AOL News reports this:
Despite calls for his rival to drop out of their tight race for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama said Saturday, "My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants."
Note the tepid and dismissive "Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants." In one carefully chosen short phrase, Barack Obama uses a verb form that bestows his permission, as if she needs it, while at the same time subtly belittling her because she is staying in the race. Both of these rhetorical techniques aim to diminish one's opponent while seeming to be gallant and awarding oneself the cloak of the putative front runner who can afford to be generous.
But is he the front runner?
Within the same AOL news article is a straw poll asking who readers would vote for. Click on the map and you see that Clinton wins over Obama 52%-48%. To be sure it is an unreliable self-selected poll. Possibly Hillary's numbers are inflated by other people like me who never before voted in those straw polls but who are so insulted by the Obama-supporting pundits and politicians incessantly hammering their "she should quit" nail that we have taken to clicking for Clinton every chance we get. Even the Wall Street Journal has acknowledged the blatant sexism and rampant bias.
On the other hand, the facts are that national polls show the two candidates still volleying back and forth. It made sense for the other candidates to end their campaigns -- Dodd and Biden at low double digits in the polls, and even John Edwards whose contributions were drying up after too many third-place showings in the early primaries and caucuses. But remind me again, why is it that Clinton should quit but Obama should stay in the race when their delegate count is separated by just 133 and Clinton keeps winning the big states the Democrats must have in November to capture the White House?
Perhaps Obama should live up to his gallantry, throw down his cloak Sir Walter Raleigh-esque so the lady can walk over the latest mud slung against her, and into the nomination gracefully. After all, she is the elder, she is the senior of the two senators, she was in this race first, and she has an enormous constituency. In all other aspects of life, the etiquette would be to let her go first.
Or perhaps Obama's statement was merely words after all.
Follow Gloria Feldt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Heartfeldt
"My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants."
or
"Perhaps Obama should live up to his gallantry, throw down his cloak Sir Walter Raleigh-esque so the lady can walk over the latest mud slung against her, and into the nomination gracefully."
I know my mother and wife would be incensed to think that a man should forfeit a legitimate contest out of gallantry or ettiquette.
By the same token, Bobby Riggs should have laid down his racket after his second set against Billie Jean King, saying "Gallantry and ettiquette demand that I allow you to win. Let me hold the net down for you so you may cross it with dignity."
"Ladies First" should be reserved for the RMS Titanic, not the Democratic nomination. People will start mentioning the two in the same breath soon enough, if Ms. Feldt's sense of gender entitlement continues to drive the Clinton campaign.
So let me get this straight...Ms. Feltd (a self-described feminist), is now suggesting that the front runner "live up to his gallantry" and drop out of the race because Hillary is older, and she called "dibbs" before he did. On one hand, she blasts Obama for some fictitious verbal slight (because he used a verb form which allegedly implied that he was giving her permission to stay in the race) and then at the end suggests that he should "...let her go first" which would seem to constitute an admission that Hillary indeed needs his permission. CLASSIC!!!
Thanks Hillary, but no thanks.
Hillary Clinton lies, blatantly, very often about things that matter. She appears to believe herself entitled to the presidency simply because she was the wife of a second-caliber Democratic president. Her one and only significant attempt at policy during the Clinton presidency, health care reform, was a complete failure, due in no small part to her arrogance and penchant for secrecy.
The sexism I see in this primary, as seems to be the case with the author of this article, comes from a group of women - who so blindly want a woman president they disregard her profound and obvious flaws.
By the way, from where I sit the gallantry that you want the male candidate to exhibit toward the female candidate looks alot like a call for the Black guy to step aside because he somehow hasn't earned this (even though the majority of voters beg to differ) in favor of another white nominee. And as far as I'm concerned, that's the kind of gallantry we all can do without.
i know it's getting hard to come up with compelling arguments when your candidate is behind in delegates, votes, and states, but come on! Please if you're going to continue to shill for Hillary, try not to embarrass her and yourself in the process.
As for your displeasure at the way that he expressed his lack of opposition to Hillary staying in the race. Remember when she said that "as far as I know" he's not a Muslim? Exactly why should he emphatically assert his rival's right to stay in the race? In particular why should he serve as her champion when it is apparent that she has moved from a realistic chance to win into someone who is intent on doing the Republicans' work for them by tearing down the likely nominee of the Democratic party.
Finally, it always amazes me when the Clinton camp asserts that Obamas supporters are KoolAid drinkers who cannot see their candidate clearly. It seems to me that it is the Clintonites who see Obama as some sort of Jesus figure who should demonstrate an endless store of forgiveness and infinite willingness to turn the other cheek no matter how vilely he is attacked. Isn't that expectation a bit unrealistic?
Gloria, I wonder if you 'feldt' this sort of rage when Hillary was giving the FRONT RUNNER permission to step into the Vice President role?
Entitlement much?
While I'm used to the myriad double standards coming from Sen. Clinton's campaign, it strikes my funny bone every time a "quasi-journalist" sees no problem in the candidate he/she supports saying something akin to "although I'm in second place, my first-place-ranking opponent would make a great vice president, because he's less qualified than i." That tone seems even more condescending, because for many of us if screams of "he's being uppity if he thinks he can best yours truly." Read into it what you will, but neither Sen. Obama nor Sen. Clinton should have a free ride to the nomination simply because of gender/race identifiers. The parsing on the part of Sen. Clinton's supporters borders on ridiculous -- especially when they're so quick to dismiss her similar "offenses." They're giving feminists a bad name (and justifying some statements by chauvinistic pigs, to an extent).
Thank you for bringing up this point. It seems to be the Clinton campaign's main argument that she has won the most important states. What the media and everyone else has not called her out on is that those states would go Democratic with either candidate! The states that Obama has won thus far are much more valuable at this point.