The Clinton Campaign: Running on Ambien

Just a year ago the hot question was: Is America ready for a black or female president? As the campaigns wear on, the question has shifted to: Can America survive the tedium of its black and female candidates?

Obama, for example, hasn't turned out to be any more challenging to white America than re-runs of the Cosby Show. He was slow to pick up on the Jena 6 case and never showed up at the rally - although, to be fair, neither did Clinton or Edwards. Like the others, he has refrained from noting that Giuliani, in addition to being a cell phone exhibitionist and a 9/11-abuser, presided over a New York City police department famed for its torture and killing of young black males.

But it's Hillary who's causing the citzenry's heads to pitch forward and collapse on their chests. Every time she opens her mouth, her flat, monotonic voice lays out yards of opaque white gauze, muffling any possibility of "discourse." Where does she stand? Over here, and a little to the side, and maybe a few steps to the right. Hers is known as the "flawless" campaign, but no one in it seems to be able to turn off the endlessly triangulating tape in her head.

Lately she's taken to emitting to sudden, inexplicable, bursts of deep laughter - known in the media as "the cackle." Whether this is a deliberate "humanizing" touch or a glitch in the computer program no one knows. According to the New York Times, the "weirdest moment" came in response to a question from Bob Schieffer about Republican charges that her health plan would lead to "socialized medicine." As the Times reports, "She giggled, giggled some more, could not seem to stop giggling -'Sorry, Bob,' she said - and finally unleashed the full Cackle."

Maybe she has a better sense of humor than I'd imagined, because the thought that her plan to turn health care over to the private insurance companies might be "socialist" has me rolling on the floor too.

I just wish I could work up the same degree of enthusiasm for Hillary as my friend Katha Pollitt, who recently told the Times: "If people don't stop saying incredibly sexist things about Hillary Clinton, I may just have to vote for her." But what are these incredibly sexist things? True, there was the whole faux "cleavage" issue, and the occasional whack-job who writes to enlighten me about Clinton's bisexuality or Chelsea's true daddy.

Then, in of all places - feminist Maureen Dowd's column on Sunday - I found a genuinely sexist comment about Hillary. Dowd apparently approvingly quotes Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, saying that Clinton is "like some hellish housewife who has seen something that she really, really wants and won't stop nagging you until finally you say, fine, take it, be the damn president, just leave me alone."

Now I'm all for having literary editors, poetry editors, and the like commenting on our political process, but the "nagging housewife" image is not only a sexist stereotype - it's about 50 years out of date, stemming from an era when most married women were financially dependent on their mates. Besides, male politicians are never likened to stereotypical husbands, even though some of them can be equally hard to dislodge from the recliner in front of the TV or, as the case may be, the Oval Office.

But the "hellish housewife" comment does not make Hillary a feminist martyr, nor does it make me any more willing to listen to her, either now or for the next five years. Trying to say nothing to offend, she ends up saying nothing to inspire or even inform, and Obama, though still far more engaged and human-like, risks ending up with another Ambien candidacy.

Part of the problem is structural. We make our presidential candidates campaign for at least a year at a stretch. Take a normal person and subject him or her to month after month of trail mix and chicken Caesars, sleep deprivation, and the need to be "on," smiling and handshaking, 16 hours a day. No solitary moments of reflection, no walks in the park, no escape into thrillers. What do you get after a few months of this? A golem, the artificial, man-like creature of Kabalistic lore, a personoid incapable of normal responses.

So yes, America is ready for a black or a female president. Just be sure to wake us up when it happens.

Comments

[NABNYC]

When I first entered a previously all-male profession, I purchased lots of navy blue, charcoal grey, and black suits, cream-colored blouses, low-heeled pumps. I called it the Portia Effect: all of us females who wanted to sneak into the formerly all-male professions tended to buy and wear the same uniform as the men did, hoping maybe no one would notice we were female and throw us out, or spit on us. Then years later I threw out most of my suits and would only wear brightly-colored dresses, in a complete rejection of the former.

I finally settled on something a bit different from all of them, but it was a long process getting there.

I think Hillary suffers from the Portia Effect. She is trying to act like a man so she can get elected. Acting like a man, at least in U.S. politics, unfortunately means being cold, calculating, manipulative, a quick liar, deceitful, heartless, and lacking in any principles or vision.

