Why Was Barack Anointed So Instantly?

Did the media's savage attack on Hillary Clinton stir up some atavistic instinct of anger or protectiveness among women, helping her to win New Hampshire? Was there a massive CLICK moment, as old-guard feminists used to call it, when women collectively thought, "Hey, this isn't fair!"

My guess would be yes, given the fact that she did so much better in the granite state among women than she did in Iowa.

The media assault was nothing short of astonishing. Rarely before have news outlets savaged one candidate and practically canonized another after one vote count in one early primary in an atypical state. The Media Archangel swooped down from above, anointed Barack Obama with precious oils while kicking Hillary Clinton to the ninth circle of political hell.

Many women, including myself, detected a certain undeniable glee in the media pile-on. Almost with one voice, the media punditocracy pronounced Hillary yesterday's woman, too old, stuck in the '90s, an ambitious dynasty builder unable to connect with real people, chilly, passionless, unlikable, and what experience did she have anyway? I half expected people to say that Hillary regularly boxed Chelsea about the face and ears.

At the same time, Barack Obama, who only a short time before had been chided by the media for being lousy at debate, not tough enough and lacking in edge, suddenly became the golden child. Superlatives flowed like Sam Adams beer at a Patriots tailgate party. Suddenly Barack was the new JFK and Martin Luther King rolled into one, he was the voice of a new generation, his rhetoric was soaring, he gave people hope, he would re-connect America to the world, he was authentic, he all but spoke in tongues. He was the young (not so) white knight banishing the wicked witch of the west.

Meanwhile, Hardball's Chris Matthews all but buried Hillary's career and tossed in a few shovelfuls of dirt, with an unseemly joy. The New York Post ran an unflattering picture of Hillary on the front page with the boxcar headline PANIC. Pundits said maybe she should skip South Carolina and just go home, because it was all over, and Barack would glide through the next primaries like Cleopatra borne by golden sails along the Nile.

Now, I like Barack Obama. He's super-smart, he's exciting, he has a great gift for oratory and he's one of the most remarkable people to appear on the political scene lately. But, hey, Hillary is not chopped liver. Isn't this the woman the media once dubbed "inevitable" (albeit with little enthusiasm) and who just couldn't make a mistake?

Why did the punditocracy all but declare Hillary politically dead after she finished in a virtual tie for second with John Edwards in a state that was hardly tailored to her strengths? Mitt Romney got clobbered after spending a fortune, and while the media said this was a big problem for him, no one wrote him off. Many, in fact, said he was still the presumptive nominee.

And why was Barack anointed so instantly? To use a sports metaphor, it was like the talented rookie being handed the Cy Young award after his first pouting on the mound. As Gloria Steinem noted in her much-discussed New York Times op-ed, what if Barack Obama had been a woman, with the same resume? She'd have been laughed at if she said she wanted to run for president.

I believe a lot of women thought "This isn't fair. Give her a chance. She's earned that. Maybe she won't win in the end, but if she loses, let it be fair and square. Any why doesn't the media seem very excited about the first woman president. Why isn't that 'change?""

For women of a certain age, there was an air of familiarity about the whole process. Often, women work hard, learn their craft, pay their dues, don't try to step in front of other people, and then, when they are due for the big promotion, something happens. Some young guy is suddenly standing in front of them. He's the hot new commodity, and she is just expected to gracefully step aside.

I encountered this early on, when I was in college. My best friend, who was due to be appointed editor of a large college newspaper, was suddenly pulled aside by the faculty advisor and told that she was not going to get the top job. It was going to a male student, an Army veteran, who was fairly new to the paper.

"He's a man, and a veteran, and you're just a girl, " said the professor. "Don't you think it's right that he gets the job?"

In fact, she thought it was quite unfair, but somewhere inside a little voice was saying, Maybe he is right. Maybe the guy deserves it. Maybe I am just a girl.

I know another woman, who, many years later, was in line for a senior editorship, but her boss hired a younger, less-experienced man instead. He said to her, "He reminds me of myself when I was young."

