because he (or she) likes them and wants them there? In fact, I thought it was a daring decision. Hillary was smart, self-assured, and her talents far surpassed having teas in the Rose Garden, so why not?
Besides, not only was I excited about the prospects of sweeping health care reform, but with Hillary's background coupled with her tenacity, I strongly believed that if any one could do it, she could, or at least come close. However, when Hillary's health care proposal bit the dust in 1994; by that time I was disappointed but hardly surprised. It's true that she was up against tremendous forces: vicious attacks from both Democrats and Republicans; and the lobbyists and insurance companies with their lawsuits and anti-Hillary rhetoric, but I felt, notwithstanding her inexperience, her failure was due in no small part, to: (1) holding closed door sessions; (2) refusing to work closely with and listening to the experienced Senators and Congress people who were clearly on her side; and (3) ignoring the country's liberal/progressive forces, including labor and social movements that could have helped her by generating support from the masses. Secret deliberations and exclusion of contrary voices are probably not a viable way of crafting a major reform in an environment in which the President has limited influence over Congress, powerful opponents, and a public distrustful of government and its capabilities. In the end, the White House strategy did more to increase public misunderstanding than to promote the President's plan. Weeks after the President unveiled his proposal, large majorities of Americans still had no comprehension of what a health alliance did or why it was needed. Nor could they understand how the Clinton Plan could insure millions of Americans who lacked health care coverage without increasing taxes.
The way I saw it, it was arrogance that got in Hillary's way; it wasn't the idea, it was the execution of it. Coupled with their inability to get out from under their centrist-triangulated politics, neither Hillary nor the President were capable of stretching the boundaries and thinking outside the box. And as time went on, health care reform became more about them instead of us, as it became swept up in their handling of the Whitewater and Travelgate controversies, Vince Foster's mysterious death and Paula Jones' lawsuit against the President for sexual harassment and civil rights violations.
Still in all, I remained an ardent Clinton supporter and voted for President Clinton to serve a second term. Over the years, as Clinton White House dramas unfolded, I remained sympathetic to Hillary's plight, but was still unable to connect to her emotionally, but when she came to New York, I supported her Senate candidacy. I was less concerned about her husband's impeachment, that she was an ex-First Lady who never held public office and did not live in New York, or that she didn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. I was more concerned about defeating (at that time) Rudy Giuliani, who I believed would make a horrible senator (an Alfonse D'Amato redux). It was a pragmatic decision I believed was good for us New Yorkers and the Democratic Party, and that despite any misgivings I may have had about her, I believed Hillary had the makings of an excellent senator. Even knowing back then that New York was merely a political pit-stop, Hillary's celebrity and the likelihood of her running for president, meant that she could make news even while not coming up with new policies or proposals, so voting for her would give her a chance to prove herself on her own merits. In other words, my resounding "no" for the presidential nomination was predicated on Hillary running as her own woman. Let's see what she can do.
However, as I watched Hillary's senate term unfold, I noticed that she began switching from her previous positions for the sake of "crossing the aisle." It was hard for me to believe that she would vote for the Iraq War, and after she did and things quickly began to go south, she squandered her celebrity by not steering the Iraq debacle into a new direction, remaining steadfast in her decision to support the war. Hillary's flip-flopping on then Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to issue driver's licenses for illegal immigrants (in the span of 12 hours, she endorsed Spitzer's proposal, then disowned it mere minutes later, and then ultimately, supported it); and her on-again, off-again, on-again support for gay marriage, are just a few examples of the Clintonian inclination to have it both ways on an issue.