Men get away with it all the time, and no one notices. They are empty suits. I know someone who calls the downtown men "suits." No personality, nothing interesting in their lives. Money men.

I don't like Hillary. I won't vote her. Not because she's a woman, but because she's trying so hard to be a man.

[givemycountryback]

Hillary does not put me to sleep, But honestly, all we hear are soundbites anyway. It amazes me that anyone, repug or dem, could make fun of any speaker after having that embarrassment in tht wh for the last 6 years. It seems like an eternity since we have had anybody in a leadership position, and I am talking about repugs now, who doesn't sound retarded or like a robot. I could almost cry when I hear JFK or FDR tapes. Where are our leaders who once inspired us. Bill C. came a little closer than some. We need to stop attacking Hillary. This is not her war, this is idiot's war. Don't try to make it the democrats. He started it and he owns it.

[xrayman]

Barbara must watch Chris Matthews. "Triangulate" is his word, "Cackle" is his word. And Maureen Dowd a feminist? Please!

Today, Matthew hauled out the "wouldn't like to have a beer" with Hillary. That's what Matthew used with Gore and Kerry. Fine. Now we have a drinking buddy for a president. Can we get a little more serious?

Hillary isn't the victim of a sexist whack job, they are just using the tried and true method of attacking things that have nothing to do with qualifications for becoming president. It's called diversion, smoke and mirrors.

If the citizenry falls for these diversions and swift boatings again they deserve the next drinking buddy president.

[lillianjane]

Well said. Ms. Ehrenreich, I have read you for years, in Ms. and elsewhere, and I am shocked that you reported on what OTHERS have reported, i.e., "the cackle", as though it was a flaw in Clinton herself. This is like the "some have said" type of reporting (gossipping?) that diminishes the issues in favor of personality.
Please criticize her stands on the issues--there is something to be said there!--but don't contribute to the decline in journalism.

[churchlady]

Rather than answer a very important question, about a very disturbing vote, she cackled at Gravel, as if to say "how stupid you are." It was about the issues. She inserted that god-awful laught into the debate, and she deserves to be critized for it. This is the same woman who constantly says, "if I'd know then what I know today ..." Blah, blah, blah. Vote for Obama!

[Kreskytim]

Chris Mathew, Maureen Down and even Frank Rich are doing to Hillary what they did to Al Gore in 2000. They are picking her apart with some weird pop psychology shtick. There is nothing she can do that they will not find fault in because they have concluded that she is not "authentic". Notice however that other candidates, no matter how much they have flipped on issues or swagger with fake bravado, will get the same bizarre over analysis..­. If we want a Democrat in the White House we better not stand by and watch "the liberal media" eat there own.

[SeanGardner]

Hi Ms. Ehrenreich. I'm one of your biggest fans, and I your books.

Allow me to respond to your paragraph on Obama:

"Obama...h­asn't turned out to be any more challenging to white America than re-runs of the Cosby Show. He was slow to pick up on the Jena 6 case and never showed up at the rally... Like the others, he has refrained from noting that Giuliani..­.presided over a New York City police department famed for its torture and killing of young black males."

First, Obama has been walking a tight-rope on race. He can't be "challenging to White America" in a way that scares a way votes from the group that is a majority in every state in the union. He has spoken about the challenge (and unfinished business) of the civil rights movement, as it relates to general inequalities, and as it relates to disparities in our justice system: http://www.savvy.com/news/general,102/obama-favors-changes-in-drug-sentencing,183421.html

About Jena 6, we know that Obama did release three statements on the matter that can viewed here: http://zennie2005.blogspot.com/2007/09/barack-obamas-statements-on-jena-6-from.html#_

As for Giuliani, I am sure he has yet to hit Giuliani for his racist practices because he doesn't want to appear racially divisive as he mines votes for the primary season.

As HUFFPO blogger Michael Fauntroy pointed out a week ago, "What (Jesse) Jackson and others who are criticizing Obama on this (Jena 6) issue seem to forget is that overtly and exclusively Black candidates cannot become president. Yes, they can win 11 primaries and nearly seven million votes, as Jackson did in 1988, but they can't win a nomination. Obama can only be as Black as White America will allow, so don't expect to see him front-and-center on controversial racial issues... He is walking a tightrope unlike any other presidential candidate in American history."

That being said, Obama's record on racial justice is well-documented.

