Obama Is Right: Words Matter When You Want Your Opponent to Leave the Race

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

Comments

[knosiswar]

HRC - Female/YES Woman/Yes LADY/???

[MrKnuckles]

What are you smoking? And what should Obama have said instead? "Gee, Hillary's one tough gal... She scares me silly and I sure hope she drops out soon instead of beating up on me. (?)

[honeybee49]

What should Obama have said instead? What you said would be a good start--more truthful, too. Heh.

[diamndpeace]

The calls for her to bow out of the nomination race are coming from the fact that it would take the unelected party officials & "add-on" unpledged delegates to overturn the public vote in order for her to get the nomination.

It is still mathematically possible for her to overcome Obama's lead, but it would require winning the remaining contests by a 28 point margin, according to Slate's delegate calculator. Clinton has averaged 12 point victories, while Obama has averaged 26 point victories.

Given the actual ratio of elected office holders to unelected party officials (only 36%, 285, are elected office holders), it would be a nigh on fascist process if the public vote comes in and the party officials respond "well, isn't that cute", while nominating the other candidate.

[Luke23]

I don't understand why Gloria Feldt ( the voice of experience) feels it imperative that because Hillary was born a woman, that it is now her "turn" to be President.

It would be wonderful to have a woman president- just not Mrs. Clinton. She is much too divisive of a character and has huge negative numbers- in my view, justifiably so, among voters throughout the country. If she is nominated, the "vast right wing conspiracy" will come out in full force against the Clintons. Her two brothers received hefty sums for getting their clients pardoned on Bill's last day in office- and that's just the tip of the ice berg.

Any Clinton supporter should take the time to read Carl Bernstein's book "Woman in Charge," in which he details many of her personality traits. An excerpt from the book:

"Since her Arkansas years Hillary Rodham Clinton has always had a difficult relationship with the truth... judged against the facts, she has often chosen to obfuscate, omit, and avoid. It is an understatement by now that she has been known to apprehend truths about herself and the events of her life that others do not exactly share."

"Almost always, something holds her back from telling the whole story, as if she doesn't trust the reader, listener, friend, interviewer, constituent--or perhaps herself--to understand the true significance of events..."

Bill should just fade away into his $500,000,000 presidential library and let his wife "take charge" in the Senate.

[jhNY]

Amazing how the same people can discount and dismiss gender bias with a wave of their mighty hand will go into conniptions regarding race in this campaign with but the slightest of provocation. Not really. I'm entirely used to it by now...

[OtayPanky]

Gloria Feldt: 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.

===

If Arianna ever creates HUFFIE awards, I nominate this for best comedy blogging of the year.

[Tonksmom]

Meanwhile Barack Obama beats Hillary Clinton 52% to 42% in a much more scientifically drawn GALLUP Poll.

I am a white woman. I am voting for Barack Obama. I am not betraying my gender, or falling for an empty suit with pretty words, as some HRC supporters have the gall to suggest. It's simply that character matters to me, and my memory is good enough that I am concerned about HRC and her husband. I remember the false statements about her activities at the Rose Law Firm. I remember her false statements about her involvement in Travelgate. I remember the stories, after the Clintons left the White House, of damage and outright vandalism to furniture, fixtures and equipment in the building, including someone stealing the letter W from over 100 computer keyboards. Even people who don't remember those years should think twice about the fact that she lied very recently about her activities in Bosnia. And then there are her suggestions that she would try to steal this election by flipping the pledged delegates. Is she actually willing to torpedo her own party just to get in power?

Character matters. That's why I'm voting Obama. If you want a woman in the office, offer us a Golda Meir next time. But don't expect us to vote for Eva Peron just because she has a uterus.

[Choc1972]

Wow! Well said.

[PrdAmerican]

AOL Straw Poll?? Are you kidding me? A poll that people can manipulate by clearing out their history and re-freshing? How about the daily gallup poll which shows nationally that Obama leads Clinton 52% to her 42%....when you review the gallup poll, he has consistantly been ahead of her except immediately after the JW smear. Your desperation is on par with HRC's....which is a not so subtle reminder that death throws are never easy or nice to watch.

[Voshun]

This author, on her website, said about this article "Read my March 31 Heartfeldt Politics post. It is sure to get the Obamabots hopping...."

Seems to me its all about creating a post which yields a bunch of comments, stirs controversy, and gets her name out there.

Well, success. I'll never purchase anything she writes, as she is obviously self promoting at the expense of the feminist cause and the Democratic party in general. A shame really, because I'm sure I would have discovered her sooner or later as I believe in the feminist cause and would have purchased her works.

But I'll depend on less self serving authors.

[StoutHouse]

Consider the mind at work here. To Feldt, Clinton is the candidate of choice just as Kathleen Turner is a subject worthy of serious intellectual thought (as evidenced by Feldt’s latest book on the actress). Please. For all the good she’s done, Feldt is just plain wrong on this one. To her, any woman president will do, no matter how much she schemes and lies like a man to win the nomination.

[spandrelmatic]

This post is preposterous for so many reasons. Interpreting Obama's statements as "condescending," "dismissive," and "smug" is ironic, because these are all qualities that characterized Clinton during her long period of "inevitability." But the more important point is that for many commentators, Obama's real sin here is simply that he isn't a woman, and nothing he can say or do will change that.

As a lifelong feminist, I find it unfortunate that Clinton -- who is objectively not much of a feminist and far from progressive -- has managed to identify herself as the champion of women against an authentically misogynistic social order and make her bid for the presidency a Holy Grail.

I've dreamed of seeing a woman in the White House for more than four decades, and started out believing Clinton could be an extraordinary president. Her campaign has been a painful wake-up call. And while it's important that the process run its course, things like Roe v. Wade make me worry about what a McCain victory would do to the Supreme Court, a question that hasn't really hit the radar yet.

If you consider Clinton the best candidate, I respect your choice and am ready to be persuaded. But I find it intellectually dishonest to make Barack Obama the stand-in for every despicable misogynist creep out there. It just isn't so -- and while it may feel good to vent our frustration, it isn't worth four years of John McCain.

[danceswithyids]

When is Obama's book about how he and his supporters have acted during this election going to be released?
It is entitled "The Audacity of Audacity"

[LoKeys]

Wake up and smell the coffee, its OVER for your girl....

[InjunTrouble]

All these complaints from a person whose candidate offered the person with the most delegates the Vice Presidential position. That was far more patronizing than anything Obama has said.

Just Hillary won the big states does not mean Obama will not win them in November. Actually if the primary was held again in California (where I live), I am quite sure Obama would defeat Hillary this time.

[uscitizen]

Well, I won't defend Obama's choice of words. It grated on me, too. Unfortunately, I think Clinton has brought some of this on herself. Seems like she was sort of offering Obama the No. 2 spot on her ticket despite her being No. 2 in the race. Isn't that the same sort of thing: Wanting your opponent to leave the race? Sometimes, what goes around comes around.

[Voshun]

Really, do we need the same sort of divisive, parse-for-­a-supposed­-insult rhetoric in the Democratic house as Anne Coulter dishes out? Coulter's trash is more obvious to us, but this "article" is the same sort of self-serving, white around the eyes sort of thing that will hurt us in November to no end.

We must unite. That means finding common grounds for the issues, not trying to raise your profile to sling whatever book you sling about by taking on a false "feminist crusader" mantle under the guise of a self invented gender conflict.

Really. Our party, our country deserves better.