Often, women who do superb work watch as men who perform much less well get fulsome praise, while their own accomplishments seem invisible. Women who sit in board meetings notice that they are ignored when they make a suggestion, but when a man makes the very same suggestion a few minutes later, the room lights up with praise.

A lot of young women, who haven't yet had these experiences, think they never will, and that all the world is open to them. They don't need to back a woman for president. I hope they are right, but I suspect they'll hit the glass ceiling at a dead run and will be astonished at the thud.

So women made Hillary the Comeback Kid. That doesn't mean she gets a free pass. She'll have to earn the nomination, cementing the connection with people that really began in New Hampshire, she will have to get out of the bubble and talk to the press and to the voters in an unguarded way, as she's started to do.

Women are usually harder on other women than they are on men, but sometimes, not often these days, but once in a while, there cones a point when they hear the "CLICK."

It happened in New Hampshire.

Boston University Journalism professor Caryl Rivers is the author of "Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women."

Comments

[JimR]

"And why was Barack anointed so instantly?"

I don't know. Why did the media anoint Hillary Clinton to begin with? Why did they then tear her down? Why did they then build up Obama? Why do they now tout a Hillary Clinton "comeback" when it was only a few unreliable polls that had her "down"?

They're bored, they don't have anything else to do. So they make all this stuff up.

[UtahLiberal435]

Congratulations to Ms. Rivers on one of the smarter posts I've read here in recent months. It's a welcome change from the wet-pantied Obama bonerism more typical of KOS and the Obamington Post.

The Hillary hatred is psychosis, not politics. It reflects as poorly on the netroots left as it does on the Freeper foamers. Intelligence, capability and dedication as "power hungriness­." That's pretty retarded.

But I don't think there was a sea change in female voters...a­t least not a change due to any response to unfairness Hillary bashing.

I simply think that the pundit class (including the net "roots," which is increasingly looking and sounding like the MSM) and the activist class, both left and right, just didn't realize that every state was alike. They're looking for simple story lines...so simplistic, they think it's a race where a lead begets a lead, not 50 completely separate heats.

The Iowa caucuses were heavily influenced by the Iowa City/University of Iowa vote, and an increased (welcome) activism by students there. Iowa City's downtown mall, right next to the campus, has been Obama country for months...e­ver since he made an excellent speech there last spring, which was attended by thousands. Obama has been in the UI mindset ever since. Yards all over Iowa City have the 'hope' signs.

So I think it was just a total press misread, not any change in voter attitudes due to the media.

But the media always likes to assume that it successfully tells people how to think, and that people always are reacting to the 'stories'. In fact, most folks look at media, even internet media, as a sideshow, and rightfully so.

[tdbach]

Why indeed. Yours is an interesting theory. It certainly stands up to the evidence. But I don't think women were the only ones who have been put off by the Hillary bash-fest going on in the MSM. A lot of us men were, too.

One reason the "click" didn't happen long before this is that Hillary, perhaps in a defense against this onslaught that began many years ago, kept herself so tightly under wraps that she played into some of the more vicious caricatures of her as cold, calculating, ruthless (followed often by the term for a female dog). It looked the same on camera. So while we marveled at her skills and intellect, we had a hard time rallying to her cause.

Then she let her guard down, and it was captured and spread across the media as further evidence that she’s unfit. Ironically, for those who may not have been aligned with her entirely on issues but were offended by her treatment, it was a moment of humanity and vulnerability that freed us to “click” to her side – both men and women.

[MadMadWorld]

If she loses it should be fair, not with sexism. Hit her on policies, but they can't do that because their candidate has no favorable differences on policy.

[MadMadWorld]

Definitely on point.

[MrsGreebers]

Your thesis about miffed older women making a statement by propping up Sen. Clinton may be true. It also may be the Bradley Effect, or the fact that independents who would have broken for Sen. Obama joined the Republican race instead, thinking that Obama had the thing won. We need detailed exit polling to tell us what happened.

But I hope the miffed women in other states make their choices not on who "deserves" the Presidency but on who will BE the best President. I am undecided among the Dems -- any one of them would be fine by me.