[Superfelo]

SeanGardner,
I agree with your comment. Obama has to walk a very tight rope. Everyone wants business as usual, they yearn for the angry black candidate, that confronts White America, with a lot of Black support so they can dismiss him as the "Black" candidate.
We'll leave the anger to the likes of Justice Thomas and the rest.
Obama is the genuine article, and he is the most human, down to earth, charistmatic,
and all-inclusive candidate we have had in ages.
That he is not side-tracked by issues,and battles, other can handle well, is to his credit.
We have been yearning for a leader like him bright, intelligent and interested in the larger picture.

Go Obama.

[Inaru]

Excellent points and true. There's a double standard applied to Obama that isn't applied to Hillary. I have never heard Obama address a general audience or a black audience with the words "I am proud to be a black American running for President". I am sick and tired of hearing Hillary say "I am proud to be a woman running for President".

There is absolutely nothing in her experiences as a woman that relate to any women who are not rich, privileged, connected, corporate - if you check her endorsers, they're either DLC and/or rich, hoping to get rich, or movement hacks that accomplish little but live on their stipends for endlessly yapping. Hillary betrayed her first love, the Children's Defense Fund, as witnessed by the CDF Director who states (on Democracy Now) that the Clintons added to child poverty in the U.S. with Welfare Reform and left poor working mothers without adequate childcare.

Sen. Obama led to pass a bill in Illinois to make childcare subsidies SIX TIMES HIGHER than the Clintons did (since she takes credit for every Bill Clinton accomplishment as part of her experience).

[nunzia]

Dowd, a feminist? I don't think so. After that adorational piece she did on Daddy Bush, I dont think so.

[KansAmerican]

Barbara - "But it's Hillary who's causing the citzenry's heads to pitch forward and collapse on their chests. Every time she opens her mouth, her flat, monotonic voice lays out yards of opaque white gauze, muffling any possibility of "discourse­." Actually, this Condi Rice talk. Why beat up on Hillary?

[UtahLiberal435]

An excellent question, KansAmerican, and I share your befuddlement. For illumination, I recommend you read today's dailhowler dot com. The press - and not just the MSM - have figured out their scripts and casting already. On the democratic side, they're already pigeonholed Hillary Clinton (war-loving liar) and John Edwards (rich prettyboy). We're also seeing them continue the moth-flame pundit fascination with trivia and snark.

When considering Democrats and progressives, it's depressing to see our base shoot at their own feet (Clinton-bashing, 'ineffectual Dems,' same-as-th­e-Rethugli­cans) rather than keeping their crosshairs on GOP corruption, incompetence and obstructionism.

So Americans want arcane 'inspiration'? We should look in a mirror and then measure up. We want someone who can assemble and run intelligent government/economic policy, and deal with intractable opponents? Then we need a thick-skinned, pragmatic, experienced (gulp) politician - not some brave rhetoritician who'll take the arrows for a citizenry that cheers their moral purity - from the sidelines.

Time will tell.

[asl3676]

Just another Hillary hater. Can't come up with much of substance so lets knock her style.
Interesting to see the self hating liberal machine back at work again. You got Gore and Kerry and now it's time for you, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich to help get a Republican in the White House.
What a loser Barbara Ehrenreich and the rest of the Clinton haters are.
Yep...lets end the war by electing Guiliani..­.At least it will give yo something to complain about for 8 more years.

[monabona]

Look: with the longest ever nominating campaign taking place, the odds of anyone but especially of a "front- runner" putting her foot in her mouth before the convention are too great. Anyone with a good chance of snagging the nomination would be a fool, considering the way the game gets played today, to step out and say anything other than what ISN'T going to offend the majority of the public. Nothing too passionate, nothing too outside the envelope.

I get what Ehrenreich is saying. I see the game of positioning being played to the hilt. After all, it's what kept Bill so popular. And I don't like it either. But when either Mrs. Clinton or Obama loses the nomination, you can be sure that those who managed the loser's campaign will be picked apart and swallowed whole for having let their candidate go out on this or that limb--or for not going out on it far enough.

I hate games.

[MichaelJames]

The assertion that Barack Obama “was slow to pick up on the Jena 6 case” is not a fair characterization. Pretty much everyone was slow to pick up on this case and it only got attention after bloggers made it too big to ignore.

Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate to speak out about the issue and he also is the only one I’ve heard mention Genarlow Wilson while campaigning. Barack didn’t need to show up at the rally in Jena, he’s been showing up for years doing things like being a civil rights lawyer and helping to reform the Illinois death penalty system.

[Veleria29]

A female or black president would be better than any known or unknown republican man or woman. After Bush I would settle for anyone except a republican.

[MSB]

Sorry Hillary supporters, but if the bar hadn't been set so subterraneanly low by this freak in the Oval Office, Hillary wouldn't even be getting a sniff.

I'm for a woman in the White House, just not this do-nothing. The amount she has taken in donations from the "healthcare" industry since her attmpts to revise it say all you need to know. She is not one of us, she is all about the rich. The Clintons have been the best "republicans" of my lifetime.

[SensibleAmerican]

OK so his posting paid banners is working. This is the godzillionth post on how he is all that! Keep 'em coming and keep showing your desperation as his campaign tanks!

[mommadona]

"like some hellish housewife who has seen something that she really, really wants and won't stop nagging you until finally you say, fine, take it, be the damn president, just leave me alone."

I call these type of women "professional volunteers­'...you know the type.

And, the voice and the presentation - reminds me oh, so much of the Braying Senator, John Kerry.

Every notice how those Senators on the floor just LOVE to hear the sound of their own voice pontificating, without one ounce of 'connection' to what they are say...they could be ordering from Jack in the Box

"FOUR SCORE and two minutes ago, I decided to order the double bacon ranchero combination that SHOULD include mayonaise, but, as you all know, 'we' are on a very strict diet and so, therefore, I proclaim elimination of the mayonaise with the addition to the foresaid combo of some salsa on the side.

And hold the onions. I have GREAT RESPECT for the onion, as you know, but at this time I am afraid I will need to suggest that onion just stay where it is over there in that container,
I yield my place in line to my friend, the Senator from PooooooKIP­sie.....th­ank you, and may I suggest an absence of a quorum.... "

[rbrooks]

I think the real question is, are we ready for a progressive president?

As opposed to one who is wholly owned by the corporations who sponsor her? The one who said lobbyists are people too? The one who just voted to authorize war with Iran?

I wouldn't vote for Hillary under any imaginable circumstances. I know what she will do if she is elected because she is a DLC corporate hack. The question is not are we ready for a woman or a black, it's can we survive another four years of the military/m­ultination­al corporate agenda?

What's the point of electing a woman who is trying to out-macho the predators who got us to this jumping-off point in our history?

I don't need to feel tolerant and liberated and good about myself. I need to find someone who will, for a change, work for my country instead of the corporations who are looting it. I'd like to leave something besides bloodshed and treachery and wreckage to my children and their children.

[vickylee]

You said it rbrooks! Let's get to the heart of the matter. Hillary Clinton is too much of a compromiser to provide the economic/war changes we so desperately need after the tragic Bush/Cheney years.

[maryinbelltown]

Maureen Dowd isn't a feminist in my book. She's a man-demeaner. Big difference. Other than that, I agree with all that you post here about Clinton and Obama. She makes my teeth itch and my jaws pop sideways when I listen too long - from gritting and grinding. Must we hear that drone of platitudes for year upon year? I've stopped liking Clinton - the other one - as well, started not liking his voice. Was it always that high? I love Obama's voice and wish it said something with fire in it. I love Edwards' speech patterns - subject, verb, object. Stop, pause, start. Repeat points this way, that way, then go on to the next point - after everyone gets the first part. Sigh.

My listening skills have slowed. Who likes slow speech that is repeated? Old people. Who goes to cold January caucuses? Old people. I rest my case.

[MistahCharleyPhD]

What really bothers me about Hillary is her POLITICS.

Specifically, she is a member of the War Party. As David Bromwich put it so clearly here at HuffPost last week -

>>Yesterday she voted to bring the country a serious step closer to war against Iran. And she did so for the same reason that she voted to authorize the war on Iraq. She thinks the next war is going to happen. She hopes the worst of its short-term effects on America will have died down before the election. She suspects the media and voters will show more trust for a candidate who supported than for one who opposed the war. She wants a ponderous establishment of American troops and super-bases to remain in the Middle East for years to come. If she wins the presidency, she will inherit the command of that army and those bases, and she believes she can manage their affairs more prudently than George W. Bush.