When Hillary officially threw her hat into the ring for the presidency, I watched with great trepidation. Although the democratic field was filled with excellent candidates (I myself was looking closely at Richardson and Biden), I, like many Americans, knew that with her well-oiled moneyed machine, Hillary would win the Democratic nomination; not the worst thing in the world, but not for the world we live in today. Why? For one, she embraced the idea of continuing the Clinton legacy touting President Clinton's record as her own rather than focusing on her own merits. Second, while Hillary was a formidable candidate, from the start she was never an electrifying one - her speeches were either wooden or shrill, which drowned out her message. And what was her message? More of the same during her husband's administration, with the same Clintonistas running the show thinking backwards instead of looking forward. But as Hillary's campaign handlers steadfastly promoted her as the "heir apparent" it eventually backfired, with her losing a string of devastating defeats. While Hillary scrambled to "find her voice," her campaign managers, who ran an old-fashioned campaign and remained completely oblivious to net roots advocacy squandered millions, driving her campaign into debt. The staff infighting and President Clinton's interventions that sparked claims of race baiting didn't help either. It was apparent, at least in my mind, that if Hillary could not successfully manage her campaign, how could we expect her to manage the United States of America?
What made it even worse is as Hillary's dysfunctional campaign tanked, the most absurd and rather disturbing statements came out of her mouth, from her "As far as I know," statement on 60 Minutes; to "I remember landing under sniper fire"; from "totally obliterating" Iran in the event it made a nuclear strike against Israel; to raising the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy to justify her prolonged campaign; from her offhand reference to "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans" that raised the specter of old Dixie demagogues like George Wallace and Lester Maddox; to invoking everything from slavery to the political killings in Zimbabwe in making her argument for the Florida and Michigan delegations. Even more curious, Hillary chose to present herself as a woman who could lead like a man, rather than as a woman who could lead, which I felt was a great detriment to her campaign. Although I never fully supported her during the primary, as the nomination drifted from her grasp, it was painful to watch her desperately saying or doing anything to win. At one point it seemed that if Hillary couldn't get the crown and run the village, she would burn it down in order to save it. So remember when I mentioned earlier Hillary had to pass "the test" in order for me to support her presidency? Well, she failed it.
But Hillary's spectacular failure was far more predictable than most would admit. In fact, I happened upon this article, Mrs. Triangulation, published in the New York Times in the Magazine section by Matt Bai on October 2, 2005. You would have thought that Bai had looked into a crystal ball, because as it turns out, his foresight and predictions were head on. Here, he observes:
What Dean's candidacy brought into the open, however, was another kind of growing and powerful tension in Democratic politics that had little to do with ideology. Activists often describe this divide as being between "insiders" and "outsiders," but the best description I've heard came from Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic operative who runs the advocacy group N.D.N. (formerly New Democrat Network), which sprang from Clintonian centrism of the early 1990's. As Rosenberg explained it, the party is currently riven between its "governing class" and its "activist class." The former includes the establishment types who populate Washington - politicians, interest groups, consultants and policy makers. The second comprises "Net roots" Democrats on the local level; that is, grass-roots Democrats, many of whom were inspired by Dean and who connect to politics primarily online, through blogs or Web-based activist groups like MoveOn.org. The argument between the camps isn't about policy so much as about tactics, and a lot of Democrats in Washington don't even seem to know it's happening.
The activist class believes, essentially, that Democrats in Washington have damaged the party by trying to negotiate and compromise with Republicans - in short, by trying to govern. The "Net roots" believe that an effective minority party should disengage from the governing process and eschew new proposals or big ideas. Instead, the party should dedicate itself to winning local elections and killing each new Republican proposal that comes down the track. To the activist class, trying to cut deals with Republicans is tantamount to appeasement. In fact, Rosenberg, an emerging champion of the activist class, told me, pointing to my notebook: "You have to use the word 'appease.' You have to use it. Because this is like Neville Chamberlain."
"I think people are looking for leadership from Hillary Clinton, and she's not showing any leadership on anything," says Markos Moulitsas of Dailykos.com, one of the new movement's leading blogs. Even in Hollywood, where the Clintons have been royalty for more than a decade, patience for bipartisanship is running low. Last month in Beverly Hills, I talked about Clinton with Norman Lear, the television and film producer who founded the liberal organization People for the American Way. "I love her," he told me. "But as terrific as I think she is, my concern is that we need someone who will tell the truth as they see it all of the time. She, like all of them, is not somebody who does that."