But not one of them has "earned" the Presidency. It's too important a position to be decided on such peripheral metrics.

I'd also advise Sen. Clinton that you cannot have it both ways. You can't portray yourself as the trailblazing, heroic feminist candidate whose "experience" can be counted on... while trying to count "First Lady" as a government credential.

Also it's not cool how she instructed NH voters to go with her instead of Barack because, naturally, al Quaida will attack on January 21 if he wins. Or that she, with all her ribbon-cutting and Bush-rubbe­r-stamping experience, would be better equipped to handle the attack than he.

[seawolf77]

I thank New Hampshire for de-railing this quite ridiculous run Obama has had. How did this guy get taken so serious so quickly. A junior senator 2 years into his first term. His talk of unifying this country sounds pathetically naive and will only resonate with the young. You only have to look under the carpet to see the right wing venom against Hillary as the cause. The media would like nothing more than to have her lose to another token candidate, a black man. Sort of karmic retribution. The right wing is propping this kid up so they don't have to face the adult in the election and the people of New Hampshire saw right thru them. BRAVO!

[isis]

1. Why do we call her the Comeback Kid when that was the name given to her husband? Can't we call her something original? She can't have it both ways--is she a self made woman or riding coat tails? I am not my husband's job and he is not mine.

2. Bill's thing with Monica--that was sexual harrassment. We should have called it long ago.

3. She picked Obama all through Iowa and he pretty much left her alone. I still recall her making fun of the hope idea. But he and Edwards and the others did not belittle her campaign. She ran a poor and unfocused campaign, sounded like she was channeling the GOP in spirit and blamed the people of Iowa for not liking it. We got called sexist. Then "the boys" got accussed of ganging up on her. That doesn't make me too proud of feminism to be honest. In fact, that letter Gloria Steinhem wrote to the NYT will probably prompt me to drop my NOW membership. I wish her well and will support her but am pretty fed up with my sister feminists right now. I am going to hang up the phone now. Click.

[DemandTruth]

Rarely before have news outlets savaged one candidate and practically canonized another after one vote count in one early primary in an atypical state. The Media Archangel swooped down from above, anointed Barack Obama with precious oils while kicking Hillary Clinton to the ninth circle of political hell.


Yes. It's true. And while they are annointing one and demonizing another, they completely IGNORE the third! John Edwards got more votes than the third place Republican, and the media hardly even mentions his name! They go on and on about the Republicans - even the ones who finished dead last STILL have a chance if they win ONE state, the pundits say. ALL the Republicans are still in the running according to the MSM. But when it comes to Edwards and his win over Clinton in Iowa and strong 3rd place in NH, it's like John Who?

The media is hell-bent on choosing our next president for us (like they did w/ our little warmonger King - twice!), and they might just get away with it again.

It totally sucks. We get to "choose" between Mrs. Corporate Lackey and Mr. Capitulation and I still don't believe either one of them is going to be able (because of lack of will or lack of fight) to make America better for me, the working poor.

[Idytme]

Being a biology major with a PE minor, I took women's studies linguistic class mostly for the credits. Oddly to me, it is one of the classes that effected me the most and stayed with me the longest, because it pointed out what was in front of us but we do not see. All of it came back watching how reporters have described Hillary. People think it is perfectly OK to demean Hillary based on her gender, while they would never do the same things based on race. The most over used descriptions link her to being a witch, (dark arts, cackle, hag...) and in the context they are used, one thinks of witches needing to be burned. Then her voice is described as shrill, or any of the typical male negative descriptions of women (although these are used by both women and men).
It is more depressing when you read the actual studies of male and female linguistics, and see just how prejudiced both men and women are against women.
I get more upset by the reporting of women who show they have internalized and are totally unaware of the bias. At least men are supposedly somehow unconsciously protecting status quo - or psychologists all seem to have their mommy theories.
Maybe a female linguistics teacher should do a series of articles and educate, those who want to be educated, about all of the linguistic prejudices used in every day language.
I do not mind when people have honest policy differences with Hillary, I do as well. I do mind when all of the framing is done in anti-female ways.