Even though the primary season is kaput and we are now into the presidential campaign, there are still those who continue to argue, vehemently, that Hillary lost because the "test" was unfair. She lost because she was a woman. She lost because she ran against a black man (and we all know that black men are more powerful than white women, as attested by Gloria Steinem in her January 8, 2008, New York Times Op-Ed piece, "Women Are Never Front Runners"). The media was sexist and unfair. The Democratic Party's nomination process is unfair and a little sexist. She was mistreated by her colleagues the super delegates, they were unfair, ungrateful and, well, a little sexist.
Okay, we can all agree that sexism and racism exists in America, but I disagree with the contention that Hillary's failed candidacy revealed a widespread disdain for powerful women across the country. Did Hillary encounter sexism along the way? Yes. Many, if not most women do. And yes, some nasty, distasteful things were said, but that's the nature of the beast. Politics is a dirty business and throwing the kitchen sink, which Hillary certainly did during her campaign, is part of the game. Since mud slinging was not just confined to Hillary, I think it's insulting to the American people and grossly unfair for Hillary and her supporters to have pushed such a postmortem. Her seeming inevitability at the beginning of the primary season didn't stem from the novelty of her gender, but it wasn't undermined by her gender, either. It was only when she began to lose the nomination and go into record debt, did gender become an issue. So it's hard to tell if these attacks were being made because she was a woman, or because she was this woman, or because, for a long time, she was the front runner. I believe these charges have come through a political prism and that the media's treatment of Hillary had more to do with her long track record as a public person and seasoned politician, as opposed to her being a woman. Also, let's not forget that Hillary's "familial claim to the throne" perpetuated the notion that our nation's presidency was in danger of becoming a "nepotistic trophy," remained in the back of the minds of many.
But there remain many people, particularly women, who really believe Hillary was "cheated" out of the nomination due to sexism, which I find utterly fascinating, given her history and her mishandling of her campaign. I certainly respect those individuals who do not and will not support Barack Obama because they don't believe in him, and that's okay, it's their democratic right to do so. But to not vote for Obama simply based on their belief that Hillary was treated unfairly and that she is "owed" the presidency, is disturbing, to say the least.
On the flip side, I believe there are a number of people out there, including myself, who simply did not support Hillary's candidacy because the times we currently live in and the challenges we must face demands a different direction. And let's face it, the right-wing conservative and centrist-triangulation politics (with her representing the latter) are both a thing of the past. Right now, in this moment, we need a leader that understands the pulse of the people. That Hillary was unable to anticipate and appreciate the pulse of the people during her campaign, and insisted on sticking to 1990s campaign tactics, is very telling.
At the end of her campaign, as Hillary Clinton morphed into a modern day Bella Abzug, the question is, how will she proceed with this new-found identity? I've never seen Hillary unconditionally attach herself as a leader of any particular "cause" per se, the way that a Ted Kennedy or John Conyers have done, passionately and unfalteringly, so it will be interesting to see when Hillary returns to New York City after the general election, what she does next. Will she continue the charge "I am woman, hear me roar?" Or will she abandon this role when it no longer suits her political needs? We shall see. As one of those people who did not support Hillary's candidacy, I can say, unequivocally, that my decision was based on Hillary the woman, not that Hillary is a woman. It was in her power to persuade people like me to change minds, yet she chose not to. Had she handled her Senate career in earnest as opposed to using it as a bargaining chip for the Presidency; if she had trusted her instincts and had spoken in her own voice all along, she would have gotten more than just my attention; she would have gotten my vote. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton failed the test.
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Posted July 18, 2008 | 11:08 PM (EST)